"Color-coded scarf?" Guinevere echoes blankly, a wrinkle in her brow and her lips pulled down in a baffled frown—and Arthur already has his mouth open to tell her ignore him, just ignore him, he's just being an idiot, as usual, no need to listen to him, but he doesn't get the chance, because right at that moment, she lights up, brighter than the castle at Christmastime, and her mouth turns up in a beaming smile. "Oh! So we can tell you all apart? That's brilliant, Merlin!"

"Brilliant?" Arthur sputters. God, please let her be joking. Please let this be a joke.

"It was all Arthur's idea, really," Uncooperative Merlin grins right back at her, entirely too pleased with himself.

Arthur squawks. He can admit, it is a supremely un-kingly sound. "It was not!"

"Now, don't be so modest, Arthur," Uncooperative Merlin says, but the stupid, cheeky smile on his face only stretches wider. "I would certainly never have thought of it myself if you hadn't said—"

"Why don't you just change the color yourself?" the new Merlin—Clumsy Merlin? Young Merlin? Extra Idiot Merlin? Clearly Not A Day Over Seventeen Merlin? Arthur will have to work on that—points out. "You know, with magic?"

Uncooperative Merlin fists his fingers around the ragged red cloth at his throat, and looks at the new Merlin like he's just told him to slaughter a kitten and eat its still-warm heart. "I'm not changing the color on this one," he says, like it's completely unthinkable, and the new Merlin is a soulless monster for the mere suggestion. "My mother made me this one."

"Oh, for God's sake," Arthur rolls his eyes, before he turns pointedly back to Guinevere. "We need to find the rest of the Merlins, and quickly. We've made good time so far, but there are still six more out there. You found this one down in the kitchens?"

Guinevere nods. "Pockets full of sweet rolls." She clicks her tongue. "Honestly. Cook got him 'round the head with her ladle twice before I got to him."

Right at that moment, the new Merlin steps forward, and promptly trips over a stack of books piled up untidily in the floor, and hits the cold stone again, with a very solid thud.

Arthur stares down at him. "Well, I wouldn't worry about the ladle," he tells Guinevere. "It doesn't look like he's got much to lose up there."

The new Merlin pushes himself up on his hands and knees with an indignant huff. "Hey—!"

But he never makes it any farther than that, because the door clicks quietly open again, and Sir Percival eases slowly and silently inside. He has another Merlin passed out in his arms, dead to the entire world, mouth slightly open, dark head settled on Percival's broad shoulder.

"Oh, no," Guinevere rushes over to Percival at once, a hand over her mouth, "oh, no, what's happened to him? Is he all right?" She peers anxiously down into the new-new Merlin's sleeping face.

Arthur has to admit, the new-new Merlin doesn't look good—pale as parchment, his dark brows pinched up like he's in pain, and deep purple shadows, like bruises, under his closed eyes—and his stomach drops. Gaius said, if Merlin stayed split up like this too long, all the little bits of him would die—he said the facets would fade, and the real, whole Merlin would disappear, forever, and is this what he meant? Is this the start of it? Is this bit of Merlin, in Percival's arms, the first to go?

But Percival only shakes his head, easily sidesteps Guinevere, and presses a finger firmly to his lips until he's reached Gaius' cot in the center of the room, and laid the new-new Merlin gently down on the crisp white sheets. "Sorry," he says, at last, with a little nod to Guinevere. "Best not to wake him again, I thought."

"No, of course," Guinevere whispers. "Of course." She follows the knight over to the bed, her pretty face pulled taut, and smooths the new-new Merlin's dark, messy hair back from his sweaty brow. "What's happened to him? He looks ill."

Gaius comes over to the cot, too, one wrinkled hand already out and open to feel for the heat of a fever on Merlin's forehead. From the corner of his eye, Arthur can see Clumsy Merlin peel himself up off the cold stone floor again and brush off his jacket.

