The Dust of Hope

by fourleggedfish

The prophecy is in motion. It is an undertaking the likes of which Arthur did not expect. (Book 2 of 3, follows The Impersonated Self)

11. Chapter 11

When Arthur was small, he sucked his thumb.

It was not unusual; many children did. But Arthur remembered it sometimes and wondered if he did it so long because he lacked a mother, or a nanny who stayed more than a few months. Arthur had always suspected that something inside of him was missing – some lack that scarred over and left him incapable of being a normal person like Guinevere or Merlin, or even like his knights – Leon or Gwaine, or any of the others: whole people, if imperfect, who did not have to struggle to understand the way that other people felt and behaved, or exactly which changes spelled warnings out of all the thousands of alterations that time naturally imposed on a person. He wondered if not having a mother had damaged him in ways that no one could see, like punishment for being the unwitting reason she forfeited her life.

The last time Arthur sucked his thumb, he was watching from his nursery window, stood on his toes atop a pile of pillows and a stool he had dragged over from his bed. He wanted to watch his father doing king things, because Arthur idolized his father and wanted to be him someday. Men were building a pyre in the courtyard under Uther's watchful eye, and under Arthur's curious one – carrying oiled wood out from the storage spaces beneath the courtyard stairs and stacking it high around a post erected in the sunshine. Arthur watched and sucked his thumb until Uther left his balcony only to sneak into Arthur's room and scare him from behind. Arthur remembered laughing, and his father's bright and easy grin as he scooped Arthur into the air, swinging him high in the crook of his arm and dangling him upside down while Arthur shrieked. I want to show you something, Uther told him – told that bouncing, excited little boy in toddler's clothes, shining with pride that his father thought him big enough to help with king things. And then he led Arthur outside by the hand and wrapped his tiny, slimy-suckled fingers around a lit torch.

Arthur no longer had the urge to self-soothe; fire and duty had long since burned that habit out of him. He drank now, when the need struck. Much as his father had. Or else, Merlin distracted him from it all, and Arthur ended up laughing instead. He had no distraction to focus on anymore, and no urge toward laughter; only the sight of Merlin sleeping on top of Arthur's own cloak in the grass, chainmail removed and discarded, caught under the influence of Geraint's sleeping spell. No one but Merlin himself would have dared approach Arthur in this mood with snark or humor, so there was no danger of mirth to lighten his thoughts, or to remind him that his life consisted of something other than darkness and pain.

"Sire?"

Arthur looked up at the tentative greeting and forced himself to drop his hand from the fist he had impotently pressed against his closed mouth. "Yes, George?" He could feel the indentations that his teeth left behind in his knuckles where he had not quite chewed them.

"You should eat something, sire." George held out a piece of dark bread and some dried meat cradled in a clean linen cloth. "It is not your usual fare, I know, but I thought you may trust it better if it came from my own pack. So that you know it has not been tampered with."

Arthur looked at the food and felt his heart beat erratically for a moment in his chest. It felt hollow when it did that. "You don't have to starve to feed me."

"I won't, sire." George took a step closer and hefted the food offering again. "There is more than enough for both of us, and for Master Merlin, if it will convince you to eat."

"Am I so transparent?" Arthur asked, barely more than air. He tried to smile, but George only appeared more upset at that, so Arthur must have done it wrong. He reached to take the food instead, and that elicited an unwinding of George's spine. "Thank you, George."

George nodded, but he did not leave after that. "Sire, I don't want to make things worse."

Arthur scoffed under his breath. "I don't see how this could be worse. What is it?" When he noticed George fidgeting, Arthur pointed at the other half of his rock and ordered, "Sit down."

Hesitant, George did as he was told, but he perched as far away from Arthur as possible. This was likely against all of Alder's teachings – sitting on the same level as one's king, sharing his space in contravention of their differing ranks. George certainly looked as if this were the last place he wanted to be.

For the sole purpose of making George even more uncomfortable, Arthur broke his bread in half and held a chunk out to him. "Eat with me." Too late, Arthur realized that George might take that as an indication of Arthur's distrust of the food, so he stuffed the other hunk of brown bread into his mouth and made a show of chewing it. The taste of rye overpowered anything else that might have been in it.

George finally took the bread and then watched it as he held it cupped in his lap. "I overheard some of the men saying that Sir Marwen is missing."

His mouth still full, and now too dry to swallow right away, Arthur nodded. He needed water; there was no way this bread would induce enough saliva for him to swallow it. It was the worst kind of peasant food.

"Sire, I believe you should consider the possibility that he did not desert."

Arthur gulped as much water from his waterskin as he could fit in around the bread, and then abruptly stopped chewing.

George picked at the crust of his bread. "I know that you are not accustomed to hard breads, sire. I will not be offended if you spit it out."

It was probably a bad idea to eat anyway; Arthur's stomach had not settled since they left the field. He tried to be discrete about it, though, and then he gave George an incredulous look for holding his hand out to take the now soiled mess folded into Arthur's linen cloth. And now Arthur felt like an ungrateful wretch for rejecting the food so kindly offered, and he thought of the way that Guinevere had once dressed him down for a similar offense.

Arthur cleared his throat, and as a matter of principle, set the linen bundle down on his other side where George could not reach it. "What do you mean about Sir Marwen?"

With obvious unease, George withdrew his hand and studied the crumbs falling from his own piece of bread. "I do not believe that Master Merlin would have disposed of the magical staff without some kind of catalyst. I also do not believe that the druids would have left easily, as they seem to have done. They were most concerned for Master Merlin, and insistent that they would not leave unless satisfied. Something must have frightened them sufficiently to make them flee."

"This is all very interesting," Arthur told him dismissively. "But what does it have to do with Marwen?"

"I am told that he took no pack, no horse, and no supplies," George replied. "Your men mentioned that his bed was not slept in, and he was not seen again after the rest of you left him in the dining hall. But if he did flee with the druids, why did he not take anything with him? He was not even dressed for the weather that night."

"Be careful making accusations," Arthur warned. "I do not consider Marwen disloyal, and there is no evidence that he allied himself in any way with the druids."

"I do not accuse," George assured him. "I only make conjectures."

Arthur sighed and looked down. "Alright, I know what you're saying. But if the druids did somehow induce him to leave with them, then I have to believe that it was against his will. The same kind of magical persuasion that gained them entry to the castle in the first place. And if it was that, then it would not be odd that he left suddenly, and without thought to the weather, of all things."

"That is, in part, my point, sire." George looked up, out over the rest of the somber camp, and then seemed to reach a decision. He fished in his pocket a moment, and then drew out a long braided leather thong from which a charm dangled. "I found this in the pocket of the clothes that Master Merlin was wearing when he returned to the castle." George contemplated the thing briefly, and then held it out for Arthur to take. "Your majesty may recognize it; Sir Marwen showed it to the druids during the dinner."

Arthur let out his breath in defeat and took the charm invoking the wolf whose name Marwen refused to speak when asked. "Yes, I recognize it."

"It seemed an extreme reaction," George confessed, seemingly non-sequitur. "When Master Merlin told me that the staff was missing, and he thought he buried it, I could not understand why he would do so now. I have seen him handle that object many times since coming into his service, and though it is doubtless a powerful relic, he never seemed bothered by the danger of it before."

For the sake of clarity, Arthur said, "You're suggesting that Sir Marwen is dead?"

George cast an unhappy gaze at the ground and refused to affirm that, but he did keep speaking. "It would explain why the druids fled in the middle of the night as they did. If they saw it happen..." George pressed his mouth shut for a moment, and changed tack. "Sir Marwen was with them that night; presumably, he left the dining hall when they did, and accompanied them to wherever they went afterwards. None of us could find Master Merlin after a certain point that evening, but the druids have skills that we do not. I consider it probable that they were able to intercept him in the woods after I lost track of him, and if they did, Sir Marwen must have been with them."

Arthur bit his lip and let the braided leather gather in his palm with the wolf charm. "If they suspected that Merlin had fallen under enchantment, and told that to Marwen, he would have felt obligated to help. Merlin is Emrys to him too; he follows that way."

George nodded. "I hope that I am wrong."

"I fear you're not." Arthur rubbed his thumb over the tiny wolf in his palm, and then hiked up his chainmail so that he could get the thing into a pocket. "Keep this between us."

"Of course, sire." George shifted and crushed the bread slightly in his hand as he moved. "I was not going to tell even you, except for what has now happened."

Arthur nodded. "You had to protect him; I understand."

"And now I have to protect you, sire." George shifted in discomfort that may have had as much to do with saddle sores as his mental state. "He did not exaggerate the need to shield you from himself. He has killed now, due to this enchantment. You cannot be confident of your own safety anymore. That is why I tell you this; he would want me to."

"Stop it, George." Arthur flicked his chainmail back into place and tugged his sword belt back down as well, so that it sat at his waist where it belonged.

Unlike Merlin, George did not argue or attempt to make him face the idea more fully than he wanted just then. "Yes, sire. My apologies."

He needed Merlin, dammit. Arthur brushed breadcrumbs from his lap and then shut his eyes to listen to George leave. This was intolerable, and he felt even worse for the fact that all of his thoughts just then hinged on how he needed Merlin just then and couldn't rely on him – selfish thoughts. Arthur should bemoan this on account of how unfair it was to Merlin, not to him. And how Merlin did not deserve to suffer the curse of being determined to save someone's life. Instead, Arthur just kept whinging about his own lack of Merlin to help him deal with this as if that were the same thing. No one was going to stop him from doing it either; no one else spoke to him like Merlin did, or dared challenge all of his poor behaviors. If Arthur were going to be a better man in this situation, he needed to do it himself for once.

Arthur looked up as another person approached – Gwaine this time, still looking thunderous in his armor. He had removed his cloak and anything else that bore Arthur's colors. That was his allegiance made clear, then. "Everything is ready," Gwaine reported. It was obvious that he purposefully omitted Arthur's title – either the proper one or one of Gwaine's teasing versions. That rift was going to take a long time to heal; Gwaine did not forgive easily, and Merlin was important to him. More important than Arthur, surely.

"Thank you, Gwaine." Arthur shifted and looked down at Merlin again. He seemed so peaceful, asleep. Just himself and nothing more, his features slack beneath the unaccustomed beard, and his ears sticking out as they tended to do sometimes.

"Can you actually lie to him until we get there?"

Arthur didn't answer right away, though he noted the effort that Gwaine seemed to make to dampen his hostility. "Not well."

Gwaine made an irritated sound and paced around Arthur's back. The skin prickled on Arthur's neck, but he didn't move or try to see what Gwaine might be doing out of sight. Finally, Gwaine admitted, "I want to blame you for this."

That made Arthur turn, and he found Gwaine staring off past the old fort wall, into the countryside. "We're in similar company, then. And I'm not asking you to forgive me."

"You don't have to." Gwaine dropped his gaze and fingered his sword belt before hooking his thumbs there to stop his hands from fidgeting. "This isn't actually your fault. You're just convenient. And if I'm being honest, I didn't notice either. So. Haven't got any room to talk."

Arthur shook his head. "I kept you in the dark; I doubt you saw half as much as I did."

"Well, there's no way to know now." Gwaine turned around and held out his hand, offering a warrior's clasp. "It's exhausting, hating you. And we need to be united to pull this off anyway. Truce?"

Arthur watched Gwaine's forearm as he wordlessly reached up to return the clasp. "Geraint doesn't think that he can find someone who knows about this white goddess at the cauldron. None of them have heard of her before, much less how to call her. And he said that if it is an actual goddess, not just a water spirit, they would need a priestess to summon her, which none of them are."

"Merlin called her, though," Gwaine pointed out. "Last I checked, he's no priestess either. Wrong parts." He twiddled his fingers near his belt.

Arthur shot him an unamused look.

"Wouldn't be the first time we had to wing it." Gwaine took a deep breath and then sat down next to Arthur. "I said truce, but I'm not going to be your knight. Consider it an alliance with a lesser bastard Prince of Orkney, because I can't pretend that I'm loyal to you anymore. Not like I was."

Arthur looked down and swallowed, but he nodded because that was far more charitable, in the end, than Arthur expected Gwaine to be. "Are you ever going to formally claim your right as Lot's son?"

Gwaine sneered at the ground and snapped, "Lot can go hang himself for what he did to us. I'll take his damn title because his blood is the least he owes me, but that man was no father. He just fucked my mother on the side, and no one else wanted her after that."

"I understand," Arthur breathed, hoping that Gwaine would take the hint and calm back down before his ranting got loud enough to draw an audience. He scuffed his boot at the ground and made a face at Geraint sitting off at a distance with a handful of other magic folk, frantically cataloging everything in Merlin's medical supplies. "Gwaine, I am going to ask you to do something that you actually are going to hate me for."

Gwaine growled helplessly into the hand he pressed over his brow, and then sighed. "I won't hate you. Merlin's stupid ideas about you have already gotten under my skin. I just don't like you right now."

Arthur doubted that conviction would last. He reached behind himself to pull the intricately carved, magical dagger from the loop at his belt, and held it out to Gwaine without looking.

A long moment passed in silence, until Arthur doubted that Gwaine had even noticed Arthur offering the cursed thing to him. Finally, Gwaine turned in Arthur's periphery, ignoring the dagger, and glared at the side of his head. "What the hell is this for?"

"Merlin stole it from the vaults and gave it to Meliot yesterday morning, during his lost time." Arthur's arm trembled at the strain of holding the dagger out at such an awkward angle. "Meliot gave it back to me today; he said he couldn't use it."

His words carefully toned neutral, Gwaine demanded, "Why are you offering it me?"

"Because I can't use it either," Arthur confessed. "And someone might have to. It should be someone Merlin trusts. Someone he would let near, even at his worst."

Gwaine's silence cut, and then he breathed, "Fuck you, Pendragon."

Arthur nodded, but refused to either retract his hand or look. "You know what he would want, if it came to it. And at least I know that you wouldn't be premature about it."

"I said, fuck you," Gwaine bit more sharply. "Fuck your crown, and your fucking entitlement, and your goddamn fucking ego – blind ass fuck – just fuck you, and everything about you – you fucking coward – fuck!" He snatched the dagger unexpectedly, making Arthur jump and flinch. "One day you'll have to do your own dirty work, and stop making monsters of the rest of us so you can sleep at night. Useless hypocrite – I was right, you know. I told Merlin that all nobles were alike, and you are. You're just as bad as the rest of them."

Arthur nodded and kept his face averted while Gwaine quietly hissed and raged beside him because it wasn't just fury expelling that vitriol from him. All of it came out of Gwaine's mouth damp and interrupted by efforts not to sound like the reaction he was actually having. It was only polite to let him have the illusion of privacy until it passed.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck…" Gwaine trailed off eventually into a strained silence and secreted the dagger somewhere about his person; Arthur only knew because when he risked a glance, it wasn't in his hands anymore. Gwaine pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and took several deep, shaking breaths to calm himself. When he finished, he flung his hair back with his head and pursed his lips over grit his teeth, face wrinkling in disgust as if squinting at a putrid sun. "Give me back my flask."

Arthur gave him a double look and then shook his head. "You said you didn't want to be tempted," Arthur reminded him, referring to the night before when Gwaine had dropped it in his lap on his way past the fort walls where Arthur sat.

"Give me my bloody flask, or I'll use the dagger on you."

It wasn't exactly Arthur's job to manage Gwaine's habits, but he still hesitated after he fished the flask from his nearby saddlebags. "Gwaine – "

Before Arthur could speak any other word of caution, Gwaine ripped the flask from Arthur's hand, opened it, and poured its contents into the dirt. Then he flung the now empty thing at Arthur's face and stalked off.

