A/N: "Back again?" You ask.

"So soon?" You ask.

"Welp, what can you say," I reply sheepishly. "The muse hits when the muse hits."

I actually wrote this entire chapter today, if you can believe it. Anyway, there was slightly less of me dithering over spelling than usual, so if you catch anything, give me a nod and let me know. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: The soulmate words were seemingly the one form of magic Uther Pendragon could not best. Merlin has never wanted hers; they are sure to be a great deal of trouble on top of being a warlock. After all, soulmarks are a type of magic, and she has eight.

Spoilers for BBC's Merlin, Seasons One-Five

Warnings: Slight Angst, Multiple Canonical/Non-canonical Character Deaths

Chapter 13:

"You'd think I had better things to worry about than writing up the castle cleaners' payroll or listening to you carry on, what with Alvarr's escape last night, but we've no idea where he's gone. And apparently that means I don't have anything better to do. So, since I suppose you're dying to tell me, how was your day with Leon?"

"Oh, well, since you asked, it was great!" Merlin rolls her eyes. "His parents are wonderful. And their tea is fabulous, Arthur, you would not believe it. The catering service they have on semi-permanent hire is nearly as good quality as the service we get for banquets. And nicer, too. That company's cooks don't whip their underlings for burnt pastries or anything," she adds, poking her head around new bed curtains she is hanging.

Arthur suddenly spills ink on the cleaners' payroll. "Hold on a moment. Are you saying ours do whip their subordinates for burning food? Since when has that been condoned?"

Merlin gives him a funny look, retying the cord to hold the curtains in place. "Since never? Everybody knows that they do it anyway, though."

"Everybody knows?" Arthur repeats, his voice climbing an octave. He notices the ink spill a second later with a pang of dismay and frantically tries to scrub the ink out of the parchment.

"It's not like anyone who's normally at the castle does it, just that one catering group when they come in to help prepare feasts. They keep mixing up our servers and kitchen servants with theirs, and belting them for the tiniest things. Cook Audrey keeps trying to catch them at it when they're here, but they're too terrified of her to do it to her face."

"I can understand why," Arthur agrees. Audrey, mistress of the kitchens, is one of the scariest people in the kingdom. His attempted cookie thefts as a child left him scarred by more than Leon's disappointed looks.

He pulls out a pocketknife and scrapes at the ink-covered paper. It seems to be ruined. "But go back, you're telling me that everybody knows that the food company we hire to supplement our own kitchens mistreats the servers? And not just theirs, but ours, too?"

"Mmm," Merlin says eloquently, moving on to shaking the dust out of his pillows. "Poor Agatha—do you know Agatha? Pretty, blond, getting married to Magellan the wainwright next month?"

"Yeah, yeah, Agatha," Arthur says impatiently, finally giving up his battle with the cleaners' payroll and shuffling around for a new piece of paper. "Assistant confectionary, her cream pies are divine. What about her?"

"She had bruises across her shoulder for three weeks, was too sore to roll her pastry, and nearly got fired until Cook found out why," the warlock tells him indignantly, waving a pillow furiously. "You know, Arthur, its high time we hired another caterer."

"Apparently!" He sputters, slamming the third desk drawer. Where had all the fresh parchment gone? "Why did no one ever tell me this was going on? How long have we been hiring them?"

"Oh, two years, give or take," she says. "Just after I was hired on, I think. You'd think you'd have just figured out that it was happening by now, Your Omniscient Highness."

"Do you even know what that word means?"

"Do you know what it means?"

"Of course I do, Merlin, I'm the prince!"

"Soooo…what does it mean?"

"It means that you, Merlin, are an utter moron!"

She gives him an offended look. "You're a moron. And a prat. Are you going to find another company to help our cooks out when we have banquets or not?"

"Of course I am," he rolls his eyes. "Just after I find a single blasted piece of parchment for the cleaners' payroll."

"I thought you had nearly finished that," Merlin says innocently.

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur grouses, searching through one of the stacks of paper on his desk, hoping for a blank page.

"Didn't you—"

"I said shut up!"

"But you—"

"Shut. Up!"

Merlin pushes him out of the way, exasperated, and yanks the second drawer open. A whole stack of new parchment is lying quietly inside.

She stares at Arthur silently.

"I…I thought that drawer was jammed," he says lamely. "It's been jammed for years. Wasn't it jammed last week?"

Merlin shrugs, not saying anything. Her face reads, You told me to shut up. Sire.