"No idea," Percival shrugs his enormous shoulders at Guinevere. "He just passed out on me in the stables. I think he's just exhausted—he was sort of stumbling around when I found him, tripping over himself, and he wasn't making much sense—"

Arthur frowns—he knows now Merlin isn't quite as frequent a visitor to the tavern as he had always believed, but— "You're sure he wasn't drunk?"

"Couldn't be," Percival says, over Uncooperative Merlin's sudden stream of furious sputters. "It's barely been a half hour since he split. There's no way he had the time to drink himself into a stupor, and reach the stables, not with the way he was bumbling over himself when I got to him."

"Well, he's certainly not ill, I can tell you that," Gaius frowns. "I believe Sir Percival may be right. He appears exhausted, but there's little else wrong with him."

"Perhaps the magic took its toll?" Guinevere wrinkles her brow. "He tore himself into nine pieces. That has to take an awful lot out of a sorcerer, hasn't it? Maybe this bit just got hit the hardest."

"I don't know," Percival says, a bit too doubtful. "He didn't look like he does when he's used up too much magic. There was no—" he waves a hand over his own nose and mouth, "—blood, or anything, like there usually is. And his eyes were blue."

Arthur's stomach clenches up tighter than a fist, and he stares down into the new-new Merlin's pale, tired, pinched-up face. "You don't think—?" He finally tears his eyes away to look back to Gaius. "You don't think this is part of the—the whole fading thing, do you?" He swallows, and it tries to stick in his throat. "You don't think he's already been split up too long?"

"I'm not sure, Sire," Gaius says seriously.

Arthur's heart bangs against his ribs. "No," he says, desperately, "no, it's only been a half hour, like Percival said, it's only been—"

"He's not fading," Uncooperative Merlin says suddenly.

Arthur wheels around to look at him—and he's not the only one, because out of the corner of his eye, he can see Gaius, Guinevere, and Percival follow him, but if the sudden shower of attention rattles Merlin, he doesn't show it.

"He's not fading," Uncooperative Merlin says again. "I'd feel it if he was. Percival's got it right. He's just tired, is all."

"You'd—?" Guinevere pulls back from the bed to stare at Uncooperative Merlin, a frown on her face. "You'd feel it?"

"Yes?" And he looks puzzled that she's puzzled, like he doesn't think it sounds ten different sorts of absolutely mad. "You can sort of feel it when you're one of nine, you know, Gwen. You can feel what's going on with all the others. And he's not fading, trust me. You don't need to worry about him."

It's the first bit of real good news Arthur has heard all day, and his breath comes a little easier now. Merlin's all right. Merlin's fine. It's not too late. He's still got time. "Right," he nods, "well, if you're sure, what we'll need to do next is—"

"Wait, wait," Guinevere cuts in, her hand up to stop Arthur before he can go on, "wait a moment, Merlin, why is he so tired? Why's he tired enough to pass out on Percival like that? What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing," Uncooperative Merlin says. "He's just tired."

"Well, you are just a fount of knowledge," Arthur says dryly, already impatient to be off again. The Merlin on the bed might not be in any serious danger, but that was far too close a call. He has to get all the Merlins back together before it really is too late, before he really has run out of time. "Now, come on," he adds, to Percival and Guinevere, "let's get back out there. We need to find all the others before—"

An enormous crash sounds through the chamber, louder than thunder, and perhaps louder than even a cannon—Arthur whirls around to see Clumsy Merlin has apparently tripped over, again, flat on the floor with his face pressed to the cold stone, and he's found a way to bring the table down with him. Several books slide off the scratched wood and onto the ground with him.

"For the love of God!" Arthur rakes a hand down the side of his face. "What, do we have to tie you to a chair to get you to—?"

"It's not my fault!" Clumsy Merlin huffs, very pink in the face. "There are too many things in this room!"

"Too many things?" Arthur echoes incredulously, and he opens his mouth to say a bit more, but the Merlin on the bed has bolted upright in the sheets, his hair still an absolute mess, and his blue eyes enormous in his thin, sickly-white face. He looks, if it's possible, even worse now that he's awake.

"Oh, no!" he says, in the most dramatically tragic voice Arthur has ever heard, like Gaius' chamber, or maybe everybody clustered 'round his bedside in a tight knot, is the absolute last thing he wants to see right now.