Arthur lowered his arms from where he had shielded himself and blinked at the flask now lying tipped over in the scrub grass nearby. He rubbed his elbow where it had struck and ricocheted, and then left the flask where it had fallen; it seemed safer to just let it be lost. Geraint appeared to be wrapping up his conference anyway, and Arthur stood as the gaggle of magic folk hurried across the hillside toward him.

When they came within earshot, Arthur prompted, "Well?"

"We've gone through it all, sire," Geraint reported, referring to Merlin's medical supplies. "Some of the medicines could be used to induce sickness, headaches, and perhaps confound, but there is nothing sedative in his supplies that we know how to use without killing him."

Arthur nodded and looked at George as well, since he seemed peripherally attached to Geraint's small group of presumably senior sorcerers. "You've been working with him for several months now," Arthur pointed out. "Long enough to pick up some things. You agree with them?"

George glanced at Geraint before telling Arthur, "If I could be certain of the concentration of some of the tinctures, I might risk small doses of one or two of them, but they are not marked. And even then, I would not use them continuously for the five or more days it will take us to reach the cauldron. I don't trust my knowledge of these things."

"Alright, then," Arthur agreed. "The risk, for now, is too great."

With a short bow of his head, Geraint passed Arthur a small stoppered bottle. "We prepared the other option instead. Besides hopefully hampering his ability to use his magic, it will make him nauseous and feverish; Vivienne is still vomiting from testing it."

That was the knitting woman, as Arthur had since learned. She seemed a nice sort. Arthur winced in sympathy and took the bottle. "You're certain it was cold iron?"

Geraint turned to peer out toward the trees where presumably, Vivienne continued vacating her stomach as they spoke. "I doubt that anything else in the shavings could cause that reaction so quickly, sire. To be clear, the goal of its use should, of course, be that he does not, erm…expel it again straight after."

Arthur nodded and Geraint held out the broken bit of cold-forged manacle as well. "Thank you." Arthur took it to add to the stash of things hidden in his saddlebag, along with the folded paper envelope of leftover dust filed from it. They had located the manacle inside the ruins of the fort; since it was too corroded to use as an actual cuff in hope of restraining Merlin's magic, and there was only the one anyway, Geraint had suggested this route: filing the dust and shavings, and mixing it with water for consumption. "He won't taste it?"

"It will taste off," Geraint allowed. "But all water sources have a flavor of their own, depending on the land and rock. Regardless, we added ginger for the stomach upset, and willow bark as a headache remedy. Those will help mask the worst of it."

Just the sound of that combination was foul; it would overpower any palette. Arthur sighed, dissatisfied, but it was the best they could do with the supplies at hand to subdue an unknowingly enchanted warlock.

Geraint kept speaking while part of his group dispersed. "The sleep spell is meant for a full night's uninterrupted rest, sire. Since we will wake him well before that, he will be disoriented and groggy. You should be able to have him drink, and tell him the cover story without him noticing any tells you have for lying. And if he feels ill, then hopefully, he won't notice the dampening of his magic from the cold iron, or else he'll just attribute it to fever."

"Are you sure this won't hurt him?" Arthur looked up from the cloudy water in the bottle. "The fits may not just be from the enchantment. He did suffer a bad head injury the day before that, and it affected him the rest of the journey into the cauldron. Even if a rise of the dark magic can trigger them, it doesn't mean that they wouldn't have happened without it."

Geraint studied the concoction briefly, and then looked to the other sorcerers for an answer. None of them could say anything concrete, though, and Geraint eventually admitted, "We don't know, sire. Whether the fits stem solely from the dark magic or not, it is possible that giving him this could trigger one."

"I don't like this," Arthur stated plainly. He dangled the bottle from two fingers between his knees and propped his chin on his free hand so that he could stare down at Merlin sleeping.

"We are not capable of stopping him," Geraint reminded him. "If he wakens aware of what happened, and lashes out, none of us, in any combination, could contend with his power."

Arthur mumbled approbations under his breath and recalled Geraint referring to Merlin's wards on the perimeter walls as a show of strength and a warning not to cross him. And no one had, even though the wards were apparently unpleasant enough that many magic users left the city to escape them. "Surely, you exaggerate. There are easily a hundred of you here."

Geraint seemed frustrated at that. "Sire, with respect, most personal magic is not cumulative. Even giving him the tainted water is no surety; Emrys defies limits. There may be no stopping him at all."

Arthur shook his head but didn't say anything in argument of that. Maybe it was true, and Merlin was that powerful. He was certainly a fright with magic, as Arthur well knew; too much of what Merlin did with it defied convention and resembled things not confined to the world of ordinary men. But Merlin was still a man. Did this enchantment not prove that? That he did have limits? More likely than Merlin being uncontainable was that Geraint and the others had just internalized some narrative of Merlin being the magical bogeyman, advertent or not. But that accomplished much the same thing, in the end. Magic worked on belief as much as innate sense, according to the books and scrolls that Arthur had read since Guinevere's death. If Geraint and the others truly believed themselves inferior in power, then they were. And so it seemed pointless to drug Merlin like this, and make him miserable, if it wouldn't even allow other sorcerers to subdue him in an emergency.

"Sire," Geraint said, voice pleading. "He is not safe. We need any advantage we can take."

"I can't," Arthur whispered. "I can't do it. I can't feel right about this."

Geraint turned his gaze on his fellows, presumably searching them for something to change Arthur's mind.

Irate and short-tempered, Arthur told them, "None of you have to come, if you fear him so much. We'll find some other way to summon the goddess if we have to." When the sorcerers shuffled in discomfort at that, Arthur snapped, "There is no guarantee you can even do that much; you didn't know she existed until today. As far as you were concerned an hour ago, she was just some manifest figment of Merlin's imagination." Arthur scrubbed his hand violently through his hair, recalling another fantastical story about a sword driven into solid stone, and Gaius telling him years later, I'm relatively certain Merlin made it up. Arthur's hand stilled and twitched in his hair as he thought about that. "Gods," Arthur breathed. A shining white light, cold and bright. Just like the lee oats spell. Arthur had noted the similarity before, hadn't he? The night he met the great dragon. It was the same light. The same quality and color. It even acted the same – it hovered in a not-place punched through thin air, and did nothing. "He could have just made it all up," Arthur realized. "All of it, from scratch. Just like the sword."

"Sire?" Geraint asked. His posture became overly cautious.

"Before we left," Arthur said, thinking it through out loud. "Before we drugged Guinevere, before he even told me how we could save her, he left the city on some errand. He could have…" He could have set it all up? But why there, specifically? Why the cauldron, three days' ride away? He could have chosen somewhere closer. For that matter, why drive a sword into that specific rock in that specific glade in the deep woods where the refugees of a fallen Camelot just happened to be near at that time? Like he knew that it would need to be there. Convenient. "Did he know something?" Arthur mused quietly to himself. "There must be a reason he picked those places."

"Sire, I'm afraid we don't follow."

Arthur sucked in a breath and figuratively shook himself. He was being paranoid. Merlin wasn't that – he wasn't a thing that could orchestrate all of that. It wasn't even possible that someone could. "Nothing," Arthur whispered. "I'm just…it's nothing."

His traitorous mind would not let it rest, though, because it wasn't all that fantastic a thought, was it? Myrddin engineered the saving of Merlin's life from three decades and a death away, before Merlin was even born. It was possible. And his Merlin shared something more than blood with the mad prophet. Something ineffable, and pervasive, to reach across lifetimes as it seemed to do.

"No," Arthur told himself with finality. There was no way; even if it were possible, Merlin would never treat him like that – like a pawn. Arthur stood and paced a short line along the length of Merlin's stretched out body, forcing himself to believe it. And he did, but with a caveat: Arthur didn't think that Merlin would knowingly treat him as a pawn in some kind of game of destiny. Even setting aside the enchantment, Merlin had told him that sometimes the magic can want things, and take over the host to make those things happen. He could have been referring again, in roundabout fashion, to the dark magic trapped in his body with him. But he might not have been. If bad magic could act on a host, then why not good or neutral magic too? Arthur wondered who told Merlin about the Cauldron of Arianrhod, and what they said of the power there. It must have been someone Merlin trusted since he didn't question the veracity of their tale. Gaius? The dragon? Either one had manipulated Merlin before, even if Merlin refused to see all of it as such. Both of them had put indelible beliefs into his head, where his assumption of their truth made the things fact. Hadn't they?

"Sire," Geraint broke into his thoughts. "If this is about Byrdde's ravings again, I implore you to ignore what she said. Her work as a priestess, and then a mouthpiece, has altered her mind. That kind of life breaks people, and she believes things that cannot be true. Master Merlin would not simply invent a goddess to trick you."

Yes, he would. He invented the Dolma, didn't he? Ancient sorceress of Arianrhod? And Dragoon the meddlesome old coot. The sword – Arthur's enchanted sword – even that was a lie of sorts. It was done in altruism, certainly – to save people without showing his own face – but Merlin very much did invent magical beings and stories to trick people. Why not make a pretend goddess too?

Arthur merely stood where he was, staring out across the plains as midday approached, and breathed. None of it mattered, did it? Either the goddess at the cauldron was real, or she wasn't. Arthur had to take the chance that she was exactly what Merlin claimed when they brought Guinevere to her. Merlin certainly believed she was, didn't he? He panicked when Arthur offered himself up in trade for Merlin's life. That panic meant that Merlin believed something might try to take him up on it. The power there was not all fake. The form of it, maybe, but not the fact of it. After all, the road leading up the mountain was staked with flags and ribbons by followers of the old religion. That cauldron had been some kind of a sacred place since long before Merlin plied his illusions there.

Without turning, Arthur called back, "Is everything packed and ready?"

It was George who answered, "Yes, sire. We wait on your order."

Arthur nodded and rounded back toward his saddlebags, and Merlin sleeping stretched on the ground beside them. "How do I wake him?"

Geraint glanced at his fellows yet again, and delicately asked, "You will use the tainted water, sire?"

"No," Arthur replied plainly. "How do I wake him?"

"His sleep is mostly natural," Geraint replied, hesitant. He started backing away, as did the other sorcerers who had not already vacated Arthur's personal space out of respect. "He will not rouse easily, but the spell does not hold one under."

"Right." Arthur crouched down and gripped Merlin's shoulder. "Merlin! Wake up."

George stepped up behind Arthur, but didn't say anything. A quick rustling betrayed the hurried retreat of the other sorcerers.

"Merlin! Wakey wakey." Arthur shook him harder than he normally would have done, but they had a storyline planned, and Arthur needed to convey urgency. "Let's have you, lazy daisy."

Merlin stirred and peeled his eyes open, but they didn't focus on anything.

Arthur forcibly rolled Merlin onto his back; it was like trying to uncurl a pill bug. "Merlin." He snapped his fingers in Merlin's face, and watched Merlin flinch. "On me, you great pillock."

Slowly, Merlin's aimless blinking focused in on Arthur's face, and he chirp-slurred, "Arthur?"

It was so much like the aftermath of actual fits – Merlin looking at him and recognizing him as if Arthur were something unexpectedly good – that Arthur had no trouble smiling back the way he normally did, with fondness for Merlin's delight at finding him there in front of him. "I certainly hope so," Arthur replied. And then he lied, "You had a fit after we left the field. Do you remember this morning at all?"

As agreed, since George had been subtly reminding Merlin of things for months now that he didn't recall doing, or that he remembered wrong, it was George who calmly prompted, "We met Bayard, my lord. At the ruins outside of old Lindum. Do you recall?"

"Yes," Merlin agreed vaguely. His eyes tracked a lazy nimbus around Arthur's outline, and then he frowned, squinting softly against the sun. "Where's Bayard?"

Arthur shook his head and kept his story as close to the truth as possible; it was easier to lie that way. "We reached an accord. Do you remember?"

"Of course," Merlin replied, struggling to sit up.

Arthur hauled him upright by his surcoat and then steadied him as he wobbled, confused. The sleeping spell did indeed leave him completely disoriented. "Sir Erec lied to him," Arthur added. Somewhat fibbing – Sir Erec probably believed what he'd said at the time. "Bayard thought we intended to invade Mercia, but the matter has been settled now. Erec probably hoped to destabilize the region."

"Or revenge himself," Merlin suggested. "Save you." Never mind that those two things were completely different from each other. Merlin smacked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, gave the general area a puzzled a glance, and then returned his gaze to Arthur. He was obviously confused, but the confusion didn't appear to be of the same quality as the disorienting after effects of a fit. Merlin must have felt the difference.

"Well," Arthur barked in the hope of breaking the line of Merlin's thoughts. "Bayard is not a gullible man. He took precautions, but he didn't want to start a war unless I did."

"It's over?" Merlin furrowed his brow and craned his neck to look down the slope of the hillside, toward the waiting horses and the camp set up by the many magic folk they had picked up on their long night of riding. "That…that doesn't sound right. You broke the treaty."

George stepped in and used the same tone that he had employed when reminding Merlin that Hunith was his mother, not his niece. "You are confused, my lord. Bayard's concerns were put to rest. Both parties withdrew peacefully. It was a misunderstanding."

"Right," Merlin agreed, though he shook his head a few times and seemed generally confused by the whole thing. There was an edge to it, however, that reassured Arthur that Merlin's only lingering concern was fear that he apparently remembered things all wrong again, and was trying to cover that up. His eyes found Arthur's and settled there, scrutinizing and suspicious. "He only wanted to talk. About magic. Make sure you weren't…" For a moment, Arthur thought that he might need to use the tainted water after all, but no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Merlin twitched and looked away again. "None of this makes sense."

Arthur cleared his throat and moved on to the outright lie. "I would have let you rest, but we received reports from Camelot this morning of a dragon causing problems in the wild lands of Gwynedd. It normally would not concern me, but it is interfering with trade routes."

"Gwynedd," Merlin murmured as if tasting the word.

"Just this side of the mountains," Arthur confirmed. He held Merlin's gaze in an effort to convey truth until it occurred to him that this was out of character, and more often actually signified deception to watch with an unwavering stare.

When Arthur averted his gaze, Merlin said, "You think it's Aithusa."

It took Arthur a moment to recall the name, and then he nodded. "The reports state that the dragon is pale and oddly shaped, and that it seems to come from the mountains near the Cauldron of Arianrhod."

Merlin sighed and passed a hand over his face as he drew his knees up. "I should have done something about her before now." Oddly enough, he didn't react to the mention of the cauldron itself, and that was a tell all its own – that he didn't even ask Arthur what he thought about going back there. About facing what happened again.

"It may not have mattered," Arthur allowed, watching carefully for any sign of recognition or aversion that Merlin might show toward returning to that place. "You said the thing was feral."

"But I hatched her," Merlin countered. He still didn't act as if he had an emotional connection to the place where he last saw the crippled dragon. Only the dragon itself occupied his thoughts. "I should have watched her better."

Arthur nodded and wondered if this divorce in Merlin's mind between the cauldron and the tragedy that happened there were due to him not being himself, or a deliberate shielding so that the part of him that wasn't him anymore didn't realize what might be happening.

"Come on." Arthur shoved himself back to his feet and held a hand down to Merlin. "I'd rather not try to kill a dragon if you can command it. I know you're not at your best right now, but I need a dragonlord for this, and you're the only one."

Merlin contemplated Arthur's outstretched fingers before reaching to take his hand, and Arthur hauled him stumbling to his feet. Once upright, Merlin's fingers tightened on Arthur's and he stared again at Arthur's face as if searching for tells. He quickly appeared to grow self-conscious, however, and uneasily let go, his eyes wandering off at the same time.