Arthur throws his hands up. "Fine! You can talk."

"It was jammed. And then I finally got someone in to fix it. Magellan owed me a favor. And then you decided that was where you were going to keep all your new parchment," she pauses for a moment, savoring the words, "because you didn't want to have to go looking for it."

Arthur very crossly says nothing for a minute. "…who is Magellan, and why did he owe you a favor."

"The wainwright. He's pretty good with carpentry. And he owed me a favor because I got his fiancé to tell the cook why she couldn't roll her pastry, which saved her from being fired. By the way, Arthur?" Merlin says smugly.

"What."

"I think we need to hire a new food service."

"I think I'm going to need to hire a new servant!" Arthur throws the nearest object, which happens to be his inkpot, with his favorite quill still inside. Merlin ducks quickly, and it sails over her head to collide with one of Arthur's bedposts and splatter all over the new curtain. She calmly surveys the ink-covered curtain, the smashed inkpot, and the broken quill on the ground, and then makes a tactical retreat.

"MERLIN!"

As she strolls along the road leading down to the market to pick up a set of ceremonial belts Arthur forgot to yell at her about, Merlin considers their conversation about the caterers. Not so long ago—had it really been two whole years?—Arthur had been the one throwing knives at servants and laughing.

He really had been an absolute prat, she reminisces. If anyone had asked her back then if she thought that her first ever soulmate would ever turn out to be anything but a pompous pig, she would have laughed in their face and gone to clean the rotten fruit out of her hair. Most of Camelot had agreed, too. Gwen had said once that Arthur was a bully, and that a lot of people thought Merlin was very brave to stand up to him.

Now, the prince was the one getting frustrated about servants being mistreated and occasionally letting tiny children stick flowers behind his ear.

(That had been a sight to see. He had been at training, and was practically forced to leave the flower for the rest of the day for fear of hurting the onlooking child's feelings. Merlin wishes she could have a portrait of that.)

He had come so far. And although she'd never say it aloud, part of the time, he's very nearly tolerable.

Merlin laughs quietly to herself at the thought, but the smile drops from her face as she turns into the leather-shop which is housed in the lower town and market area of Camelot.

The proprietor is Naeman the leatherworker, who is renowned for his famous detailed designs in leather. Many call him the best leatherworker in the kingdom. He is, however, more than a bit of an arse. And far worse than Arthur ever was, for lots of different reasons.

"Mornin', beauty," he calls, practically leaning over the counter with an ugly leer. "Never been happier to see your pretty face, if I do say so myself."

I wish I could say the same, Merlin thinks viciously. She doesn't dare say it aloud, though. The last time she got in trouble for mouthing off at a moron salesman—the temporary blacksmith, wasn't it?—Arthur yelled for so long that her ears hurt. Arthur had threatened to put her in the dungeons for a week if he heard another complaint. It wasn't worth the trouble, so she had shrugged it off.

Merlin has a general habit of being snarky at just the wrong moments, but Arthur had been genuinely mad about it. Probably because it would put his reputation at stake if anyone found out that there had been a complaint against his servant. Which, she reflects, is stupid anyway because nobody would care.

Now, though, she hesitates to resort to her usual snarkiness when she knows that Naeman will be the first in line to complain and to spread that fact around. He isn't as ugly as his personality, though—tall, blond, muscular, and barely thirty—which makes it worse, because he thinks everyone should be falling down at his feet with attraction.

But the point is, it may be unpleasant, but she can handle it. Merlin once defeated a priestess of the Old Religion on the Isle of the Blessed. She can handle it.

"Good morning, Naeman," she replies stiffly, ignoring the rest of his comment. "I'm here to pick up Arthur's new set of belts."

"Ah, ah, ah." He tuts, a despicable glint in his eyes. "That won't do. That won't do at all. You may be a pretty little thing, but just cause you share the prince's bed don't mean you aren't still a servant, beauty."

Merlin flushes dark red with indignation. All of Camelot knows that she and Arthur are soulmates, but even when they think that the prince's only soulmate bond verges on romantic, they would never dare imply that the prince would associate with a servant on an intimate level.

Except Naeman. He just has a record low. She hates coming to pick things up from him.

You can handle this bastard, she tells herself.

"You should act your standing, lovely," he continues, oblivious to her inner dialogue. "You call me 'sir', you say 'his highness' or 'Prince Arthur'. You ain't got a right to call royalty a thing cept what the rest of your kind do. Now try again from the beginning."