"Hey, hey, it's all right! It's all right!" Percival says, like he's soothing a spooked horse. He pats the new Merlin lightly on the shoulder, or at least, what must feel light to him, because he nearly knocks the poor man clean off the bed. "You went a bit out of it in the stables, so I brought you here. Gaius says you're just a bit tired, that's all. Nothing to worry about. No harm done."

"Tired?" The new Merlin echoes, like this is the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard in his life. "Well, I-I don't have time to be tired, Percival, I have to get the stables mucked before noon, and I've got to get Arthur ready for his council meeting—"

"Arthur's skiving off the council meeting," Uncooperative Merlin says helpfully.

"No," Arthur says, "the council meeting was canceled."

"Yeah, you're skiving," Clumsy Merlin decides.

"Shut up, Merlin!"

"It—it doesn't matter," the new Merlin says impatiently, with a sharp shake of his dark head, "even without the council, I've still got far too much to do—"

"Merlin, no one expects you to do your chores while you're like this," Guinevere says, much kinder than Arthur could have. "We need you here right now. We need you to stay put while we go and find the rest of you."

"Stay put?" the new Merlin—Arthur isn't sure what to call him, but Panicky Merlin sounds like a good bet right about now—screeches, like that's never been a thought in his head before, like he doesn't ask Arthur for a day off every hour or so. "No, no, I have to come with you! You can't all go off on your own, it's too dangerous out there!"

Guinevere blinks blankly back at the new Merlin, thoroughly bewildered, but Percival glances, wide-eyed and obviously expectant, over at Arthur. Like he thinks Arthur's got a clue what the idiot means, like he thinks Arthur can set this all to rights.

"There's no danger here, Merlin," Gaius says, finally, and he doesn't look anywhere near as confused as Arthur feels, because of course he doesn't—Merlin is practically an entire language all his own, and Gaius is the only man in the castle who speaks it.

Percival nods. "Yeah, I reckon we'll be safe in the castle, you know."

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Uncooperative Merlin mutters under his breath, looking very bitter.

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur hisses.

"But you're not safe in the castle!" Panicky—or maybe Paranoid?—Merlin insists, blue eyes wide in his white face again. "You're never safe in the castle! Everybody's always out to hurt or kill you—evil sorcerers, and spies, and assassins, and Morgana—"

"Merlin," Arthur says, "we haven't heard a thing from Morgana in months, remember? Sir Bedivere reckons she's moved up north for now, to Blackridge—"

"She can teleport!" Panicky Merlin practically wails back at Arthur.

Guinevere glances doubtfully from Panicky Merlin to Gaius and back again. "All the way from Blackridge?" she says, incredulously.

"I don't know!" Panicky Merlin says, in that dramatically tragic way again. "I don't know, but she's powerful enough! And one day, she's going to be more powerful than me, and—!"

"Merlin, you're Emrys," Percival reminds him.

Panicky Merlin completely ignores him. "—and then she's going to kill everyone, and everyone's going to be dead, and Camelot's going to fall, and it's going to be all my f-fault—!"

"You know, call me mad," Arthur cuts him off, "but I think the guards, not to mention the hundreds of knights, might just be there to stop her from killing everyone."

Uncooperative Merlin snorts, very uncharitably, into his fist. "The guards?" he says, a touch too scathingly for Arthur's taste. "The knights? You really think a few men in fancy metal cans is going to—?"

Arthur could honestly and truly murder Uncooperative Merlin with no remorse.

Panicky Merlin nods. "Morgana can get past the guards and the knights! She can get past everyone except me!"

Arthur can actually feel his brows flying up on his forehead. "Got a rather high opinion of yourself, don't you?"

"You don't understand!" Panicky Merlin shakes his head again, even harder this time. "I have to be with you! I'm the only one who can protect you!"

"What?" Arthur huffs. That's certainly going a bit far, even for an immortal, all-powerful warlock. "Don't be an idiot, Merlin, we all managed just fine without you for twenty years! I think we can handle ourselves."