"Alright?" Arthur asked. "Fuzzy, still?"

"Yes, um." Merlin wiped his hands on his clothes and glanced around at the camp, the horses, the knights, and various other random things as if trying to recognize them. "I think…yes, probably." He frowned with his whole face and looked at his own person briefly before turning a helpless expression on George.

Arthur clapped Merlin on the shoulder, startling his attention back, and turned him toward the horses. "Don't worry; if it doesn't come back to you, you didn't miss much."

Merlin threw him another sharp glance, but it deteriorated rapidly back into confusion laced with fear. Likely because his memory was fine, and felt intact with no breaks until basically being attacked with a nap, but no one was acting to match what he thought he remembered. It must have felt a bit like madness.

The horses danced as they approached, eager to be off, and Arthur nodded discretely at the knights going with them to signal that all was well. Gwaine made a point of encompassing Merlin's attention with vapid babble, and Arthur let him lead Merlin off because Gwaine was a far better liar than Arthur, and fearless besides.

They rode out not long after that – just Arthur, his volunteer knights, Gwaine, Geraint, and Vivienne. That last bothered Arthur – a lone woman travelling with a band of knights on quest – but Geraint mumbled something about woman's magic being better to summon female deities, and Vivienne not being one to deny, so Arthur let it be. She seemed competent, at least, and thankfully recovered from test drinking the tainted water.

As they topped the Ridge of Essetir, Arthur wheeled his horse around and looked back at the camp of men and knights, and sorcerers, that remained behind at the old fort. Tiny dots of people milling about to ensure that no army advanced after all, and to rest after a long and sleepless night before returning home. Beyond them, Bayard's camp had been deconstructed, and they appeared on the verge of departure. A robust figure in blue stood apart from the activity, watching Arthur. When he saw Arthur stop on the ridge, he raised a hand in farewell. Arthur raised his back.

Behind Arthur, Merlin called out a question and rode over to check on him. "Sire?"

"Nothing," Arthur preempted him. "Just looking." He turned to regard at Merlin. Just Merlin. Looking only like himself. A liar hiding behind a friendly face. A kind man keeping terrible secrets. Haunted by things he still wouldn't share with Arthur. "Come on," Arthur said. "No time to waste."

Merlin gave him a strange look but said nothing as Arthur circled him and continued toward the forest. A long moment passed, though, before he spurred his horse to follow.

---

They made good time for the first two days, riding at a steady pace through the forest so as not to wear out the horses. They headed north towards Andor, skirting the northern edge of the darkling wood and avoiding the citadel at Camelot. Arthur rode point with Merlin at his side, just like any other outing, while the others spread out in a disperse column behind them to offer sparse targets in case of attack, or bandits.

"I'm not made for riding this long anymore," Merlin griped. He had been complaining since they woke up, which was refreshingly normal. "It's been a year since you dragged me out for more than a turn around the castle, and it bloody well hurts, Arthur."

Arthur rolled his eyes and flirted with the thought that this could be any other normal day when Merlin wasn't tangled up with something else inside. "Maybe if you ask nicely, George will share his saddle-bottom cream with you."

"And I suppose you're not suffering at all," Merlin sniped back, shifting in his saddle so that his horse stamped in mid stride and bounced him in irritation.

"I am a trained warrior," Arthur informed him haughtily. "Minor discomforts do not affect me."

"You are a trained warrior with a fat bottom," Merlin countered. He weathered his horse sidling in protest, which involved it dancing a full circle in the middle of the path and then coaxed her back into line beside Arthur.

Arthur was over all of these remarks about his girth, so he snapped, "Yes, and now you see the advantages of cultivating extra padding. It's a wonder all the pointy ends of your bones don't wear notches into the chairs you sit in most."

Merlin rotated his head on his neck like a lizard and then snorted a quick burst of laughter. In spite of himself, Arthur mirrored the grin; Merlin's joy had always been infectious. "You know," Merlin quipped, smiling at the look on Arthur's face. "I was starting to think someone died, and I didn't notice. You've all been so glum these past two days."

Someone in the line behind them coughed, not subtle at all, and Merlin twisted in his saddle to throw a concerned glanced over his shoulder. In response, Brennis called up, "I'm fine. Can't drink on a horse."

Arthur looked back as well to see Brennis trying to make believe that he'd taken a drink from his corked waterskin, but it was still tied to his saddle.

Merlin faced forward and just blinked a few times before shrugging it off. "I feel like I'm missing something." He had said that every day since they set out, several times a day. It was taking on an air of rote.

"Good sense, is what you're missing," Arthur retorted, somewhat desperate to play that off with more jokes. Merlin gave him an unimpressed look.

From the back of the column of horses, Roland whistled for silence. Immediately, everyone reigned in their horses and waited in stillness on the path while Roland listened for whatever prompted him to call a warning. After a moment, just loud enough to carry to all of them, Roland hissed, "There's a rider coming fast up the road."

Arthur had a funny feeling that this wasn't the sort of threat that Roland seemed to think it was. They had passed close to Camelot the day before, and were now overdue to return. Most of the remaining knights and servants from their parlay party probably got back the night before, though. And they would have told tales.

"I should have planned this better," Arthur muttered. When Merlin gave him a curious look, Arthur shook his head. "I didn't send a proper missive back to Camelot with the rest of the men."

"Leon?" Merlin guessed.

Arthur bobbed his head. "Leon."

"But you instructed him to remain with Hunith."

Arthur gave him a sidelong look for referring to his mother as Hunith, and not as his mother, but all he said was, "Leon's no better at obedience than you are, when he thinks he has good cause. He just covers it better."

Merlin furrowed his brow. "But what cause would he have? You said Bayard retreated."

"Oh, bollocks," Roland swore. He was watching the road behind them, and must have seen something round the bend that remained out of sight of the rest of them. "It's Leon."

"See?" Arthur said, tipping his head. He eyed Merlin, who wasn't watching him, and then threw worried glances at everyone else. Someone would have told Leon what happened, surely, and the first thing he would see as he came upon them was Merlin perched on a horse within striking distance of Arthur.

Caradoc communicated silently with his fellow knights and then spurred his horse back the way they came, galloping around the bend and out of sight.

Arthur bit back an urge to swear as Gwaine trotted his horse up to subtly block any easy shot that someone on the road might try to take at Merlin, and a moment later, George did the same. Oddly, Geraint and Vivienne chose to act as barricades to anyone having a line of sight at Arthur, though. And then they waited. Arthur could feel the weight of Merlin's eyes on him at intervals, all silent questions for yet more unusual behavior from all of them, but since Arthur didn't look at him, Merlin kept his peace.

After what seemed like a long time, the sound of hoofbeats resumed, and Caradoc rode back around the bend, followed by Leon. The latter looked supremely unhappy, but he said nothing untoward as he bullied his horse right up the middle of them all, between Arthur and Merlin, using his horse's rear end to shove Merlin's horse back farther. "Sire, might I have a word with you in private?"

There was no getting out of this; Leon had that look on his face like he would salt this proverbial field if Arthur didn't indulge him. Sighing, Arthur called to the others, "Let the horses rest; we'll leave here in an hour."

Leon kept right on frowning, thunderous as he ever got, which was still very polite, and looked over his shoulder. Arthur couldn't see the face that he presented to Merlin, but he did see Merlin draw back subtly, glance toward Arthur, and then retreat with his eyebrows inched up toward his hairline. Gwaine and George followed him off the path with the rest of their party.

Leon faced Arthur again. "With respect, sire, have you gone mad?"

"Hello, Leon," Arthur greeted him sarcastically. "Lovely day to you too."

Leon shut his eyes briefly as if beseeching an unseen force for patience. When he opened them again, he had calmed somewhat, and a deeper concern could be seen now in the careful expression on his face. "Sire, please tell me you are not simply riding into the mountains with an enchanted sorcerer as if it were nothing."

"I am riding with Merlin into the mountains," Arthur corrected him. "Do you really expect me not to?"

"I expect you to think of what will happen to this kingdom if he should turn on you."

"Merlin is less a danger to me than you think," Arthur snapped quietly. "Even enchanted." He eyed Leon over, once from head to foot, then back up. "You of all people should understand why I have to do this," Arthur said. "You know what he's done for me. I need him."

Leon sighed a breath that sounded as if he had been holding it since leaving the castle.

"Did you come alone?" Arthur asked.

"Yes, sire." Leon fingered the reigns of his horse, and then dismounted.

After a short hesitation, Arthur did the same. "Who is with Hunith?"

"Lord Aymer and Sir Geoffrey." Leon gave Arthur a look of defeat. "Come back home with me, sire. Consider this more fully."

Sympathetic, Arthur nonetheless replied as starkly as the truth demanded of him. "No."

Leon sucked his lips between his teeth until his beard blended into an unbroken expanse on his face. Without renewing his pleas, Leon turned to lead his horse off the opposite side of the path from everyone else. Arthur only followed because his horse seemed intrigued by Leon's, and insisted. They tied their leads to the same tree and once secured, Arthur reached up to stroke a gloved hand down his horse's nose. In response, Hengroen head-butted him in the chest. It staggered Arthur back a step, but the horse meant it fondly. Arthur pressed his forehead to the horse's and just breathed for a moment.

"Sire," Leon began softly. "I understand how difficult this must be – "

"No, you don't." Arthur kept his eyes shut, sharing air with his very calm, tolerant warhorse. Hengroen certainly acted as a better friend than most people Arthur knew. Far more accepting and stalwart.

Leon regrouped and admitted, "Perhaps not exactly. But surely you see that this is unwise."

"I see that very clearly." Arthur opened his eyes and found Hengroen staring into them. "I'm still not turning back." He smiled to himself and held that gaze. "Are you going to tell me what my father would have done in my place? Because I've already had that lecture. Lamorak thinks I've taken leave of my senses entirely. But he also thought I was the one who enchanted Merlin, so I'm not sure if his opinion counts."

"He…" Leon absorbed that, and then changed tack again. "What will you do if this doesn't work?"

"What do you think?" Arthur replied, whispering the words mostly to Hengroen, who didn't judge him for them. "He can't be allowed to live under the influence of that spell. He's too dangerous."

Clearly, Leon hadn't expected that bluntness. "Could you do that?" It was kind of him not to say it plainly, what that entailed.

Arthur shook his head. "Gwaine will do it."

Leon swore under his breath and seemed to regret his earlier antagonism, and his mad pursuit of them. "I apologize, sire. I didn't realize."

"You thought I was being foolish," Arthur allowed. "And I am. I know that. I just don't care, Leon. I have to do this."

"Regardless," Leon argued, "I should have trusted you. I apologize, sire. I have overstepped."

"It's alright," Arthur murmured. Hengroen blew hot breath at him, and Arthur remained as he was, forehead to forehead with his horse, just feeling the warmth. "I am not always rational where he's concerned. You know that as well as I do."

Leon nodded, though he seemed unhappy to agree with that. "Has he truly been under its influence all this time? Since the queen's death?"

"I think it was less, in the beginning," Arthur replied, still hushed and remote even as he participated in the word exchange. "After Samhain, something was different. It gained a foothold I don't think it had before. Merlin said that Wynn did something more than just save his life. Maybe it was well-meant, whatever she did, but didn't work. The magic was old and corroded, and she'd started losing her wits from age. I doubt that she, or anyone else, intended this."

After a long pause, Leon asked, "What are the chances of getting him back?"

Arthur swallowed the lump in his throat and threat of welling in the corners of his eyes. He had been trying not to think about the truth of that answer. "Slim. The chances are slim, Leon."

Leon stood quietly beside him as Hengroen blew steady breaths over Arthur's face, calm and reliable. He was probably thinking the very thing that Arthur refused to give court to, even in his own thoughts: that this was likely a funeral march, and Arthur needed the journey with whatever was left of Merlin more than he needed hope for the outcome once it was done. It could be the last quest they ever undertook together.

"I am so sorry, Arthur," Leon whispered, his words unsteady.

Now, he spoke as a friend, Arthur thought. Now, he let the barrier down between them. Bastard. As if the rejection of kindness or rankless camaraderie before didn't matter anymore. Even though Arthur's words were bitter, his tone stayed gentle like a knife wound. "That's all anyone seems to be right now. Sorry. I finally realize how useless a thing that is."

From behind them, a tentative voice called out, "Arthur?"

Arthur turned his face away from Hengroen as Merlin crossed the road toward them. "Yes, Merlin?"

"George is cooking something," Merlin announced, completely and painfully banal. "He expects you to eat it."

As Merlin came abreast of Arthur, Leon shifted. It seemed automatic, the way he tensed and dropped his hand to his sword. And of course, it should be; Leon headed Arthur's personal guard. It was his job to do that.

Merlin kept speaking as he stood at an angle to Arthur, one hand reaching up to stroke Hengroen's muzzle near where Arthur's hand still rested. "He's not the only one who's noticed you aren't eating, by the way. I'm starting to worry…" He trailed off as he noticed both Arthur's attempt to throw Leon a discrete warning look, and Leon's knuckles turning colors where they clenched the hilt of his sword. "Why are you so jumpy? Did Aithusa come inland?"

Before Leon could say anything, Arthur gave a strained laugh. "Leon's overly worried about bandits."

Merlin's brow wrinkled. "There aren't any bandits here; I checked."

Missing Arthur's pointed glares entirely, Leon asked, "What is Aithusa?"

"The dragon," Merlin replied, frowning back. "That's her name."

"What dra – "

"We should all eat," Arthur interrupted. "What did you say George was making?" He took hold of the point of Merlin's shoulder to turn him back toward the temporary camp.

"I didn't," Merlin said, stepping out from under Arthur's hand. "You said the message came from Camelot. Why doesn't Leon know about it?"

"Leon is just tired; he rode all night to catch up to us. He should eat too."

Finally taking all of the many, many unspoken hints with which Arthur was pelting him, Leon startled into a straighter posture. "Yes! My apologies. Of course. Starving. And tired."

Merlin lifted his chin with a long inhalation and took a single step back. "Alright; I've had enough of this. Arthur, tell me what the hell is going on."

"Nothing is going on," Arthur started.

"You are a terrible liar," Merlin informed him. "And you've been lying since I woke up at Lindum. I didn't have a fit; someone used magic on me." His tone tried to be cold, but there was a muted fear hidden somewhere beneath, in the rhythm of his breath as he spoke. "I didn't say anything before because you must have had a reason, but I can't keep pretending that I don't know something's wrong. What did I do?" His face lost even more of its color than usual beneath the dark shadow of his unruly beard. "Did I try to hurt you?"

"No," Arthur replied forcefully. "Nothing like that."

"Then why the lies?" Merlin gestured at the road and gave Arthur an expectant look. "Where are you taking me?"

Arthur shook his head. Technically, he had not lied about that part; they were going to Gwenydd. The Cauldron of Arianrhod lay secluded in the mountains there.

"There is no dragon, is there," Merlin said, his mouth a line of disappointment as if Arthur had let him down by lying.

"There might be, actually," Arthur admitted. "I didn't lie about the reports of it in the area."

Merlin sucked briefly at his lip and let out a shallow breath. "What are we really doing out here?"

"I can't tell you that," Arthur replied. "It – the mission is a secret."

"Even from me?" Merlin asked quietly.

Arthur exhaled through his nose because he had pressed his lips so tightly shut, and nodded.

"Why?" Merlin breathed. "I know I'm not…not myself, like normal, but… What did I do that you can't trust me? It must have been something bad; you never treat me like this anymore."

Arthur stepped forward and grasped the tips of his shoulders. "You haven't done anything to me."

