"Unease" (Rose)
My instinct whines at me until I can ignore it no longer. Merlin has been gone oddly long simply to deliver a medicine. I know he is not a fool, so his absence does not worry me needlessly.
"Something happened," I say with quiet doom. 'Where are you, Merlin?' my head voice is full of unease.
Gaius is speaking with Arthur as I sit alone in his quarters. As the minutes pass and still, no Merlin, I contemplate making my escape to find him, bypassing the counsel of Gaius. I cannot do that to him, though. To leave him alone with no word and neither of us to see in the morning could stop his old heart. I decide to wait it out, but only for the night. I have a looming and growing feeling that Merlin has gotten himself into some serious trouble, and it's my job to get him out of it.
"Chained" (Merlin)
I wake in bondage, gazing up at the sky behind the treetops. Morgause's men obstruct my view and pull me to my knees, setting me before her. She glares at me with piercing brown eyes, "You intrigue me, Merlin," she says in a strangely light tone. "Why does a lowly servant continue to risk everything for Arthur and for Camelot?" I avert my own eyes, looking everywhere but at her. "You know the answer, but you're not telling me ... Why?" She interrogates further with an unsettling tenderness. She nears me. "Come on. Time and again, you put your life on the line." She circles around, kneeling next to me. "There must be a reason," she pushes.
I take as deep of breaths as my tightly chained body allows. "I believe in a fair and just land."
"And you think Arthur will give you that?"
"I know it," I nod with waning strength.
"And then what?" she rises again, walking back in front of me. "You think you'll be recognized, Merlin? Is that it? All this so one day you can be a serving boy to the King?" she asks with a twinge of taunt. I stay my silence. "No," she concludes slyly. "There's something more- something you're not telling me, isn't there?"
I bring my gaze to hers. "I told you," I state with hushed resilience.
"Well," she replies with defiant attitude, "You can take your secret to your grave." She takes a step forward, uttering an incantation, constricting my bonds even further. "You chose to poison one of my own," she towers over me with a quiet, threatening countenance and voice to match. "You may regret that." They leave me behind, seemingly defenseless, but I always have more than one trick up my sleeve.