(A/N)

here's chapter four, i hope you like it!

When Uther died, it slipped within the whispers throughout the villages, tucked within all the other compliments and complaints about Arthur. Suddenly everyone was speculating about the future of his reign. They would gather in groups and speak in hushed voices, glancing around themselves as they tore themselves up over something of which they had no control.

Merlin worried too. No matter anything else Arthur had gone through, this had to be the worst. It was difficult to watch his friend go through such a hardening of emotion and mind. He would take every curt statement and demanding tone if only it would help Arthur get better. But it wouldn't, and, despite that fact, Merlin knew he still had to do it. Arthur may be stuck in this routine, but Merlin would do his very best to ensure that Arthur took out all of his anger on his servant and not the kingdom.

Merlin came from the common people, he knew what it was like to be ruled by a merciless king. Uther had been one thing, but at least he had inside knowledge on that front; Cenred was a different matter entirely. Merlin never wanted to feel the fear he had felt as a younger man when his supposed king cared nothing for his village or the people around them. It seemed only fitting that he now lived in Camelot surrounded by people worried about their livelihoods for the exact same reason.

And so Merlin heard it a lot when he was in the Lower Town. His excursions had lessened recently given Arthur's current turmoil, but he still had to venture out sometimes to grab things, as well as to visit Gwen. He found it difficult to comfort her, as she had tried to be there for Arthur, but Agravaine's influence convinced the heavyhearted king to push her away. Right now, she was merely a servant, and so Merlin extended his friendship from his place of understanding that. Still, moody as Arthur was, he had never gone entirely back to treating Merlin the way he had when they had first met. Merlin liked to think that their bond had run deeper than any hardship, and it remained naturally unbroken. He only wished Arthur would pluck up the courage to admit he could do it with Gwen as well.

Merlin was walking through the Lower Town now, desperately wishing the dull silence would be filled with vivid light and sounds of the common people. The Lower Town had never matched the free feeling of his Ealdor, his outlying village home, but the struggle in poor life ran common through all the towns in the same way, and that lifestyle carried a certain spirit, something that everyone who had lived it shared. It was part of the reason why Merlin and Gwen had been able to bond in the first place, why they could understand each other without ever having met. Of course, it wasn't the only reason; Merlin had had plenty of differences with people of similar backgrounds, and Gwen herself had her own sort of charm. That charm seemed to have slipped a bit lately.

He walked up to the old wooden door and knocked lightly, giving Gwen her time to get up and let him in. He knew that she was simply exhausted after her duties nowadays and would often lay down at home as soon as she could. She had lost a lot of her buzz after Morgana left, and Arthur's recent treatment of her certainly did not help. On account of this, Merlin tried his best to come by when he could, to get her up to have a meal and to get her to take care of herself. He already had plenty of practice with Arthur in doing the same thing.

He smiled softly when Gwen opened the door, her beloved shawl clutched closely around her shoulders. She faintly returned the smile, though Merlin suspected it was more out of politeness and gratitude than happiness, and ushered him into the warm candlelight and toward the table in the middle of the room. They sat in silence for a moment, breathing in the comfortable familiarity in the air. Sometimes a total break from the exhaustion of social mechanisms could only be fulfilling as a joint defiance of those social mechanisms.

"How's Elyan?" Merlin asked, leaning his head against his palm, which was propped up by his elbow. It wasn't only Gwen who was tired. He would do what he could to preserve his energy and perhaps give some to her.

"Good, as always," Gwen replied, her expression hardening as she thought of her brother. She worried too much, or perhaps Elyan required that much worrying and she just shouldn't have to worry so much. "He's always been one to lighten the mood and joke around. Of course, he probably should take things more seriously right now. And Gaius?"

"So stressed that his hair is turning white," Merlin quipped, a wry smile on his lips. Gwen chuckled lightly. That reaction of hers presented a bit more genuine positivity than she had shown before. "There's a lot going on right now, but at least it lets me come down here. I haven't had quite as many royal duties in the Lower Town as of late."