Merlin stared him straight in the eye for too long, too intently. "Not to you?" he echoed. "To whom, then?"

Arthur swallowed as he realized how his own inflection gave that away – too much emphasis on two unnecessary words. "Look. Merlin – "

Merlin knocked Arthur's hands away and stepped back, out of reach. "I hurt someone?"

"Stop, just – "

"Where is Sir Marwen?" Merlin's face didn't change much, but his eyes pinched at the corners, and his words wavered ever so slightly as he spoke. "Half the knights complained all the way to Lindum about him deserting, and now suddenly, no one will say his name. Why?"

Arthur's mouth worked silently over the words that Merlin had interrupted. That could have been a lucky guess, except Arthur doubted that it actually was. It was too non-sequitur, and even Merlin's offhand comments usually came from a place of knowing, whether Merlin himself realized or not. "Listen," Arthur cajoled, dropping the act. "Just… You have to trust me."

"You said that at Lindum, too," Merlin said, pitched like accusation.

"Yes, with good reason." Arthur pursued him across the ground, but Merlin just kept backing away. Eventually, Arthur stopped trying to get closer. "I need you to stop asking questions."

Merlin shook his head as if he barely recognized Arthur in that moment. "Why? What don't you want me to know?" His gaze shifted to Leon again, then to the hand that Leon had at least loosened, but not yet removed from his sword. "Something happened to Marwen. You won't say it, but I can see it on your face."

Arthur shook his head and reached forward quickly enough to snag at Merlin before he could back away again. Arthur framed his shoulders between his hands and enjoined, "Look at me." He shook Merlin gently to try to regain his attention.

The jostling did little to break Merlin's focus on Leon's hand where it gripped the hilt of his sheathed sword. He took a shuddering breath that seemed to flounder in his chest, and then clutched the fabric over his sternum. "Something happened in the field with Bayard – that's when everyone went strange. We were walking back and you – " His fingers clenched harder over his chest and dug in. "You said not to question. Because… Ow." He hissed and lifted his other hand to his chest with a sharp gasp.

"Stop," Arthur barked. "You have to stop. Now, Merlin."

"You kept acting like someone was going to do something to me. You pulled me close, and shielded me… You – and then Geraint, he – I remember he – " Merlin looked down at his hands crimped to his sternum and abruptly let go of his chest so that he could scratch at his arms. He didn't look like they itched, though; his expression swam with consternation as he watched himself scratch frantically at his forearms through the sleeves of his surcoat, completely removed from his own actions as he observed them. Abruptly, he froze, his eyes blinking out at something farther away from them both than Arthur's chest blocking his view. "I wasn't doing anything with nettle. I don't even need nettle; it's winter." He looked down again and turned his palms up, fingers curled like browning leaves in a drought. "I just scratched them. When I woke up – I scratched them raw before George came in and stopped me. I – I wanted them out."

Arthur grabbed him by the ears and ignored Merlin's startled squawk as he wrenched at them harder than he should have. "Stop talking. Nothing is wrong. Do you understand me?"

"But – "

"No!" Arthur snapped in his face. He could see several knights in the background, drawn forward by the odd motions and sharp words. "No buts. You are fine. Nothing is wrong. Say it, Merlin." A sudden crackle arose in the air, and Arthur smelled lightning as the hair on his arms literally prickled in gooseflesh and stood up.

Merlin noticed too, but this time, he seemed to recognize it as something outside of himself. He blurted, "That's not my magic." The words were out before his expression caught up with them, and Merlin's eyes went wide as he stilled in Arthur's hands, gaze flickering up and about in the air. When he said it again, it was with terrible realization. "That's not my magic."

Arthur glanced around as if he might be able to see it that way that Merlin seemed able to do. On the other side of the road, Geraint and Vivienne started backing away with their hands held out like shields. Meliot outright bolted into the trees, but the rest held their ground, swords raised and fearful. Steel rang out behind Arthur too, and he shouted, "Leon, stand down! That's an order!"

"Leon, do it."

Arthur shoved Merlin back, away from Leon, until they ran into a tree, and shouted, "Shut up, Merlin!" Shrill and frantic.

"Leon!" Merlin raised his arms to try to break the doubtless painful grip that Arthur had on his ears and wild tufts of his hair. "Arthur, it's not me. You have to listen – it's not me!"

"I know that, you idiot!" Arthur spat. He could feel actual spittle leave his mouth. "Don't say it – stop even thinking it! I don't know what it will do to you if you know. Myrddin implied it would kill you – so shut up!"

"The black things," Merlin whispered. Amber flared in his irises, faint but there. "They got inside. Arthur, they – "

"Yes," Arthur breathed. The air reeked of storms. "And I'm going to fix it. But you can't lose control. Just stop remembering. Put it back wherever you've been keeping it."

Merlin shook his head, eyes riveted on Arthur and filling with otherworldly light – deceptively soft like a candle flame overtaking the irises. Deadly calm, Merlin informed him, "It wants to hurt you."

Arthur didn't know what to do. He could feel magic swelling all around them, but it felt nothing like the miracle and explosion of life at the wellspring. This magic tasted foul on the air, and turned the new sprouts of early spring plants black underfoot.

Someone grabbed Arthur without warning and wrenched him back, while someone else shoved between him and Merlin forcefully enough to finally break his grip. Arthur flailed as he recognized Leon's particular restraining hold, bending his arms back to a point just short of pain. In front of him Gwaine pulled out the dagger that Arthur made him take and pressed it hard up beneath Merlin's chin. Even from feet away, Arthur could see Gwaine's hand shake terribly.

"No!" Arthur thrashed, but Leon was stronger than him. Kingship had made Arthur soft.

"Put it away," Gwaine told Merlin, his voice so strained that it cracked. "Make it stop, or I'll have to do this, and I don't want to do this. Don't make me do this."

Merlin hadn't made any struggle whatsoever, and even now, he held his hands wide, away from Gwaine to offer no resistance.

From the look on Gwaine's face, he knew Merlin's stance for surrender too. "Merls…" Gwaine begged. "Fight, damn you!"

The tree at Merlin's back started to char even though no flames broke out. And it was deadly silent. There was a sharp tang in the air, and magic sparking the breeze like wool socks on rugs in winter, but no sound except breathing, and a few horses stamping as they shied. Merlin remained pinioned between the dagger in Gwaine's hand and the tree against which he leant. "Nnngh – I can't," Merlin gasped. His eyes flared gold.

"Find a way," Gwaine choked. "Forget this. Forget all of this – forget you know it, and put it away again." His fingers twitched on the hilt of the dagger and carved a tiny slice into the skin just under Merlin's chin, right where the beard faded into the vulnerable expanse of his windpipe. "Don't make me kill you. Not for him. Not just to save him – he's not worth doing that to myself."

Merlin squeezed his eyes shut, and breathed like frostbite. Down at waist level, his hands curled into tight fists. The ground smoked with the threat of fire, and whatever tiny bits of nature the wind carried began to flare and curl, embers all around them like orange fireflies. A moment later, the air filled with ash incinerated right there on the meandering currents of the wind. Gravity didn't even feel like it was working right anymore, and indeed, a swirl of leaves began falling upward into the incinerating air, sparks and flyaway fires and ash.

Gwaine's face went dead – the parts of it that Arthur could see from behind, at least – and his hand steadied horribly around the hilt of the dagger. "Last chance. Come on, Merls."

At some point, Arthur realized that he was yelling and carrying on something awful, and stopped. His chest heaved to recover the breath he lost from it, and his throat hurt from more than just the abuse of his voice. This was why he'd given Gwaine the dagger, wasn't it? Because Arthur wasn't strong enough to do what might have to be done.

"Here, sorcerer!"

Startled, Arthur looked to his right. Meliot stood in the road, hands empty, weapons discarded. He looked utterly terrified, but even more resolute. Arthur shouted at him, "Meliot, get back!"

"It needs an out, yes?" Meliot asked, and Arthur wondered just how many conversations he and Merlin really had over the months since Samhain, if he knew about that. "Here I am, then." He addressed himself to Merlin. "I attacked you. I tried to stop you. I got in your way."

Gwaine cast an owlish gaze over his shoulder and hissed, "What are you doing?"

"Filthy sorcerer!" Meliot shouted in outrage. It may not even have been feigned, except that he could barely keep his feet through the force of the trembling in his legs. "I killed you once; I can do it again!"

Near Arthur's ear, Leon breathed, "Oh my god, no."

Merlin was looking at Meliot now, but there was nothing of Merlin on his face. Arthur finally stopped struggling and pressed himself back against Leon. Hengroen had already danced back to the end of his lead, and now snapped it as he reared before bolting across the road to get away. Leon's horse soon followed.

"Magic is a perversion," Meliot taunted. He threw his hands wide. "You are evil! Corrupted and sick – you are a blight! And I'll burn you like a diseased field – your ways are dead! You have no power here."

"I have all the power here," Merlin said.

Gwaine looked back at Merlin, took in the complete lack of affect or familiarity in his friend, and then cast a frantic glance at Meliot. They exchanged some kind of understanding because Gwaine's posture went loose and faint, and then he stepped back, detaching himself from Merlin, the dagger hanging at his side. His hair stuck out like an uneven halo around his head, levitating like a lightning strike not yet come.

Meliot kept his gaze firmly set on Merlin. "Then prove it," he sneered. He could have pulled off that expression a year ago, but too much of him had changed after stabbing an innocent man in the back. "You are nothing, sorcerer. You can't touch me."

"I will see you rot in the ground," Merlin snarled. "How dare you challenge me!"

"Meliot," Arthur warned. He could feel the magic shift in the air, coalescing with a force to strike, and braced himself.

"I challenge you, yes." Meliot lifted his chin. "Because I know you now, Merlin. And as long as you're coming after me, you're not going for Arthur." He ducked his head but maintained eye contact. "It has to come out, so let it. I wronged you; you owe me redress. Let it come for me."

It happened so fast. Arthur stamped Leon's foot harder than was friendly, dropped from his loosened grasp, and then bolted forward. He managed to get himself in front of Meliot as Merlin raised his hands, palms out, and then it felt like all of the air in the forest sucked itself into a single point in Arthur's chest. His ears popped, and he tasted metal, and then his vision went briefly black.

As the spots faded from in front of Arthur's eyes, he was surprised to still be on his feet. Meliot was gasping behind him, apparently shocked to be not dead. Arthur glanced around, sound returning to his notice in the wake of a sharp and waning whine that pirced his hearing. A breeze moved through the woods again, gentle and clear – no smell of smoke, or storms, or wooly static sparks. Nothing.

Arthur exhaled and took a step forward, staggering suddenly. He fell to his knee at the pain in his hip and looked down. A single round hole had been burned through his breeches, no larger than a gold coin. Arthur patted the smoking leather and then reached into his pocket to pull out the carved wooden wolf charm that Marwen had once worn around his neck. There was little more than charcoal left of it. He stared at the blackened streaks of char that rubbed off on his fingers, remnants of the braided leather thong, and watched the remains of the charm break apart in his hand, burned beyond recognition. Other than the burn at his hip, Arthur remained completely unscathed.

It appeared that other than Arthur and Meliot, those nearest Merlin had been thrown back by the force of whatever magic Merlin unleashed. Gwaine was scrambling through leaves still curling from a burst of something like fire, edges bright as embers as they burned. He hissed as they singed his hands. As Arthur tried to get his bearings, Leon tore off his cloak so that he could beat out a wide and spreading line of flickering underbrush before it could graduate into a wildfire. Several other knights ran to help.

Arthur shoved himself back to his feet, nearly lost them again, and finally stumbled a few steps forward. "Merlin?"

Geraint rounded Arthur, keeping a wide berth, and warily circled Merlin's still body where he laid in a crumpled curl like old parchment, surrounded by blackened underbrush and ash at the base of the now scorched tree.

Gwaine just ploughed forward, heedless, until he could grab at Merlin's shoulder. Merlin flopped limp onto his back, and Gwaine smacked his cheeks a few times, frantic pats like a drumbeat. "Merlin? Be okay, yeah? Wake up, mate."

Arthur dropped to the ground on the opposite side of Merlin's body, relieved to at least see no injury or burns on him. He tore his glove off with his teeth and held his bare fingers in front of Merlin's nose, searching for breath. When he couldn't be sure that he felt anything other than the forest breeze, he shifted and stuffed his vambrace there instead, shivering with the sensation of having done it before. A cloud of breath fogged the metal, and Arthur's lungs emptied in a rush.

"What do we do?" Gwaine asked, thumbs sketching lines through the mud on Merlin's cheeks.

Arthur shook his head, at a loss.

"He's bleeding," Gwaine reported suddenly, lifting red fingers from near Merlin's left ear. "Did he burst an eardrum?"

Before Arthur could look for himself, Leon stomped over and demanded, "What the hell were you doing?"

Arthur glanced up, and then straightened as he realized that Leon was talking to him in that tone. Indignant, Arthur barked, "Me? What the hell was he doing?" He jabbed a finger at Meliot, who chose that moment to give up the fight against his knees and collapse down onto them.

"He," Lamorak butted in, "was protecting his king. This has gone far enough, sire. We cannot continue; Merlin is too dangerous."

Arthur bowed his head over Merlin's chest, but he raised his eyes to Gwaine, who seemed to sense a similar danger brewing around them. Without looking, Arthur replied to Lamorak, "I can control him. He will not hurt me."

Reasonably, Caradoc told him, "Sire, you cannot be certain of that."

"He said himself," Leon added, "that he cannot control it, sire. How many warnings must he give before you believe him?"

Arthur shook his head and clutched at the fabric over Merlin's chest where it rose and fell in a shallow, faltering rhythm. He believed him; he just couldn't give up.

He was saved from answering as Percival jogged over from the woods a fair distance down the road. "What happened?" Percival asked, looking around in bewilderment. He lowered himself to one knee to feel Merlin breathing for himself, and then looked at Gwaine for an explanation.

"Bad things," Gwaine told him. "What were you doing?"

"Peeing," Percival reported.

Incredulous, Gwaine demanded, "The whole time?"

Belatedly, Percival noticed the tension all around. He gave a stiff shrug slowly stood back up, wary now. As an afterthought, he replied, "Really had to go."

Arthur nearly blew snot all over himself, covered his mouth, and then started laughing hysterically. Gwaine narrowed his eyes, whole face pinching up in suspicion, and Arthur had to wave off his concerns because the laughter was already deteriorating into something worse. Arthur gulped in a few deep breaths, just a modicum of self-control, and then pressed his palm to Merlin's chest over the place he kept digging whenever his heart hurt. "This quest is not over," Arthur announced unsteadily, "until I say it's over."

With a huff, Lamorak demanded, "And are we to indulge you into your grave, sire?"

Ronhael passed through Arthur's periphery and admonished, "That's uncalled for. The kind has set himself on this path; he believes that he must see it through."

They were circling, Arthur realized. Drawing close. He peered up at Gwaine again from under his brows, and saw the same conclusion mirrored there. Arthur flicked his head toward Percival and raised his brow in question. Gwaine nodded; Percival would follow their lead.

"None of you," Meliot interjected, "have the slightest idea what is truly going on here."

Surprised, Arthur looked over to the road where Meliot had regained his feet, but none of his weapons.

Caradoc rolled his eyes and wandered off to one side while Roland retorted, "No one gives a fig what you think, traitor."

"Calm," Ronhael cautioned. "Please. Name calling won't help us, and Sir Meliot had the best of intentions at the time."

"Oh, shut up," Brennis bit back. "Why are you even arguing? You never liked magic – you had a fit like a scorned girl when we told you we didn't just kill him at the spring."

