Arthur

1:00 Muck out the stables

Arthur walked as he ate the honey scone that Gwen had given him. It was delicious but not nearly enough to fill his stomach. He still hadn't seen Harold anywhere so he decided to head back to the physician's chambers to see if Gaius had any food he could eat.

The physician was diligently working—mixing and heating liquids to make some sort of potion or something. There was a sharp scent in the air and Arthur wrinkled his nose; it smelled like medicine. When Arthur was younger, he spent a lot of time in the physician's chambers for various injuries obtained during training or while roughhousing with the knights. He never quite got used to that particular medicinal smell that hung in the room.

Arthur knocked gently on the already open door and Gaius looked up from his work. It didn't take him long to determine why Arthur had returned. He handed the younger man an apple from a bowl on the far side of the workbench, leaving the potion for the moment.

"Thank you, Gaius." Arthur said.

"Where is Harold?" Gaius questioned, suspicious of Arthur's lack of supervision.

"I don't know. He was supposed to meet up with me before I left to get Merlin and Gwen's lunch, but he never showed up. I have no doubt that he's off flirting with another one of the maids, but I don't know where and I certainly don't have the time to go searching for him." Arthur was frustrated and thankfully Gaius nodded, accepting his answer.

Gaius picked up a vial with a dark liquid off the workbench as he rounded the table to face Arthur.

"Well in any case, you can take this draught to Agnes. She lives next to Guinevere and Elyan's old house."

Gaius passed Arthur the vial before he could refuse. Though that didn't stop him from trying. "I'm not doing Merlin's chores as a physician's apprentice, just his servant duties." Arthur argued.

Gaius raised his eyebrow, making Arthur uncomfortable just being in the same room with it. "Well I'm not telling you as the physician, I'm asking you as someone who can't get up and down the castle stairs multiple times a day; and I believe one of your rules is to not refuse to help someone unless you are directly attending Merlin, is it not?"

Arthur felt as if he'd been chastised like he was a child. How could he be made to feel guilty for not doing something he wasn't even supposed to have to do? Gaius was much more manipulative than anyone gave him credit for. "Alright, alright." He grumbled.

"Besides, you have to head down that way soon to muck out the stables." Gaius made a good point, as much as Arthur hated to admit it. So Arthur made sure there was nothing else Gaius needed and took his apple and the draught out of the citadel.

"Are you Agnes?" Arthur questioned the woman that opened the door, making sure he had the right old woman.

"You're not Merlin." Not the answer Arthur expected, but it confirmed her identity. Agnes squinted at him, looking him up and down with disapproval. Arthur could tell her vision was not all that good, though with her advanced age he wasn't surprised.

"No, I'm Arthur, I'm filling in for Merlin today."

"What trouble has that boy gotten himself into now? He always was a troublemaker." The woman's voice was scratchy and accusing and Arthur found himself insanely curious as to how Merlin had managed to get on her bad side when everyone else seemed to love him.

"No trouble. He and the king switched places for the day. I'm King Arthur so I'm bringing you your medicine today in his place." Another disapproving look moved over Arthur.

"You don't look like no king."

That hurt. "I'm wearing borrowed clothes." Arthur managed to keep the defensiveness out of his voice but could not stop the slight frown that plastered itself across his face.

The woman hummed in obvious disbelief. Arthur watched as she slowly pulled a cup off one of her shelves and filled it with water from a bucket in the corner so she could wash down the medicine Gaius had made.

He passed her the vial; now was his chance to get some answers. "Can I ask why you don't like Merlin?"

"Who said I didn't like the boy?" Her tone certainly sounded like she disliked him. "He's a chatty one, but he always brings a good story. Helps a noble fella a lot."

"Is this 'noble fella' King Arthur?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"That's me." Arthur informed her, even though he had just told her a moment ago of his identity.

"Can't be."

"And why's that?" This woman was becoming much more troublesome than he had expected.

"King's're supposed to be smart and regal. You don't strike me as the sharpest spoon out there, asking all these dumb questions, you are." Agnes was clearly done explaining herself because she popped the stopper out of the vial and downed the medicine in one go, then she downed the cup of water as well with a surprising amount of speed given the pace at which she did everything else.

Arthur scowled.

"Well leave an old woman be and get on with it. Make sure that Merlin stays out of trouble so he can bring me my medicine. I like him better, he's smarter than you—and nicer."

Arthur was shoved out the door surprisingly effectively by Agnes and he was left standing outside in shock. She thought Merlin was smarter than him?

The stables were surprisingly quiet with only one stable boy inside, brushing the horses down. Arthur wandered to the stall holding his own horse, Lucy; Merlin had renamed her when Arthur told him she was just called Horse and now Arthur had reluctantly begun calling her Lucy as well, though never in Merlin's presence.

Merlin's own horse, Sparrow, was in the stall next to Lucy. Arthur had initially made fun of him for naming his horse after a bird, earning Arthur three days of angry silence before he was reminded that a merlin was a type of bird and apologized for indirectly insulting Merlin's name. Or at least he indirectly apologized, which seemed like enough because he didn't mean to insult Merlin's name anyways, just his horse's name.

Arthur grabbed the pitchfork leaning up against the wall. He grimaced, not needing any instruction for this chore.

Arthur had cleaned the stables many times as a child. Uther thought it was a fitting punishment, but not one for the public to see since the prince had a reputation to uphold, so Arthur had been forced to clean the stables at night by the light of a torch. If he was lucky, Morgana would have held the torch for him, offering conversation to ease the shame of the punishment.

The work was monotonous and repetitive. Arthur grumbled to himself as he cleaned; as much as he was regretting having Merlin personally muck out his stables, he enjoyed annoying the man and making him complain with that exasperated face he made every time.

Though he had no doubt he finished faster than Merlin had ever managed to, Arthur was still running late on his schedule. This lateness was further solidified by the singular stable boy asking him to help saddle a horse for one of the nobles.

"What's your name?" Arthur asked, though at this point he no longer cared about learning the names of all the people who had asked him for help. There was no way that Merlin knew all of their names; it was impossible, there were so many people—servants, stable hands, knights, squires, citizens. There were too many people to know and somehow he seemed to know every single one of them.

"Sebastian." The young boy dipped his head in respect and they both turned towards the saddle in the corner.

They worked in silence; Sebastian was quiet, timid even, and Arthur wasn't sure if it was because he knew Arthur was the king or whether it was because Arthur was just intimidating. Normally, he could just assume that it was his title that was intimidating. An unsettling feeling writhed around inside of him. He didn't want to be intimidating to this boy; as much as he was annoyed by being sidetracked from his work all day, it was nice that the people felt comfortable enough to ask him for help. That's what he was there for: to help the people. Maybe not for things as small as moving buckets of water or saddling a horse, but he was king to make their lives easier overall. This challenge made him feel like he had accomplished more with respect to the people and their daily lives than he had on any other day in a long time.

Gods. Maybe Merlin was a bad influence on him. This feelings thing was not his forte. And he especially shouldn't be figuring it out while saddling a horse.

As they finished with the horse, still in silence, Arthur pushed his thoughts away; he could always deal with them later if he chose to. Or maybe not.

Sebastian thanked him for the help and Arthur made his way out of the stables, back towards the castle. All he wanted to do at the moment was go to his rooms and have a nice hot bath, but he didn't have time for one, nor the servant to set it up for him. He did have fifteen minutes to wash up before he went to get the laundry, even though he was running a bit late, so he sighed and trudged up the stairs to the physician's chambers once again, hoping that there would be a bucket of water waiting for him and he wouldn't have to fetch one himself.