They were good at this, Merlin recalled. It had been a while, but they could still do it. Making random comments, talking about everything and nothing at the same time. It may seem unhealthy to some, but they both knew that it was what they needed sometimes. Camelot could be too much, especially right now.

Talking around it didn't feel exactly right tonight, though. Merlin needed a bit more heavy of a distraction. He would still do his bit to let Gwen get her thoughts out, though. They would just need a change of venue for him.

"Speaking of, why don't we go out for a bit?" Merlin suggested, already shrugging his brown coat back on. He made his way around the table to get Gwen on her feet. He knew he had made the right move when she didn't protest; he felt glad that she at least accepted his support, even if it pained him to think of why she needed it. "The last thing I need is to be cooped up, no matter how good the company."

"Alright, that sounds nice," Gwen answered, taking his hand and walking toward the door. Along the way she grabbed her bag and extinguished a candle, leaving one lit by the entrance. "Want to stop at The Rising Sun?"

"Lead the way, milady." Merlin bowed jokingly, although the motion did contain genuine respect. Not only was Gwen a great friend deserving of that respect, but she very well could be a lady one day, a queen even. Arthur wasn't quite in that headspace yet, particularly because of Uther and Agravaine, but Merlin was holding out hope that it would happen once the current depressing predicament and threat of evil had been vanquished. Presently, though, it also helped to lighten the mood just a bit more. Every bit was necessary.

They ambled arm in arm down the cobbled street. The colors hadn't brightened, and neither had the weather. As the temperature dropped, Gwen shivered; Merlin intertwined his arm more closely with hers and picked up the pace.

Fortunately, they both knew quite a few shortcuts due to their jobs and spotted the tavern in no time. The two made a beeline straight for the yellow glow radiating out of The Rising Sun's windows, grateful that the tavern lived up to its name in lighting and warmth.

They hurried through the door and, after stopping for a moment to take in the heat, Merlin selected to aim for his usual table, the one tucked in the corner by the door. He had used it more than once, for multiple reasons: it was quite nifty for spying and not being noticed, and it was always easy to escape out the front door from. Tonight, though, he had a different reason in mind; he just wanted Gwen to be able to relax without getting harassed.

He would never personally understand it, but he knew women in the Lower Town got a lot of trouble later at night or when alone. Even if the men causing that trouble had their own explanations of frustration in life, they weren't excuses. Merlin had vowed to never let Gwen get into a situation where hearing those excuses was necessary.

Merlin glanced around the tavern. Scarcely any people hung around at this hour, most likely because many had families to tend to or didn't want to be caught out alone. Others might have felt the same tiredness that Gwen did and had no one to energize them enough to come out. Still, a few stragglers remained; the regular drunkards, a few pairs of people like Gwen and himself, and a group of men playing some game at a round table just a few feet away.

Merlin chose to focus on the men. Perhaps some true rays of light could be found within the illusion of brightness everyone was projecting. Or perhaps he would only see more of the same truth.

It appeared to be the latter. Their expressions were light, their speech jovial, but the air hung heavy with some kind of weight to it. Almost as if they weren't truly happy, simply enjoying a moment spent not thinking about something else. Rather, Merlin knew, about someone else. He knew it all too well, and so did Gwen. The entire kingdom stood by in their work with bated breath.

"I won! Good heavens, I actually won!" a short blond man from the table exclaimed, his eyes wide and wrinkling with faint traces of a real smile. Maybe his youth lent a hand to his hope. "Hand it here, fellows, a new man has beaten you."

Merlin couldn't remember when the switch had flipped to make him feel so old.

The rest of the men at the table glanced around at each other, a couple allowing small smiles to grace their otherwise grim faces. The tallest of them all subtly gave a nod toward the youngest, and together they handed over the winnings. The short blond grinned to himself. Probably the happiest thing that could happen in his life right now, Merlin thought sadly.