"And I was wrong," Ronhael retorted. "It is not Merlin's fault that he is as God made him, and neither is it his fault that he suffers this. To give up on him now that we know the ailment, and how to reverse it, is dishonorable."

Roland mimicked him nastily under his breath. "Right, God made him like this. For fuck's sake, Ron. Do you even listen to yourself?"

"It is no different than Christ casting demons from the minds of afflicted men," Ronhael insisted. "Do you not see that?"

"Oh, no, go on Sir Pious," Brennis mocked him. "Tell us all about the miracle of your shiny new god. Where is he, exactly? Why won't he help us?"

"That is not how He works," Ronhael groaned.

"From what I can see," Brennis retorted, "he doesn't work at all."

"Do not mock my God!" Ronhael bellowed. "I've never spoken ill of yours."

Standing above Gwaine, Percival drew his sword, and then he stood there uncertain as to whether or not he should use it. Arthur pulled Excalibur from his belt, and after a beat, Gwaine traded the damnable dagger for his sword too.

Roland snorted. "And your god likes sorcerers now, does he? I thought that was the whole point of your objections. You should be happy now we all want the same thing as you."

Ronhael shook his head and blew an exasperated breath through his teeth. "Christ himself used magic. Who am I to vilify it just because some pope in Rome fears that the power of his own god may surpass the common man's? That is pride, and foolishness. The king was right – it matters what men do with it, not that they have it."

"The domain of gods is hardly a matter for debate now," Caradoc interjected. "It is Master Merlin at issue."

By then, Ronhael had backed into arm's reach of Arthur, though he remained facing out toward the other knights. He had not drawn his sword, either, but Arthur didn't trust Ronhael to be genuine in his objections; he didn't know the man well at all. Arthur stood slowly, and crowded Ronhael back by the simple expedient of being in the way.

Seemingly oblivious, Ronhael kept arguing with the others. "Exactly. And I won't be a party to this. My king put his trust in me for this quest, and I will not betray him over unfounded fear."

"Unfounded?" Lamorak echoed, incredulous. "Look around, boy." He swept his hands at the blackened earth and the charred forest spread in a ring around them all. "That is not Merlin anymore. That is not the fumbling man we have all grown fond of for his camp cooking. That is enchantment."

Ronhael shook his head and countered, "That is the Prince of Dyfedd, and the king's chosen kin."

From the middle of the tightening circle, Leon abruptly pulled back and took a hard look around at his fellow knights. He seemed perturbed as it occurred to him that this was not a simple disagreement – that they might intend to act in contravention of Arthur's wishes, no matter how foolish Arthur himself might be.

Roland pointed his sword at Merlin the same as he might have pointed fingers and replied, "The king's chosen kin just tried to kill him."

Caradoc, too, cocked his head as he noticed the change in atmosphere. He sidled back from everyone else, uneasy.

"He didn't, though," Ronhael grit, visibly frustrated. "Our king doesn't have a mark on him. God protects his chosen ones, as he has protected Arthur. And Arthur protects him." Ronhael pointed at the ground, presumably meaning to indicate Merlin.

"God protects him?" Brennis laughed. "You think your god actually means anything here? In this land? Our gods rule here, you pompous ass!" He pointed an aggressive finger toward Merlin and added, "His gods. The old gods. Not yours."

"Gentlemen," Leon called into the fray. "Is it imperative that we have this argument now?"

Caradoc ambled around the perimeter sketched by the other knights, and approached Meliot as if not quite certain how they had known and disliked each other for decades. They exchanged wary nods, and then Caradoc drew his sword before placing himself at Arthur's side. "Perhaps this is where some of us need to part ways."

Roland scoffed. "Of course, you would side with him. You're soft on Lady Hunith. Can't go putting marks on her son if you ever want a chance there."

Caradoc drew in a deep, slow breath to visibly calm himself, and then rumbled, "Watch your tongue, lad. You speak of a queen."

One of Arthur's eyebrows levitated at the fact that Caradoc didn't deny his apparent attractions, but he could hardly enjoy the absurdity of that scenario just then. Gwaine snorted softly, though. But Gwaine could afford to laugh whenever he felt like it; no one took him seriously.

Lamorak snapped out of his anger long enough to also identify the direction in which this confrontation seemed to be headed, and even though it could be argued that he started it, he appeared dismayed at the threat unfolding. He did not back down, though. Instead, he squared his posture and faced Arthur in an attempt toward firm conciliation. "Sire, I admit that I spoke rashly, and we are all under a great deal of stress, but I stand by my conviction. I cannot watch you throw your life away for this. My own feelings aside, Merlin himself has been clear from the beginning what he wants."

Leon shook his head once, then a second time, and finally chose his side. "To protect you, sire." He lifted his gaze, and it did look like it killed some little part of him to say it, at least. "He has always wanted to protect you."

"Are we to disregard his wishes?" Lamorak demanded. "Is it not his right, in this instance, to choose the outcome for himself? Do we deny him even that dignity, and allow him to do the one thing that terrifies him most?" Namely, hurt Arthur. Kill him, even.

Ronhael faltered in his resolve, and twisted to peer at Arthur over his shoulder.

"It would be a mercy at this point," Lamorak insisted. "And in your heart, sire, I think you know that."

Arthur swallowed, and noted with satisfaction the way that everyone finally realized that he had his sword out, held at the ready, and that their threats and comments amounted to something like treason, if Arthur chose to take them that way. "You have all made your opinions clear," Arthur observed stiffly. "Let me do the same. If you force this matter now, I will challenge each of you in single combat to the death. Or," Arthur shifted, tipping his head the other way, "those of you in disagreement can return to Camelot now, without stain on your honor, and after I return from this quest, none of us will ever speak of the matter again. Make your choices."

No one moved for a long time, dumbfounded by the blunt ultimatum.

"Sire," Lamorak started, his tone striving to be reasonable.

Arthur interrupted with, "I warned you on Samhain's eve what would happen if you demand that I choose between his life or my crown. This is not open for further discussion. Accept my challenge, or take your horse and go."

Roland glanced at some of the others, pursed his lips, and muttered, "I can't watch him kill you, sire. I actually like the little bastard, and all of his dirty sleepy-time tricks. If I have to remember something about him, let it be that, and not him being used like a puppet for your murder." Then he stalked off.

After some hesitation, Brennis followed, though he did so with more dignity and a large portion of visible regret. "I'm sorry, sire. It seems cruel to put him through this."

Arthur shifted his gaze expectantly to Sir Lamorak, and let himself feel the disappointment when Lamorak lowered his eyes in shame and walked away as well, silent. After a much longer standoff devoid of eye contact, Arthur swallowed hard and said, "You too, Leon."

"Sire, I – "

"Please go." Arthur couldn't look at him. "I understand where you're coming from, and I appreciate your candor, but I cannot abide you right now."

Leon took a shallow breath and nodded where he stood hazy in Arthur's periphery. "Yes, sire." He hesitated, half turned away, and added, "I never meant to expose the deception to him. I would take it back if I could."

"I appreciate that," Arthur acknowledged. "But it's done. Go back home. Help Hunith hold my throne until I return. Some may look poorly on her now, for the unintended deeds of her son."

"They won't," Leon assured him. "I will see to it."

Arthur didn't watch him go, but as the fourth set of hoofbeats faded back down the road many long minutes later, he sagged where he stood. His rambling gaze found the canopy of trees not yet budding with the coming spring, and he let out a long, complicated breath. Then he brought his eyes back to those who remained with him, some of whom were most unexpected.

Behind the remaining knights, Geraint and Vivienne appeared stunned, and George hovered still farther back with their aborted meal in a cooking pot dangling from his hands. "You should go back too," Arthur called to them. "They were right about one thing; this is a fool's errand now."

Geraint made a sound of denial. "But you need someone to summon the lake spirit."

Kindly, Arthur nonetheless said, "I think we both know that neither of you is able to do that."

Vivienne looked down, but she shook her head in confirmation. Geraint merely seemed like he wanted to hit something and knew it wouldn't help. He glanced at Vivienne, and she nodded.

"Then it's settled," Arthur said. "You have my gratitude, always, for coming this far."

After taking a deep breath, Vivienne pulled her knit hat from her head and approached Arthur. At first, Arthur thought she meant it as a sign of respect – to approach her king with head bare – but when she came close enough, she reached up and pulled the hat down on Arthur's head. The only reason she managed to do it without objection was that Arthur was too startled by it to react right away. She didn't say a word after that; merely examined her work, nodded, and then turned away.

Arthur raised cautious fingers to his head and plucked at the tightly stitched wool. "Um."

Geraint watched Vivienne walk out of ear shot and then told Arthur, "She weaves them with magic. It is a gift of goodwill, sire."

"A charmed hat?" Arthur asked, eyebrows twitching. He hated hats. Messy, wooly things.

"Please wear it," Geraint implored. "She doesn't give them lightly."

Though dubious, Arthur nodded. "Alright. Thank her for me?"

"Sire," Geraint nodded and bowed, and then let reluctant feet carry him haltingly away toward the horses.

The moment Arthur turned his attention to George, George glared at him. "I am not leaving, sire." The way he set his feet in affirmation would have been amusing, if he were not so thoroughly disrespectful about it. Arthur smiled in spite of himself. "And I have made this," George went on, hefting the soup pot, "so you will either eat it or you will wear it, but I will not have it wasted, so it will be one or the other."

"Now see here," Caradoc blustered.

Arthur's own laughter startled him, and stopped Caradoc from protesting further. "We will eat it, George. Once we've gotten Merlin cleaned up."

Almost comically prim – which seemed a cover, honestly, for out of his depth and slightly terrified – George replied, "Very good, sire." And spun off to finish whatever needed doing with the soup.

Gwaine was already helping Percival hoist Merlin over his shoulder by then, and Arthur trailed them back across the road toward their temporary camp. He found himself walking between Meliot and Ronhael, and took the opportunity to openly study them both. "I admit, neither of you are who I might have expected to come this far."

Meliot tried to put on his familiar old airs, which didn't quite work anymore, while Ronhael merely appeared slightly ill. Neither of them said anything in response, which was just as well. They didn't need to rehash any of it.

It took only a few minutes to clean the blood out from around and in Merlin's ear, then make him comfortable on the ground near the fire. He didn't stir at all, and though it worried Arthur, he also knew that they needed the time to regroup and figure out their next moves. It might be better, actually, if Merlin stayed as he was for now. Arthur didn't want to admit it, but the Merlin who woke up after this might not bear resemblance anymore to the Merlin that Arthur was trying to save. He had to prepare himself for that. In more ways than one.

---

Arthur tossed a few more sticks onto the fire and watched them catch. Night had fallen, and they remained encamped where their party broke apart that afternoon. "Why is it so important to you?"

George stopped scouring his soup pot and looked at Arthur. "It will rust, sire."

"No – " Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose and clarified, "This. Your service." He sighed and dropped his hand. "Look, I know you're… Well, you're very compulsive, to be honest. But that doesn't explain all of this." He swung his hand out in an understated gesture meant to encompass their shabby camp. "It's dirty, you hate being dirty – you won't even sit properly on the ground." He nodded to the way that George was crouched over his scrubbing work so that only the soles of his boots actually touched the dirt. "You don't have to be here."

"Master Merlin is my charge," George replied. "Where else would I be?"

It was the same inflection that Merlin used for similar statements, Arthur realized. Completely oblivious, and just…just loyal. Like it meant nothing, really – as if it were commonplace and unremarkable, when to Arthur, it was a huge and inexplicable thing. "Is that really all it is?" Arthur asked.

"Did you not also enjoy such devotion from Master Merlin as a manservant?"

Arthur glanced around at the shadowed forest, flickering with a nimbus of firelight, and flipped his free hand over in some version of a shrug. "Merlin believed…things about me that made him…" Arthur groaned under his breath and rubbed his forehead in frustration. "That level of devotion doesn't just happen without cause. I know what cause Merlin had. Yours remains a mystery."

"You asked me to serve him," George reminded him.

Arthur shot him a droll glance. "Don't be thick."

George lifted his chin as he looked away, and made a rather haughty show of resuming his pot cleansing. His face lost its habitual smooth professionalism, but only just. "If you must know, she was my friend, sire. And Master Merlin was hers. It is a kindness paid forward."

It took an unforgivably long time for Arthur to realize who he meant. "Guinevere?"

George didn't answer right away, and even as he resumed speaking, he seemed uncertain of his own willingness to share. "I am an awkward and, as you say, compulsive man." He kept scrubbing, steady sweeps of a bristle brush in measured arcs along the inside of his pot even though it had to be clean enough by now. "In short, I have always been a laughing stock among the staff," he admitted quietly. "And being the head steward's son did not help." He stopped scrubbing. "She was kind." He blinked into the unseeable distance, took and breath, and bent back to his work. "For a long time, she was the only one who bothered."

Gwaine must have been listening, because he said, "You're all right by me, too, George. Anybody who can punch Roland in the face has my respect."

Arthur laughed softly and moved his free hand down once again from the crown of Merlin's head, to his nose to feel for breath. "I agree." He recalled the shock on Roland's face at the wellspring, not mention how it left everyone else flabbergasted too. Meek, competent George did have a backbone in him. "Need to work on your swing a bit, though. You didn't even break his nose."

"I bloodied it," George retorted.

"That you did," Arthur chuckled. His mirth faded, and he skimmed his eyes past the lumpy shapes of Meliot, Caradoc and Ronhael nodding off around their own fire far enough away to give the rest of them an illusion of privacy. Percival had the current watch, and every now and then, Arthur glimpsed his hulking shadow moving through the trees. It was likely the first time in a decade Arthur had camped in the open without any of Merlin's wards to protect his sleep. He hoped that it would not be a regular occurrence. "George?"

Distracted now by cutlery, George replied, "Yes, sire?"

Arthur let himself have second thoughts as to whether he truly wanted to know, but in the end, he asked anyway. "Did she know about him?"

The polishing motions in Arthur's periphery slowed to a stop, and George lowered his hands. "Yes, sire."

Arthur appreciated the fact that he simply answered without artifice. "Since when, exactly?"

"Rather early on." George frowned at his cutlery and cleaning rags, and then looked at Arthur again. "I went to her when I first suspected. She is the reason I learned to look kindly on magic, as well. It was likely the same for many of us, actually. The servants, I mean; she was very persuasive in her mercies."

Arthur nodded and let his gaze rest on the disordered mess of Merlin's hair, just another splotch of shadow on a dark night. "Did I disappoint her?"

"I cannot imagine you could." George cleared his throat the way other men shrugged, but he didn't ever really loosen up enough for a proper shoulder shrug. "She always believed that you would change things for men like him. That you would be better than your father. I do not presume to know the late queen's mind, but I believe that she would be proud. And she would approve of your efforts on his behalf. She was fond of him."

Arthur shifted against the log at his back and nodded. George offered a short bow of his head in return, but Arthur's questions left him casting puzzled glances from over his cleaning for a good long while after.

Since Arthur had his hand resting in Merlin's hair, he knew the moment when Merlin began to stir. At the tensing of his posture, Gwaine sat up from his slouch on his bedroll and picked up the magical dagger.

George set down his cleaning utensils to attend them as well, but Arthur shook his head. "No. Go wait with the others."

"But sire – "

"No," Arthur snapped. "And if this goes south, you will run. Do you understand? There will be no heroics."

George turned mulish again, but he picked up a few of his things and retreated as ordered. Percival stepped from the trees as he passed, and Arthur waved at him to stay back as well. He did, but he prodded at the men arrayed around the other campfire to make sure that they woke and stayed alert.