"No!" Panicky Merlin swings his gangly legs over the side of the cot, and scrambles to his feet, but he wobbles where he stands, like a leaf in a high wind. "The last time Gwen went off on her own, she got captured by that—that awful man who—and the last time you went off on your own, you got yourself lost in the Perilous Lands! And you—" he actually looks like he might burst in tears, and if he does, Arthur is going to excuse himself from the room, he is not going to deal with a crying Merlin, he did not sign up for that, "—you nearly died!"

"You know, he's got a point, Sire," Percival says fairly. "You two don't do so well when he's not with you."

Arthur flushes. "Well, your record's not exactly squeaky clean, either!" He jabs a finger at Panicky Merlin. "The last time you went off on your own, you got yourself captured by Morgana, and enchanted to kill me!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Sire," Uncooperative Merlin tosses out, in a very dry sort of voice. "Absolutely right, you are. Next time, I'll be sure to check with you before I let myself get enchanted again. I'll stop Morgana right in her tracks, tell her, sorry, I have to make sure Arthur's all right with it first—"

"Oh, shut up, Merlin," Arthur snaps, but he doesn't waste the time it would take to turn and glare at the idiot.

"—no, no, you're right! You're right, Arthur, it was just so rude of me, can't believe I did that to you—I'll tell you what, we can work out a schedule, for the next time I feel like getting abducted in the middle of nowhere and turned into an unwilling, brainwashed assassin—"

"Do you want to be the one who mucks out the stables? Because you are this close to being—"

"All right, that's enough!" Guinevere says sharply. "You're going to stay put," she points at Panicky Merlin, "we need you here, so you can't be wandering off—we'll be fine with or without you, I promise. And you're going to sit down, because you're breaking Gaius' things," she adds, to Clumsy Merlin, who looks a little sheepish, at least, "and you're going to—" she rounds on Uncooperative Merlin, but her face twists suddenly back into that wrinkled brow and baffled frown, "—what are you doing?"

Arthur glances over.

Uncooperative Merlin has pulled out a brush and a small silver tin from absolutely nowhere, and now he's—he's polishing Arthur's leftside pauldron. He's just standing there. Polishing. Like this is completely normal. And he actually looks a bit startled that Guinevere noticed. "Oh, sorry," he says. He steps back, and with a flash of his eyes, the tin of polish and the brush disappear in a puff of purple smoke. "Sorry," he says, again, "there was just a smudge."

"Oh," Arthur huffs, "so now you care when my armor's got a—"

"Never mind," Guinevere says, with a shake of her head. "Never mind what you do, you're the only Merlin here who hasn't—"

"Don't," Arthur cut her off. "Whatever you're going to say, don't. I don't want him getting any ideas."

"I'm not getting ideas," Uncooperative Merlin says, far too innocently to be believable.

Arthur opens his mouth to retort—he's not sure what he's going to say, to be completely honest, but he never has to figure it out, because, all of a sudden, Sir Leon comes in through the still-open door, with a tall, thin figure in sweeping, rust-red robes right on his heels.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Arthur snaps his eyes shut, in the desperate hope that maybe he's just seeing things, maybe all the Merlin-induced headaches are getting to him, or maybe he's finally cracked from the stress of having a sorcerer for a best friend, but it's too late, he knows he's not seeing things, he knows the man in the doorway, he knows this new Merlin, and it's unmistakably none other than—

"Oi! What are you lot standing 'round for, gossiping like maidens? I'm movin' quicker than all of you, and I'm ninety-eight! Come on, then, let's get on with it!"

—Dragoon. The Great.

notes: next chapter: we pour one out for Arthur's blood pressure.

anyways! this fic will be coming to a close very soon now, since we've already got five out of the nine Merlins, and the original rough draft was only 15k. this is definitely going to surpass that by a bit, but not much - maybe 20-25k? I expect this will be all wrapped up within the next three chapters, and I hope to have this one finished up and marked complete by the end of the year! We'll see how that goes, though, I obviously can't make any promises right now.