The men began to play another round, although this time the young victor had stepped away toward the bar. Likely he had claimed to need another drink, but Merlin presumed he had other motives given his proximity to one of the only single people in the bar. Merlin internally lauded the confidence with which the young blond charmed the taller young man. Merlin wished he could act so openly and boldly, or even that he could act at all. Alas, Fate did not seem to want any of his own pursuits to last long. That overarching shared one seemed to always take precedence.

While his responsibility was a deeply personal one, it seemed he was not the only one with the same goal in mind. Plenty of people worried about Arthur. Gwen, for one, and Gaius, but many others as well. Sometimes Merlin forgot who Arthur was, what he stood for, what he had to do. That could happen sometimes when one addressed a king as a close friend. But here, now, Merlin remembered that most people in Camelot were just that: part of the common people. And those people depended on their king, expected a lot out of him, but they also worried about him.

"I hope young Stuart never loses that contentment." The tall man sighed as they all placed their bets into the pool of winnings. The piles were quite meager. Similar in stature to everything else nowadays. "Of course, it always ends up unavoidably being taken away. Our new king shouldn't have been forced into being king so soon."

"It's a stage of life that everyone has been subjected to, especially under his father," another man commented. "I only wish it didn't have to happen to everyone. Alas, most people are born into hardships in lifestyle, and even if they don't, they always suffer some kind of tragedy in this kingdom. Camelot has been breeding unhappiness and misfortune for decades."

"Maybe Arthur can change that." The tall man clutched his game pieces tightly in his fingers for a moment before letting them drop into the pile. He gazed at them longingly as if he never wanted to give the tiny discs up. "Maybe things will be different for those who come after us."

"He'll have to make his way through his own hardships first," the eldest of the men reminded them. He had less hesitantly continued with the game, but now spared a glance at the pile as they began to play. "This one is particularly difficult, and he'll have more nasty ones to come."

"He has the strength to do it." The tall man firmly held his ground both in the conversation and in the game. He touched his fingers to the pile of winnings before dividing them among everyone there. For the first time, a touch of hope appeared in the others' eyes. "The only question is if he'll have the mind to. I think he will. Have you heard what they say about him, what they call him?"

Then the tall man said it, and Merlin felt a little lightheaded. He leaned his head against his arm for a moment. So this reputation of Arthur's had spread everywhere in the lands. It had to mean something great. It wasn't simply some legend which sorcerers feared or a throwaway title which commoners mistakenly used as a sign of respect.

If the common people, his people, talked about his master in this way, Merlin knew he had been serving the right master all along.

"Merlin?" Gwen waved her hand right in front of his face. He snapped his eyes away from the men to her. She sat there waiting as patiently as ever. Even she retained her kindness in the most unkind of times. "You alright? I've been trying to get your attention for nearly five minutes."

"Yeah, yeah..." Merlin distractedly let his gaze wander back to the men for a moment before shaking himself back into the moment. He forced a smile at Gwen. "Well, I will be. We all will be."

He said that last bit with the confidence he needed. The confidence they all needed. He supposed it at least had to be a good sign that these people stood by Arthur. The commoners now all supported him, quite a good marker of how far the man had come in his journey to becoming king. Hopefully he had come far enough that he would lean back into that support a bit and use that strength to rebound from the terrible tragedies of his life. There had most definitely been a time when Arthur wouldn't have and when the people held him in much less respect. Merlin knew that the only way Arthur could truly achieve a better rule than his father and make a difference was to listen to the people and tend to their needs, not merely giving attention to certain royals.

Merlin vowed to never let Arthur get out of touch the way he had been before. If Arthur ever became the prince he used to be when they had first met, the kingdom would be subject to another Uther. Merlin had to make sure that their king lived up to these great expectations that everyone, for whatever reason, seemed to share. He had to ensure that those expectations he lived up to were perceived as great by the right people and not terrible.

(A/N)

thanks for reading :)))))