"How should we do this?" Gwaine asked.

"I have no idea." Arthur relegated him to the back of his mind and pressed his hand to Merlin's sternum. "Gwaine… If it's not him…"

"I know," Gwaine replied, hoarse. "Quick and clean. He won't suffer."

Arthur nodded and swallowed back the miasma of things he felt in response to that. "I know I should be the one to do it – "

"Princess," Gwaine interrupted softly. "You aren't the same kind of killer as me. I know that, and I'm glad of it."

There wasn't anything that Arthur could say to that, so he didn't. Some kindness shouldn't be forced into words like that just was, so Arthur kept his peace and pretended he hadn't made Gwaine say it. He sucked his tongue to relieve the dryness of his mouth and then said, "Merlin? Time to wake up."

Merlin took a few deeper breaths, and then made a face like something died in his mouth while he wasn't paying attention.

"Come on, sleepy head." Arthur kept his voice steady and normal by force – or at least it seemed so to his own ears. He shook Merlin a little harder.

"Mm up," Merlin slurred. He fumbled his hands at Arthur to get him to stop jostling him, and then blinked his eyes open, still grimacing over the taste of his own tongue. "Prat."

It looked like Merlin, sounded like him… Arthur let some of the tension seep from the arm holding Merlin down against the ground, meant to provide Gwaine with a clear path if it came to that. "How do you feel?"

Merlin's face crimped and he curled his head into the heel of a fumbling hand before eeking out a pained, faint, "Ow."

Arthur glanced up at Gwaine, bit his lip, and looked at his saddle bags draped over the log against which he had been reclining. "I have some headache remedy you can have."

"Anything," Merlin mumbled, shielding his face with his arms. "S'a bloody circus in here."

"Hang on," Arthur murmured. He rummaged in his saddlebag and pulled out the bottle of water tainted with cold iron dust. It winked faintly in the firelight, and Arthur lifted his eyes to peer past it at Gwaine, who took a breath before acknowledging what Arthur planned to do. "Here, Merlin." Arthur shook the bottle to stir everything up, and then pulled out the cork. "Drink this."

Gwaine sort of shoved Merlin into a partially upright slump, and Arthur pressed Merlin's hands around the bottle. He had to support the whole mess of fingers and glass when it became apparent that Merlin lacked sufficient muscle tone to handle drinking by himself. His fingers seemed nerveless within the cradle of Arthur's hands, and his eyes blinked around in bleary non-recognition as he sucked the water down. "Ugh." Merlin let out a dry cough and shoved the bottle away half-consumed. "Foul."

"Willow bark," Arthur remarked. He wished he didn't feel guilty for this; it was necessary. "And ginger."

"It's disgusting." A few more coughs sneaked out from Merlin's chest as he looked around in confusion. "Where are we?" Then he pulled back from the sight of Arthur and asked, "What's on your head?"

Arthur self-consciously adjusted the knit hat, and then ignored the question about it. "About a half-day's journey through Powys." Arthur watched Merlin in concern; Vivienne had apparently been sick straight away after drinking this concoction; he assumed that it would eventually affect Merlin the same.

"Powys," Merlin echoed like a foreign word on his tongue. "Why are we in Powys? Are we on a hunt?" He wobbled where he sat and dropped his forehead into his hand. "Oh," he groaned, and swallowed thickly. "What happened? Did I get knocked out?"

Arthur started to shake his head, and then glanced at an equally concerned Gwaine before asking, "What do you remember?"

Merlin shook his hand and then forced his head back up. He happened to be facing Gwaine when he did it. His face stayed blank as their eyes met.

"Hey, Merls." Gwaine poked his arm. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Powys…we're in Powys." Merlin kept eyeing Gwaine with unease, and then he looked at Arthur. "We're going to check the citadel?"

This didn't look right. Arthur cocked his head to one side. "What citadel?" When Merlin seemed unable to decide whether to speak or not, Arthur told him, "I need you oriented, Merlin. What citadel?"

After casting another wary glance at Gwaine, Merlin replied, "Idirsholas. Probably just travelers, but the king wanted you to make sure."

Arthur didn't breathe at first, and then he remained calm by sheer and precarious force of will. "Right. Who am I, then?"

Merlin narrowed his eyes. "Prince Arthur. Did I hit my head? Is that why it hurts so much?"

"And who is that?" Arthur pointed at Gwaine even though at that exact moment, he really didn't want to.

"I don't know." Merlin faced Gwaine again, apologetic. "Sorry. Did we meet you on the way? Everything's sort of fuzzy."

It was admirable, how stone-still Gwaine managed to keep his features when Arthur knew he must have felt gutted just then. "No worries, mate. I'm Gwaine."

Merlin looked down at the hand that Gwaine offered him and carefully shook it.

Arthur kept his focus on Merlin as Gwaine climbed to his feet immediately after and walked away. "Stay here for a minute," Arthur ordered. "I'll be right back."

"Yes, sire." Merlin craned his neck to take in the sight of the other campfire, and the knights sitting around it like otters popping their upper bodies out of the water at an odd sound. Merlin seemed self-conscious at the scrutiny and quickly put his back to them again. "I might be sick."

Nonchalant, Arthur replied, "Head injuries can do that. Try not to make a mess of the supplies." His stoicism lasted until he caught up to Gwaine halfway to the other fire, and then he let a moment's emotion show on his face. "The last time Merlin and I rode this way was just over nine years ago. We were going to Idirsholas after a villager reported seeing smoke there. It should have been abandoned."

Gwaine ignored the part where it happened before he and Merlin met. "Was it a good time?"

Arthur shook his head. "It was right before a very bad time."

"So, he's confused," Gwaine decided. "Trying to find a way around the enchantment. He just picked the closest thing to where we are now and hid inside of it."

They had reached the other campfire by then and Arthur held up a hand for everyone to stay seated. He perched himself on the balls of his feet, at their level. "I'm not sure if this is good or bad," Arthur started, voice hushed so that everyone needed to lean forward to hear him. "Merlin seems to think it's nine years ago. He called me Prince Arthur, and he didn't recognize Gwaine at all."

Caradoc glanced at the fire, and then asked, "Are you certain he's telling the truth?"

"He seems to be," Arthur replied. "And I think we should play along. This may be some self-defense mechanism to contain the enchantment again. I don't want to sabotage it if it is."

George studied the darkness beyond the fire as he said, "Master Merlin did not know me nine years ago. We had not met."

"Welcome to the club," Gwaine told him darkly. "We can pass you off as my servant; he won't know the difference."

Percival remained standing, technically still on watch. "He won't know me either. Won't it seem strange that we're knights of Camelot?"

"He didn't know the name of every knight," Arthur replied. "Not until much later; he wasn't interested in the court."

Ronhael pointed out, "If we start making a fuss and explaining things he doesn't ask about, we'll look suspicious."

Arthur nodded. "Exactly. So we just don't address any of it. More importantly, no one knew about his magic nine years ago, and maybe that's the point. He won't use it openly so long as he thinks he needs to hide it."

Meliot, silent up until then, finally stirred. "Muscle memory, of a sort? It would have been second nature not to use magic back then."

"That's a thought," Ronhael mused, though from his face, not an entirely pleasant one. "Your father was still alive, sire, and you didn't tend to cross him. It's clever, employing his own fear of you to control himself."

Arthur nodded and chewed his lip to distract himself from the memory of how he once was. He was trading on the reputation and prejudices of that old Arthur, though, wasn't he? No use sugarcoating anything. "I also gave him something to hopefully dampen the magic, or block it. It may just make him ill, though. I don't know for sure." At the curious looks he received, Arthur explained, "Headache remedy infused with dust filings of cold iron."

Percival winced. "He won't like that."

"And if it works. he won't admit what it really does to him, either," Arthur added. "He seems to think he has a concussion. We'll run with that." The others nodded, and Arthur peered back through the darkness to the other fire where he could see Merlin in silhouette with his head cradled gingerly in his hands. "We should leave immediately, and make what progress we can while he's caught up in this regression. It may not last, and I don't want to waste whatever time he's able to buy for us. Pack it in, gentlemen."

No one argued with that, though in normal circumstances, at least one of them should have rhetorically pointed out that it was the middle of the night. Percival took a moment to clap Gwaine on the shoulder hard enough to earn a half-hearted shove back, and Arthur left them to it. He couldn't do anything for Gwaine at the moment that Percival couldn't manage better.

Arthur made his way back to Merlin and picked up his bedroll, which he hadn't actually laid out. "Come on, Merlin. We need to get moving." He bopped Merlin with the bedroll to make him lift his head back up. "I know your head hurts, but you shouldn't sleep with an injury like that anyway."

Merlin grinned, awkward and nervous like a throwback to happier days. "You waited here until I woke up. Were you worried about me?"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Of course, idiot." He swallowed and forced himself to behave with the complete disregard of his younger self, even if it had been an act a lot of the time to cover his own awkwardness with people he cared about. "Who will wash my socks and mend my armor if you go and get yourself killed? It's irresponsible of you, being injured."

He must not have managed to pull off selfish well enough, because Merlin went soft and quiet. "Was it really that bad?"

Yes, Arthur thought. It was horrific. And for reasons Merlin might never come to know. With difficulty, Arthur gave him a tight smile and croaked, "Pack your things."

Merlin shivered and began gathering the supplies scattered around him. He was pale and obviously nauseous, but he didn't argue or backtalk. He just did as Arthur bade. At one point, he went to wipe the cold sweat from his face and froze when his hands encountered the snarl of his unkempt beard. A moment later, though, his expression went vague for a second, and then he dropped his hands and went on about his business as if nothing had happened. They rode out soon after that, with no further conversation, and Arthur hoped that this reprieve would last.

---

By the time dawn broke, Arthur could just barely see the ruins of Idirsholas cresting the tree line to the north of the path they followed, thickly obscured by fog. No one pointed it out, and Arthur delved back into the trees at the first opportunity, just in case Merlin remembered what it looked like well enough for the sight to jar him back to full knowledge of the present. No one spoke much. The only occurrence of note was that Merlin covered his mouth at irregular intervals as if on the verge of being sick, but nothing manifested. Arthur was tempted to consider that a good sign, except he knew how ill the tainted water had made Vivienne, and he feared that Merlin's milder reaction, while still unpleasant, only meant that it had less effect on him overall.

Gwaine maintained himself in stoic silence the whole time, and though Arthur knew that it was hurt that caused the cold affect, he didn't know what might be done to lessen it. George kept trying to engage Merlin in conversation when their pace allowed, which seemed odd. Then again, George and Merlin would have been similarly ranked nine years before; it may be expected between servants. Arthur did not think it was only that, though; George acted as if trying to distract one or both of them from their current predicament, or Merlin from his nausea, but his voice also carried an edge of curiosity. Their genuine interactions as servants at the castle were likely few and far between, and Arthur knew that the so-called training sessions he had used to punish Merlin were not something that would have endeared them to each other. Merlin was not a mean person by nature – not that Arthur saw, anyway – but he doubted that the Merlin of serving days ever came to see George as a full person rather than a bit of a joke. Maybe George was just trying to figure out what sort of person Merlin used to be, before his life and unwanted titles got in the way.

About midday, Arthur considered calling a halt; the horses were irritable, as were their riders, and they had made good time toward the western border of Powys, beyond which lay the kingless wildlands of eastern Gwynedd. He reigned in his horse at a high point on the old cobbled road they had found – something left over from the Roman days, and easily passable if occasionally overgrown – and peered through the thinning trees toward the west. He could just make out the shadow of the mountains rising in the distance, beyond the rolling hills. He could also see the winding path emerging from the trees perhaps a mile to the north of their position that he and Merlin had taken a year and a half prior with Guinevere. Their road would intersect with it soon.

Arthur took a deep breath and looked back as his disperse party rode up and gathered around him. Merlin's horse Llamrei whickered and backstepped as the other horses drew close, but quieted a moment later.

"We need to press on," Arthur told them unnecessarily. He eyed the horizon, though, because this actually was the area where men reported seeing the crippled white dragon on occasion; it didn't approach humans, as their earlier cover story to Merlin claimed, but they were entering its territory directly. Merlin may have referred to the thing as feral, but Arthur doubted it was so simple; that dragon had a bond with Morgana, and it mourned her in some fashion, even if Arthur didn't understand the form that sorrow took. There was every possibility that it held some kind of grudge against the men responsible for Morgana's death. It might even still live in the cauldron itself.

Caradoc prodded his horse forward and spoke aloud what Arthur was already thinking. "Supposedly, a dragon lives in those mountains. White as snow, and shaped oddly. Is that this Aithusa he mentioned before? It is said to be quite territorial."

Arthur nodded and answered both question and comment with a simple, "Yes." He hadn't explained about the creature's role in the day of Guinevere's death, or its unnatural attachment to his sister. He somewhat regretted that now; it would be better if they all comprehended the motivation behind any ferocity that the thing showed them, should they run into it.

Llamrei stamped again and snorted, and Merlin grabbed onto the saddle as she bounced backwards.

Since he was closest, Ronhael grabbed at her bridle and pulled to try and steady her. "Alright there, Merlin?"

"Yeah," Merlin grunted, and then immediately amended that to, "No. Something feels wrong." All of the prancing and bobbing was probably upsetting his already unsettled stomach.

Arthur checked the ground for something that may have spooked the horse – a snake or a carcass – but there was nothing evident.

"Whoa," Caradoc exclaimed, his horse rearing back suddenly as Merlin's swung her backside around in a sudden, agitated arc.

Ronhael lost his grip on Llamrei's bridle and spurred forward again to help. Abruptly, he barked, "Someone get him off the horse!" He used his own horse to back Llamrei into a thicket at the side of the road where she couldn't keep prancing, agitated as she was, and reached out to grab Merlin by the arm.

Arthur swore and swung down from his horse as he saw why. He risked a hoof to the chest as he squirmed in behind Llamrei to grab Merlin from the side. "I've got him." He pulled Merlin down in a stiff jumble of curled-up limbs. Thankfully, Gwaine was already there to help untangle Merlin's foot from the stirrup, because the second Llamrei felt the weight leave her back, she broke free and tried to bolt. Someone else would have to deal with chasing her down. Arthur fumbled Merlin to the ground on his knees and got behind him, arms tucked up under Merlin's, their hands clasped and tucked against Merlin's stomach. "I've got you; it's alright."

Merlin shook his head, agitated and rapidly sliding into confusion as he breathed harshly through his nose. "What…Arthur? What…?"

"Hush; it's fine." Arthur hugged him to his chest as Merlin lost the ability to form words right there in front of him, and emitted a distressed, open-mouthed hum instead.

A few of the others dropped to the ground behind Arthur, and then George scrambled around in front of them. "I have the oil."

"It's too late for that," Arthur replied. A false calm washed over him the way it did every time this happened, rendering Arthur remote where the horror over this affliction couldn't touch him. Merlin reared his head back, spine curling the other way, and Arthur winced as blunted fingernails sank into the soft skin of his hands. Merlin made a sound like growling or spitting through his grit teeth as his muscles all clenched at once and pulled him in opposing directions. Arthur listened to Merlin's breathing turn labored and ragged.

"Gods…" Meliot breathed. Arthur took note of Meliot's boots in his periphery as they turned the other direction and then disappeared from sight.

Gwaine pulled off a glove with his teeth and reached to help, even though he couldn't do much for this but watch. "He's going to hurt himself, contorting like that." Gwaine tried to help Arthur keep some kind of a protective hold on Merlin as he flexed up onto his knees, driven into a crescent shape by the bow of the convulsions.