Ignore, ignore, ignore….She grits her teeth and fights back the impulse to hit him upside the head with all the force her magic can muster. How dare he? But she'd rather not have Arthur pissed off at her, and she can handle it anyway, so it'll just have to be ignored and piled into the stack of things Merlin would rather not deal with.

"Good morning, sir. I'm here to pick up his highness's new set of belts," she says, as pleasantly as she can manage. When had her good day turned into a bad one?

"I see, love, I see," Naeman says, grinning at her. "I'll see what I can do for you. Might take me a while to remember where I put 'em, though. Make yourself comfortable." He pats the counter as if inviting her to go and sit on it before disappearing into the back.

Merlin looks around the tiny antechamber to his workshop. There are no chairs, and she isn't about to take him up on his offer of sitting on the counter. She shakes off a shudder of disgust. The sooner she can leave, the better…which is probably why he's going to make her wait, she realizes.

What an unpleasant man; not that she hasn't run into her fair share. Back just after she first came to Camelot, Knight Valiant…ugh. That was an encounter Merlin would rather forget.

She stands, leaning against the doorframe, and stares out the window, which is nearly obscured with merchandise.

Citizens of Camelot wander by, looking into various shop windows, sometimes going in. A patrol of eight or so soldiers ride past on their way to the gates, probably to relieve the guards already there. Uther had ordered the rotations to switch more often so that they had less time on watch, and therefore more of a chance of staying vigilant.

Merlin sighs. If only Uther could understand that now that the Crystal of Neahtid has been recovered, there will be no more attempts to steal it unless from within the castle. The young warlock is still slightly suspicious about Alvarr's apparent escape before his execution, but even if Morgana had helped him, Merlin can't really blame her.

How many times had she helped someone escape the dungeons when she thought they didn't deserve it? Merlin sighs again. Too many times. The day when Arthur was king and justice for those who had magic came would never be close enough.

"See somethin' you like?" The sudden breath on her neck nearly makes her jab the leatherworker in the stomach with her elbow as she spins around.

Naeman smirks innocently down at her, one arm on the doorframe above her head. She is nearly boxed in against the wall, but she takes only a moment to deftly maneuver around him toward the counter.

"Um, what? Oh, the display. No, I was looking out the window," she says, continuing to face him.

Naeman clicks his tongue reprovingly, moving forward again. "'Sir.' Not a bit o' respect, and I even came back out to keep you company while my apprentice finds the belts. Couldn't let such a pretty girl wait alone. Do me a favor, and make yourself comfortable."

Merlin takes two steps back, and holds her ground. If he gets any closer, he will definitely have crossed a line, and she will not hesitate a second longer to kick him in a painful spot.

"I'd rather not," she says quietly, hoping she sounds at least a little like she's warning him.

"Sir?" Naeman's apprentice—Merlin struggles to remember his name, Red? Rod? Roderick, that was it—appears from the back of the workshop, carrying a box, carefully wrapped. "I found the belts, sir. They were under Sir Vailyan's new saddle. I could have sworn you said you already looked there." Rod narrows his eyes with a hint of accusation.

Naeman is instantly over inspecting the box to ensure the right product has been located.

The apprentice is a good kid, even if Naeman is disgusting, Merlin thinks. The boy can't be more than fifteen or sixteen, and he's avoiding her gaze, but he obviously knows that this isn't the first time his master's been way out of line. He probably keeps an eye out for it if he can.

Rod managed to interrupt at exactly the right moment, and he stays in the front of the shop until Merlin leaves with Arthur's commission under the guise of learning how the transaction takes place.

She breathes a sigh of relief and appreciation for the nice apprentices in the world when she's out in the open air, and hopes to high heavens that she won't have to go back to the leathershop for a long, long time.

On the way back, Merlin's mood is lifted when she runs into Gwen on an errand to buy a matching necklace for one of Morgana's dresses, and the two spend more time than they probably should wandering through the marketplace.

"There are always men like that," Gwen says sympathetically, at Merlin's resigned complaint about the leatherworker. "Even women, sometimes. I know we've both had our fair share of messes with them."

"Yeah," Merlin sighs. "It's nothing I can't handle by now, but it'd be nice to not have to, you know?"

"I know," Gwen agrees.

They inspect a set of fine quality jewels, amethysts set in silver. The craftsmanship is exquisite. At least, that's what Gwen says. Merlin knows almost nothing about jewelry, or what makes it exquisite.

"How do you tell?" The warlock asks plaintively, her trouble with Naeman put aside. "They all look—"

"If you say 'the same', Merlin," Gwen huffs. "I will have problems."

"—similar," she finished sheepishly. "I can tell the difference between silver and gold and the different gems, you know."

"Of course you can." Gwen tries to suppress a smile, brushing a curl back from her face.

Merlin has a moment of longing to be as pretty as Gwen, and to wear dresses and jewelry instead of trousers and neckerchiefs, and know the difference between 'prismatic' and 'faceted' gems.

She pushes it aside, though, as always, for a firm reminder that dresses could get her killed by showing off her soulmarks, and that trousers were more comfortable anyway. Her neckerchiefs are important because they cover up two different sets of words, and while she wears them, there's no point in wearing jewelry anyway.

"Do red and purple go together, Gwen?" Merlin asks on impulse.

Gwen pauses in her scrutiny of the amethysts and slowly looks up at her. "Do I want to know why you're even asking that?"

Merlin thinks of how she wore her bright red neckerchief with her purple shirt to meet Leon's parents, and grimaces. "Uh, no. On second thought, please don't tell me. I'd like to reserve some of the tattered shreds which represent my dignity."

Gwen laughs and shakes her head. "Oh, Merlin."

Merlin shrugs. "Well, it's too late now, so I don't think I want to know!"

Gwen laughs harder, and hugs her. "I think anything would look good on you, Merlin. You just have that type of personality. Don't worry about it."

"It's just that I know more about men's clothing than women's," she protests. "Because of Arthur, you know? And all they wear are trousers and tunics. And jackets. There's not much color except for red and…dark green. Maybe blue."

Gwen grabs her hand and pulls her along to the next table, still chuckling.

Merlin makes it back to Arthur's chambers with the belts and, as usual, he forgets to thank her or basically acknowledge her existence in any way except to growl about the ink stains on his curtain.

"There are no ink stains on your curtains, Arthur," Merlin points out. The curtains have been immaculately cleaned, thanks to a handy bit of behind the back magic.

"What do you mean there are no—!" Arthur pokes his head around his changing screen. "Oh. When did you do that?"

"In between going to get your belts and now, obviously," she replies. "How did you not notice?" Merlin is getting better at the cover-ups, she thinks victoriously. Ha. He will never suspect a thing.

"I don't know, that seems pretty suspicious, Merlin. You'd have to have magic or something to get them clean that fast," Arthur calls from behind the screen, unaware of her sudden alarm. "I bet you just switched them out and haven't cleaned the first ones yet."

She breathes a sigh of relief. Never say never. "Where would I even get more curtains?"

"I don't know! Pass me my other shirt, will you?"

"Which one?"

"I don't care, as long as it's not this one!" A damp, sweaty shirt, wadded into a ball, narrowly misses Merlin's head.

"So picky," she snipes, and throws a clean red one over the screen.

He emerges a moment later, fully dressed, and grabs his jacket on the way out of his rooms. "Come on. A herder from the northern plains has a hearing this morning with my father. I'm supposed to attend, and if I'm stuck in there when we could be training, you're coming with me."

Merlin sighs and follows.

The herder's name is Joseph. He seems like he's probably a nice guy, if a little superstitious.

"While we were camped beneath the walls of Idirsholas, we, we saw smoke rising from the citadel, Sire," Joseph says.

Uther frowns, leaning back on his throne.

"Did you see anything else?" Gaius asks carefully.

"No."

"Did you go inside?" Uther inspects him carefully for signs of honesty.

Joseph looks appalled. "No! Nobody has stepped over that threshold for three hundred years! You must know the legend, Sire."

Gaius looks grim. Merlin feels chills suddenly from where she's standing beside the pillar in the throne room.

"When the fires of Idirsholas burn, the Knights of Medhir will ride again," her mentor says quietly. The words hang in the room with a sense of dread.

Merlin has to fight to swallow.

This can't be good.

It isn't good.

On the ride to check out the supposedly abandoned citadel of Idirsholas, Merlin can't shake off the feeling of foreboding, even with all of Arthur's taunts about bedtime stories. She's met things her soulmate doesn't believe even exist, so she'll give herself a little slack for believing Gaius when he's usually right.

But that doesn't mean she isn't hopeful that he's wrong, just this once.

He isn't.

When the Knights of Idirsholas appear, her heart sinks.

When Arthur lands a killing blow, and the knight just keeps coming, all she can think of is her vision in the Crystal of Neahtid, about the army that couldn't die.