"Get him down," Arthur grunted nonsensically. Thankfully, Gwaine understood, though, and caught Merlin's head in the crook of his elbow as Arthur tipped Merlin to one side to free his legs. He ended falling onto his shoulder, his arm trapped beneath Merlin as the shaking took proper hold and intensified, feet sliding in the dirt. With the way that Merlin's fingers clamped down on his, Arthur couldn't untangle himself, so he just used his body to block Merlin from hitting something against the ground as he twisted and shook.

"Here," Gwaine murmured. He pried one of Merlin's hands off, and then helped Arthur get him properly on the ground with a bunched-up cloak under his head so that Arthur wasn't sprawled out like a living blanket anymore.

"Thanks," Arthur gasped, levering himself back up onto his knees, unaware until that moment of his own emotional reaction. He sniffed to clear his airways, and ignored the slickness along his lids threatening to spill over his cheeks. This wasn't the time – it would never help anything. Hadn't he told Merlin himself once that no man was worth his tears? Arthur kept his now freed hand cupped under Merlin's head, squished between an ear and the fabric shoved there. Gwaine grabbed Arthur's shoulder to steady him mentally, which Arthur couldn't spare attention to be grateful for just then. Merlin shook into a tight furl between them, and Arthur made the mistake of looking at his face while it was happening.

"Don't," Gwaine warned.

"Fuck," Arthur breathed, flinging his face away again. He would never forget that now – the rolling white of Merlin's eyes, nostrils flared, teeth bared and clenched with his lips peeled back in a rictus the same as a corpse left untouched for days after death, saliva shining in a viscous trail from the corner of his mouth like foam stuck in the bristles of his beard… "Oh, fuck." He couldn't afford to be sick; he couldn't make this about him. "I hate this," Arthur choked into the private cocoon that held only him, Gwaine, and Merlin's body heaving and contorted mindlessly on the ground with them. "I hate this, Gwaine. I hate it."

Gwaine nodded somewhere at the edges of Arthur's field of vision. "I know, princess. So do I."

"It will be over soon," George added.

Arthur had forgotten all about him until he spoke, and uncharitably, Arthur wanted to yell at him for daring to interlope here where he didn't belong, and for hearing things – private things – that weren't meant for a bloody servant. Arthur focused instead on the trembling clench of fingers dug into his hand where he still held Merlin's in an unbreakable grip. He held his breath as if that might hold in all of the awful swelling in his chest too, but it wouldn't, and he had to let it go as Merlin twisted, spine curving concave now, neck arched back, his whole body taut in a violently shuddering arc from head to boots, curled like a wood shaving fallen at the feet of an absent whittler. And Arthur had to just let that happen – had to watch Merlin contort and writhe like that, and do nothing to restrict it because it would just hurt him to try and hold him still against the ground when his body literally couldn't stop itself.

Arthur let himself be jostled every time Merlin jerked, and allowed his eyes to lose focus at a random point just past where Merlin's feet flexed in their boots, tap-tapping at the ground in a dull thumping series of irregular beats like a palsied heart inside a hollow chest. The fingers digging into Arthur's palm loosened abruptly and Arthur threaded them with his own before they clamped down again, because that's how Merlin said people were supposed to hold hands. Not like strangling something, or gripping the hilt of a sword. They were supposed to lace fingers and be staid about it.

Soft hair upbraided the palm of Arthur's other hand, and Arthur kept on cupping Merlin's head like a precious thing caught in a deep winter cold so that he wouldn't hurt himself – wouldn't smash that delicate crown against the ground and break it worse than it already was. Time spun out like an hallucination, vague as Arthur divorced himself from the moment while he held everything that mattered most steady in his hands. The sky above them stretched clear and blue. Serene. It was a sky like any other, bright and cold with the uncaring light of a late winter sun. Merlin twisted sharp in Arthur's arms as if desperate to evade something twined around him. Inside him. Like the black, oily things, seeking and screaming. Arthur swallowed and let his eyes wander to the left, along the cobbles of the road they traveled, until he encountered a person standing there. Watching. Shining in a jeweled cascade of plum fabric. She shimmered in a mirage, blurred by the wet of Arthur's own eyes, smeared out of focus. Not really there.

The sharp bite of fingernails wrenched Arthur back to the present, and sound cascaded back into his awareness. Merlin shivered in his arms, gradually going limp, his muscles losing tone, ticking like a horse's flank after a hard run. The horses themselves were screaming and Arthur blinked in confusion as he raised his head, hair prickling along his arms, his hackles raised. He could smell must and something like charcoal. A blustering wind swept up a swirl of dead leaves all around them. Gwaine's eyes were saucers as he stared up at the sky, and Arthur felt panic in his gut like being stabbed with a hot blade fresh from forge fire. Weight loomed like the threat of an avalanche in the air overhead. Arthur pulled Merlin, still trembling and residually stiff, against his chest like a pointy bundle of sticks. He risked looking up.

Claws were the first thing that Arthur saw descending toward him, and he went rigid in shock as they tapped down close enough to touch, and gouged points like anchors into the road, churning up the cobblestones like so much butter. Another massive, scaled foot crashed to the ground on Arthur's other side, followed by the bulk of a dragon's belly behind him, and farther away, the whip-sharp slap of a tail coming down in a line of force against the road, sending up a great billow of dirt and leaves as it fell. The ground shook from the impact, and George toppled over into Gwaine, unprepared for the earth to move. Arthur blinked at the foot to his right and wondered if dragons considered them paws or actual feet. They flexed into the ground the way a cat might knead at a blanket.

A shadow fell across the road, dousing Arthur like a sheet of water as a giant snout arced over Arthur's head, twisted, and then peered at him upside-down. Gwaine scrambled back, dragging George literally across the ground to avoid being batted forcibly aside by the great fans of scaled dragon ears, and fumbled to get his sword out without dropping it. One glowing yellow eye glared at Arthur from inches away as if he ranked one level below an insect stuck to its belly. "Young Pendragon." The great dragon's voice rumbled like a forge furnace. In the background, at least one of Arthur's knights shrieked like a little girl. "I have been waiting for you."

---

Arthur took his time at the stream, dipping his shirt into the water and then running it over his face and chest again and again and again… His armor, gambeson and chainmail lay discarded behind him, shining in the wan sunlight. It could use a wash, too, but Arthur… He didn't actually care. He used his sodden shirt to wet his hair, then squeezed the fabric to send rivulets of chilled water running down his back. His knees and the hems of his trousers were soaked, but he didn't have a spare set of those on hand. Trickles of water ran into his waistband too, damp patches spreading under his belt. It would be unpleasant later. Squishy. It would chafe. But he didn't care.

"It wasn't a maiden scream," Percival groused somewhere behind him, past a thin screen of trees that did little to obscure Arthur washing in the stream, and nothing at all to block sound. Arthur scrubbed an unnaturally steady hand over his mouth and nose. He needed a shave; his own scratchy skin hurt his palm.

Ronhael added to his earlier teasing, "On her wedding night, specifically."

Arthur raised his head to check on Merlin, curled on the ground far away under the watchful eye of a dragon. No change, other than that the dragon had extended a claw to brush Merlin's hair the way that Arthur might pet a dog.

"Nah, give the man a break," Gwaine broke in, loose and amiable. "It was a deep, manly shriek. An expression of virility in the face of crippling fear."

Percival grabbed a clod of dirt from the churned-up road and chucked it at him. "And what were you doing when it landed, little man? Crawling away on your knees?"

Arthur dunked his shirt in the water again, and scrubbed his already clean skin one more time. It wasn't his flesh that needed the wash just then; his flesh was just all he had to pick at.

George wandered through Arthur's periphery with a pot of water, the sight of him mostly obscured by the bracken growing along the riverbank. "At least Sir Gwaine was holding his sword while he wibbled."

Farther back from the water, Caradoc admitted, "I nearly wet myself."

"George here just got back on his feet and stood there," Gwaine reminded them, "disapproving, and bitched at the dragon."

"It got dust everywhere!" George exclaimed.

Arthur glanced at his armor, and noted the cloud of dust that had indeed turned the maroon of his gambeson to a powdery tan. He ran his dripping shirt over his arms as he looked at it.

"Do you know how long it takes to brush dust from brocade?" George ranted.

Ronhael glared at Gwaine. "There, you've got him wound up again."

"Or clear it from chain link – You'll squeak! And turn grey and dull – I have to – "

While George went on in the background, Meliot grumbled. "No wonder the dragon bloody well apologized to him."

Caradoc snorted. "Hell, I nearly apologized." He raised his cup at George and told him, "You, young man, have quite the mouth on you."

George paused in his ranting and studied Caradoc sidelong as if trying to determine just how seriously he was being ridiculed.

Arthur ducked his head and wrung his shirt out over his hair again, and the back of his neck.

"To George," Ronhael saluted. "Most unimpressed servant in Camelot."

"Hear, hear," Caradoc joined in.

"Aye," Gwaine agreed. "I admire the balls on you."

After a long pause, George chirped, "Thank you, Sirs." His voice gave away the fact that he was preening and smiling. "Incidentally, it is a very good thing that I brought my brushes with me. I nearly didn't, but they take up very little space, and I told myself that I would regret – "

"Okay, come over here now," Gwaine interrupted. Presumably, he then steered George away as he started talking about something else entirely to distract him from another rant about polishing chainmail. The sound of Gwaine's voice droned in the background, soothing and unintelligible to Arthur's blood-rushing ears.

Sometime later, Arthur realized that he had just been crouched on the shore, staring at the water without seeing it for a while. He made himself stand up. His skin prickled, mostly dry by then, and when he turned to pick up his armor, he found a fresh tunic in its place instead. Not his usual red, either; this one was blue. Like the blue that Merlin often wore. Arthur stopped himself pondering that and put it on. Since he was already holding the knit hat, and he didn't want it cluttering up his hands, Arthur pulled the annoying thing down over his damp hair and left it there, crooked and lumpy on his head.

As Arthur stepped through the bare brush and climbed up the riverbank, Gwaine called, "Arthur. Alright, there?"

Arthur nodded without looking at him, and waved them all off even though none of them actually tried to approach him. He didn't care if it seemed odd of him; he just had no desire to deal with any of them, or think about niceties and the proper conduct of a king. Arthur made his way across the soft, forested ground, eyes picking out early sprouts of what would soon be spring flowers and greenery, until his gaze encountered a wall of scales. He looked up.

"Does it normally take this long?" the dragon asked.

Arthur ignored the question; he didn't have energy enough for it. Instead, he stepped over a series of splayed claws until he reached Merlin's body, and then stepped over that too. He thumped his back against a tree and slid down, bark raking his spine through the blue tunic, until his knees hovered around his ears. Once there, he didn't move for a while.

The dragon blinked at him periodically as it laid there on four haunches. Eventually, it hazarded, "You must not despair."

Arthur picked at the dry, calloused skin of his palms. Sword marks looked a bit like scales in the right light. "You tell me that there is no hope of reversing this enchantment, and then you tell me not to despair?"

"I did not say that there is no hope," the dragon countered. "I said only that I have never heard of such a thing being contemplated. Not with this magic. It is insidious, and powerful."

Arthur took a deep breath and looked away from the fiddling of his own fingers. "If there's no way to undo this magic, then how could he have taken it out of Guinevere the way that he did? How did it end up in him at all?"

"I could not say," the dragon rumbled. That was probably its version of a soft voice, or even a whisper. It made Arthur's chest vibrate, the sound was so low and pervasive; it reverberated through Arthur's own flesh. "I have never heard of this happening before."

Arthur nodded and stayed as he was, which was in a surreal place, to say the least. After sniffing hard to keep his nostrils clear, Arthur yanked off the wooly hat and tossed it to one side before he reached for Merlin himself.

The dragon watched him, impassive as Arthur dragged Merlin's dead weight into his arms. "What are you doing?"

"He's disoriented when he wakes up," Arthur mumbled. "It's better if he has someone to focus on."

"I see." The dragon clearly did not, but it made no move to interfere.

Arthur propped Merlin awkwardly against his chest, unconscious and presumably dreaming; he twitched at irregular intervals. The dragon shifted to lay in front of Arthur the same way a dog might, tail coiled along the road behind him, wings splayed out and resting on the ground. It even crossed its – its hands? Paws? Feet? – its wrists in front of itself, prim like a queen bitch in the royal kennels.

Arthur tipped his head back against the tree, which put the dragon squarely in his line of vision. "I thought he commanded you to keep away from him. How could you approach us now?"

"He approached me," the dragon replied. "Once he crossed the threshold imposed by his own magic, it ceased to be."

Arthur nodded; in truth, he didn't really care about any of that. "Did you know?" he asked. "Is that why he made you leave?"

The dragon glanced aside, and then down at Merlin. Its face softened. If it were not a lizard, Arthur might have called its expression tender. "I had no idea, Arthur Pendragon. Even now, I see nothing of it in him." It extended a claw and poked the sole of Merlin's boot as if it couldn't help the urge to touch him. "He was simply angry with me. And he did not want to see me."

A fair way down the road, everyone else was taking the opportunity to consume something since Arthur hadn't let them stop yet that day. They also seemed to be taking turns wandering up the road far enough to check on Arthur – make sure he hadn't been eaten – and then retreating. With his eyes trained unseeing toward his men, Arthur asked, "This magic – what is the ritual supposed to do, exactly?"

The dragon blinked at him, slow and ponderous. "To be clear, you are asking me to tell you what your wife suffered at the hands of your sister?"

"You don't mince words, do you?" Arthur griped.

Unimpressed, the dragon replied, "You are the one who complained, when last we met, that I speak only in riddles."

"Yes, alright." Arthur held up his hand without actually lifting his arm from Merlin's chest. "Just tell me, please."

The dragon blew a plume of hot air at Arthur, like walking past a blacksmith's forge on a cool day. "Mandrake affects the mind. Even independent of magic or ritual, it plays with the senses. In high doses, such as those used in the Teine Diaga, it causes hallucinations and madness. Coupled with the ritual, it serves solely to drive a person from their own mind, and leave it a blank slate to be writ upon by another. Your wife was tormented, Arthur Pendragon. It is that simple."

"And Merlin?" Arthur pressed on, relegating this information to the back of his mind to consider when he could afford the time to break down over it. "How could it transfer to him?"

"You have already asked that," the dragon replied, singsong and more curious-sounding than anything else. "And I have already told you that I cannot say. Merlin is unique, and his power is unlike that of other men. How he did what you describe, I may never know."

"You said madness," Arthur reminded it. "Hallucinations. He's had those. He – he heard Guinevere in the castle after she died. And…and visions. He's had terrible visions of things that never happened. The sky on fire, and a lake… He even speaks with another's voice, but if this magic could drive him mad, then was it really just him all along? Was it just a torment, and I missed it?"

Cautiously, the dragon told him, "Merlin has the capacity to See True. He has the capacity for all magic. But only time can tell whether these visions you speak of were prophecy or the madness of this enchantment."

"What sorts of hallucinations does mandrake cause?" Arthur pressed. "Could it make him think he's someone else, and not realize it?"

The dragon sighed, which just served to surround Arthur with more hot air to stifle him where he sat. "Why do you persist in trying to torture yourself? It is done. You must move forward now."

"Just tell me," Arthur snapped. "No one ever just explains magic to me when I don't understand. I need it explained."

The dragon lowered its massive snout and picked at its ear with a single pointed claw. "You are tenacious," it sighed. "In keeping with your namesake."

Arthur snorted. "Bear or dragon?"

"Both," the dragon snapped. "If you must know, the effects of the mandrake feed on the fears, insecurities, and regrets of the host. His hallucinations would have followed that route."

Arthur looked down and gently rubbed Merlin's chest, near his heart where he tended to clutch it in pain. "Guilt?"

"Yes," the dragon replied, droll. "That is another name for regret, is it not?"

Arthur hugged Merlin closer. His head lolled back against Arthur's shoulder, and Arthur could feel the soft puffs of Merlin's breath exhaling against his neck. "He knew things he couldn't have known," Arthur said like a confession. "Things from before he was born, that no one could have told him." Fog and betrayal, and the lies told to conceal the conception of a king.

"Then he Saw True," the dragon said, matter of fact.

Infuriating thing, Arthur thought uncharitably. He pressed his face into Merlin's hair and inhaled. Without lifting his head, he mumbled, "The goddess at the cauldron – "

"I know of no goddess," the dragon interrupted. "Though I do know of one being who may have told Merlin that there was one."

Arthur picked his face up out of Merlin's hair to ask, "And what being is that?"

"It is called the Dochraid," the dragon replied, still rumbling like he meant his voice to be a comfort rather than rattling like the earth shifting in a collapsing mine. "It is older than any dragon who ever lived, and takes the form of an old hag. Though what it truly is, I doubt anyone knows."

"Did it lie to him?" Arthur breathed.

"About the white goddess at the cauldron?" The dragon tipped its head and blinked at him. "Why would you think it lied? You saw the light yourself."

"Because I have seen the same light in Merlin's own palm." Arthur took a careful breath and then sucked his lips between his teeth. "He believes things," Arthur said. "Things that later come true."

"Heh." The dragon's lips parted to show slivers of pointed teeth.

Arthur balked. "Are you laughing at me?"

"Yes," the dragon chuckled like gravel rolling down an incline. "Merlin is only magic, silly king. He is not the maker of all the ways of the world."

Arthur rolled his eyes and huffed. "Right. I'm the silly one."

"There are many beings of the old religion who have no name but those we give them, and whose very existence is known by few still living. Much knowledge of such things is gone now, Arthur Pendragon. But that does not mean that their power is also gone. It is true that Merlin knows things – things he was not told or taught, and which he does not recognize as knowledge that he should not have. But that does not mean that he invents those things. He simply accepts that they are there."

"His affect is ignorance," Arthur mumbled offhand.

The dragon studied him, unblinking, and then conceded, "Perhaps. How will you summon the goddess once you reach the cauldron?"

Arthur tucked his chin so that he could look at Merlin resting against his chest. "I don't know. Merlin is the only one who seems to know she's there." Arthur shrugged and looked off toward his men again where they huddled around their supplies and tried not to make it obvious how carefully they watched Arthur converse with a dragon. "He might summon her himself? If I can convince him to step into the water, then I can convince him to do that too. Can't I?"

"He will resist you," the dragon cautioned. "You face a different challenge than the last time, I think."

Arthur tossed the dragon a sharp glance.

"You do not have to worry that Merlin is gone," the dragon went on. "Only that he will not be able to overcome the magic that poisons him. It will fight to keep him." The dragon's great head wagged as he brought his face uncomfortably close to Arthur's. "Against this, Arthur Pendragon, you may not be enough."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. In like tone, he replied, "Do you think I don't already know that?"

The great dragon cocked its head and sat back again, watching him with curiosity now. "No," it mused eventually. "I think you do." It swung its head up and peered into the distance toward the south. "You will need someone to summon the goddess; I will find a sorcerer to do that for you."

"How?" Arthur demanded.

"Never you mind," the dragon snapped. "You have more important things to worry about now."

"The other dragon," Arthur reminded it for perhaps the third time, now, trying to prompt some sort of assurance that the great dragon would handle that issue too. "It still dwells in these mountains."

"Yes," the great dragon said. "I imagine she does."

The irritation that Arthur intended to let loose after that did not have a chance to manifest. Merlin stirred in his arms, and Arthur lost all interest in bantering with a giant, mouthy lizard. Merlin seemed more agitated than usual, batting at Arthur's arms where they circled him, so Arthur soothed, "Easy." He felt his own pulse spike, and forced his breathing even again. "Easy, Merlin. You're alright."

Merlin woke like a man cresting water, scrambling for air, his fingers digging in the arms Arthur had slung around him to hold him up. He breathed hard with sudden consciousness and blinked at the dragon's snout right in front of him. When he failed to react to that, Arthur craned his head around to get his face into Merlin's periphery. Merlin turned his head haltingly to look at Arthur, eyes flicking from side-eyeing Arthur, to the dragon, and then back again. "What happened? What's going on?"

Arthur swallowed and asked, "Do you know where we are?"

Merlin straight up replied, "No."

"What about where we're going?"

"No," Merlin said again, voice rising in pitch. Fear glittered in his eyes.

The way he was looking at Arthur frightened him more than seeing someone other than Merlin lurking behind Merlin's gaze. He had to ask. He had to. "Who am I, then?"

Merlin jerked his head as if he meant to shake it and then froze instead.

Arthur curled the corner of his lip between his teeth, and forced himself to ask again, "Who am I, Merlin?"

"What's going on?" Merlin demanded again, pitchy with anxiety.

Arthur swallowed the heat that threatened his sinuses. "I need you tell me if you recognize me."

"No!" Shaking, Merlin scrambled out of Arthur's arms and shoved himself backwards along the ground, out of reach of both him and the dragon's breath. "What do you want with me?" He eyed the dragon with less suspicion than he did Arthur, which would have been comical in other circumstances. "I haven't done anything," Merlin insisted. "I don't have anything you want."

Arthur nodded, and took a moment to wrest his proverbial heart back into his chest where it belonged. "All I want is you. Your friendship and wellbeing."

Merlin pressed his palms into the ground and cast a wild look around until his eyes fell on the other knights lounging about down the road from them. Incredulous, he echoed, "Friendship?" His breathing went panicky. "You don't want my friendship. Who are you? Where are you taking me?" He faced Arthur again, fingers digging into the dirt, and when Arthur got up on his knees, intending to follow, Merlin's hand shot up to stave him off – fingers spread, palm forward, warding. He hissed as his hand reached the height of his shoulder, though, and the pain of that old wound startled him into a frantic, "Stay back!" But then he added, pleading, "I don't want to hurt you."

It cut, hearing that, because it was as sure a part of the real Merlin as anything. Even completely divorced from his memory of Arthur and Camelot, Merlin didn't actually want to do anyone harm. He was kind, at his core. He wanted to help people. Save them – it was what got him into this destiny mess. Someone told him once that he could save people. People with magic. And he wanted to be the man they told him he was.

Arthur held his hands up, showcasing them as empty. A waft of a memory floated through Arthur's mind as he crept closer in spite of Merlin's warning, slowly, trying not to appear threatening. Tell me, Merlin. Do you know how to walk on your knees? Arthur appreciated the irony as he shuffled forward on his knees like unintended forewarning come to roost. "I know you're frightened," Arthur told him as gently as he could. "And confused, but I promise you, I only want to help you."

Merlin's hand wavered in the air, but did not drop. "Those are knights." He jerked his head toward the collection of figures down the road, all dressed in red.

Arthur nodded. "Of Camelot. Yes. So am I. My name is Arthur."

"Arthur…" Merlin looked at him, and something in his resolve faltered. "Arthur…"

"We met in a marketplace," Arthur told him, fighting his own feinting breath as he kept inching closer. "You insulted me."

"You were…" Merlin made a squeaking sound in the back of his throat and swayed where he sat, fingers curling inward at the tips as he kept holding his hand up against Arthur's advance. Thick and slow like honey, he said, "You were being a prat." His brow furrowed, eyes flickering off to one side.

"I was," Arthur agreed. "I deserved everything you said to me." His fingers curled over Merlin's wrist and tugged his arm down.

Merlin let himself basically be disarmed with a hard, sharp exhalation like relief. He opened his mouth to draw a fresh breath back in, and it shuddered in his chest as he moaned, "What's happening to me? I don't know what's happening to me."

Arthur hooked him by the back of the neck and pulled him forward to muffle the breaking sound of him. "It's alright. It will be alright." A hand crept up into the crook of Arthur's elbow, and then over his arm to hang on to him.

The dragon shoved itself closer, belly carving a furrow through the loose ground just from the weight of it. "Do not lie to him, Arthur Pendragon."

"You, shut up," Arthur snarled. He would be appalled at some point that he dared to speak to a dragon like that, but just then, he was too angry. "I made a promise. I am going to keep it." Then he dismissed the dragon from his notice in favor of shoving Merlin back so that he would be forced to meet Arthur's eyes. "Look at me." He cupped Merlin's face and used his thumbs to force Merlin's chin up. "I promise you, it will be alright. I am not giving you up. Do you understand?"

Merlin choked briefly over an attempt to swallow, and then gurgled, "No. Why don't I know you?"

Arthur took a careful breath, and then replied, "Because if you knew me, you might hurt me. And you don't want to hurt me. So you made yourself forget." It might even have been true.

His voice thin and sheer, Merlin told him, "That doesn't make any sense."

"It makes perfect sense," Arthur insisted. "Because I know you. I know everything important about you, and you would do anything – anything at all – to keep me safe." Arthur nodded to punctuate that, and kept doing it, expectant, until Merlin relented and nodded back. "Right," Arthur breathed.

He let go of Merlin's face and pretended not to notice how Merlin touched the places Arthur had held along his jaw and cheeks before noticing the beard. Merlin's eyes grew huge as he tried not to freak out at the thick snarl of hair growing there.

Arthur pushed Merlin's hands down and held them there briefly to punctuate the unspoken command not to think about the disparity on his own face. Then Arthur looked up at the dragon, who seemed subdued for such a large creature. "Thank you for finding us, and for your promised help. We've lingered here long enough."

The dragon tipped its head and let its breath bathe both of them one last time where they sat. Then it nudged Merlin with its snout hard enough to nearly knock him over, which seemed accidental. "Remember when it is time, young warlock. Until then…" The dragon pulled itself forward with its claws and opened its mouth slightly, which was still wide enough to fit a human head between its front teeth, but considering the overall size of its mouth, it was slight. "…forget that you are magic," the dragon whispered, hot air billowing from its core like a storm-scented furnace.

Arthur lurched backwards as the dragon spread its wings wide and flapped them hard, whipping up a backdraft strong enough to kick off a typhoon of dead leaves and forest debris. The next thing he knew, the beast was airborne, but it labored to gain altitude with the awkward angle at which it held one wing above a rear knee turned slightly outward. Over at the knight's temporary camp, several men shouted, and Arthur saw various supplies go flying in the sharp gusts of wind sheering down from the beast fighting gravity above them.

Eventually, when the gale lessened, George toppled out into the road again with a fabric brush raised like a weapon. He glared around at his disordered supplies, and then sighed at the dust billowing everywhere. For perhaps the first time ever, rather than having kittens at the renewed mess that he would have to clean up, he just tossed the brush into the air without looking and turned his back on it all.

Merlin picked himself up from the tangle of bare bushes into which the dragon's downdraft had blown him, and Arthur latched onto his arm out of habit to keep him close. Gaping at the beast gradually diminishing into the sky, Merlin pointed and said, "That dragon's arthritic." He sounded thrilled just recognizing that fact. "Look at his wing – the joints are stiff. Birds and bats, they do the same thing, if they live long enough."

Arthur skated his eyes down and over to Merlin's face, his own mouth mirroring Merlin's easy smile. He felt such a swell of fondness in that moment that he thought it might actually burst and kill him, should this quest fail at the end. "How do you feel?"

Merlin shrugged and kept staring at the dot in the sky, showing the dragon's progress southeastward. "Fine." He combed his fingers through his hair in what may have been an attempt to tame it, and then picked up Arthur's wooly knit hat from the ground where the dragon's wind had blown it into a pile of twigs and leaf debris. He flapped it a few times to get some of the bits of desiccated forest off of it, and then held it out to Arthur.

"Thank you." Arthur stuffed the hat into his pocket and then steered Merlin out onto the road. "You can help me with my armor."

"Of course, sire."

Arthur had no idea which incarnation of Merlin he might be dealing with now – servant or physician or oblivious enchanted man – but it seemed unwise to ask any more questions. The dragon did something just before it left; Arthur could still smell the magic of it lingering on the air. And as long as Merlin was being agreeable and vague, Arthur resolved to let it be. Forget that you are magic. Was it literal, that command of sorts? Could a dragon just do that to a man? Put an idea in his head and compel him to believe it? To live it as if it were true? If it could, that brought up a whole host of more disturbing questions for which Arthur couldn't spare any consideration just then.

As they approached George and the knights, Arthur made a gesture at them not to start fussing or asking questions. He waited until Merlin began tutting over the dusty state of his armor, and then gestured them all aside to catch them up. Caradoc frowned at the dragon's last pronouncement, but the others seemed to conclude the same thing that Arthur did: somehow, the dragon took away Merlin's knowledge of his magic, and whatever was left behind without that, they could manage better than an intermittently homicidal sorcerer. Merlin certainly seemed more biddable, like a bland overlay. But similar to Arthur's own observations, none of them was certain as to which Merlin it was. Merlin recognized them, but he didn't interact with them the way they had all come to expect. He did as Arthur bade him, but he didn't behave in a servile manner. He used their names, but there was little to no recognition on his face when he said them. It was eerie. Like dealing with a hollow copy of a man – a vaguely Merlin-shaped wraith who hadn't studied the real Merlin enough to emulate him properly.

They rode out with little further conversation, and many shared looks of wariness and discomfort. Arthur led them off the Roman road and over the hillside to the old cart path down which he and Merlin once took Guinevere to her death. Hengroen stamped and reared back before consenting to step off of the scrub grass and onto the dirt path. It felt like a warning, and Arthur didn't know what to make of it. He glanced back to see if Merlin's horse had a similar reaction, but Llamrei trotted after him without complaint.

Merlin himself reacted, though. His face, vacantly friendly up to that point, pinched in consternation as he crossed the threshold of the path. Arthur kept a covert eye on him as Merlin yanked at the reigns and frowned at the ground past his stirrup. As soon as his horse stopped, Merlin scanned the surrounding land in confusion, as if he had felt something but couldn't place it.

Gwaine rode up beside Merlin and clapped him between the shoulder blades. "Alright, there, mate?"

Merlin nodded, his mouth turned down in worry, and then he focused sharp and abruptly present on Gwaine's face. "It knows where you're taking me. It will fight you."

Even from two dozen paces away, Arthur could see how Gwaine ceased breathing entirely for a beat as he stared back at Merlin. The others were near enough to overhear as well, and they exchanged inscrutable glances with each other before Gwaine managed to recover from his shock. "I know," Gwaine replied. "We know."

Merlin swallowed and looked around again, visibly perturbed. Suddenly, he shook himself, shoulders squirming like a bird ruffling its feathers, and grinned at Gwaine, wide and toothy, and dead in the eyes again. "Sorry. Had a funny feeling for a second. Chill wind." He took a deep breath as if savoring said chill wind, and then noticed Gwaine's dismayed reserve. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Gwaine tried too hard to appear casual as Merlin reverted to the strange, bland affect that the dragon had imposed on him. It came off as sick instead. "Yeah, just…me too. Funny feeling."

Merlin smiled again, twitchy and sort of blank in spite of the curve of his mouth, and then just prodded his horse forward again with no further fan fair. He cantered past Arthur, oblivious, and headed down the rocky incline that wound into the mountains.

Arthur watched him navigate the path, and then glanced back at his men shooting each other wary looks and trying not to appear quite as worried as they must be. "Let's go," Arthur told them quietly. He spun his horse back around and urged it down the trail in Merlin's wake.

---

TBC