Arthur and I were still on good terms but I was getting fed up with his constant mood swings, one moment he'd act all sweet as though he genuinely cared about my wellbeing and the next he was being a pompous, arrogant, self-serving prat. I had thought that after the feast he'd have been warmer towards me but he was still the same old Arthur. Gaius had been called to check out a body that was found in the village and I was told to go and help him, nothing unusual seemed to have happened from what I could see of the body. Then again I could only see his back but there was no blood or wounds that I could see so he'd probably died from some sort of illness. I watched on as Gaius crouched next to the dead boy and wondered how he could do it, personally, corpses freaked me out.

"Aren't you scared?" My words sounded stupid to my own ears, what was a corpse really going to do?

"Of what?" I came up with the most logical answer not wanting him to think that I was a complete moron.

"That you might catch whatever it is." Come to think of it, that was something to be scared of.

"I'm the court physician, Merlin. This is part of my job. There's nothing really to be scared of –" His words cut off as he rolled the body over showing blue tinted skin, with prominent dark veins and glossed over blue eyes. Whatever killed him wasn't normal. Nothing to be scared of my ass!

"You were saying?" I chanced a look around, hoping none of the villagers had noticed what we had, they'd only begin to panic if they knew. Gaius seemed to be on the same track as me.

"People mustn't see this, they'll panic." Make that exactly the same track of mind as me then. I hurried up to grab a sheet off someone's line, making a mental note to return it later and laid it over the poor boy, just in time as a couple walked past and glanced down at the now sheet-covered corpse.

Gaius hurried off to ask one of the villagers for a wagon we could borrow as I stood over the body, making sure nobody dared to remove his sheet and take a look. Between Gaius and I, we managed to haul the body onto it and got to the castle gates without a hitch until Gwen showed up.

"What are you doing?" She seemed in a good mood and I changed my position so I was stood between her and the cart as I fumbled for an answer.

"Just moving something." Please don't ask what, I'm a terrible liar.

"Looks heavy." Well, dead bodies tend to be less light than normal ornaments we move back and forth.

"It's nothing really." I smiled at her and noticed a small bouquet in her hands. "Has someone got you flowers?" She looked at the flowers in her hand and smiled, shaking her head.

"Ohh… no." She giggled as if the idea was ludicrous. I honestly thought she was very pretty and would have lots of men lining up to court her. "Would you like one?" I was going to say yes when she practically shoved it in my hand anyway, Gwen got excited when she was doing something sweet. "A purple one, purple suits you." I placed it in my hair but Gwen, as silly as ever, thought she may have offended me since I didn't say anything; she was looking at my faded red dress in shame. "Not that red doesn't suit you –" I decided to cut her off before she made herself feel worse.

"Thanks, Gwen. It's beautiful, you're too kind." She just smiled and I smiled back, Gaius coughed breaking me out of girl time. "See you later." I rolled my eyes and she giggled again. She was definitely in a good mood.

"Bye, Merlin." I smiled and started to heave the heavy cart towards the castle. Damn Gaius needs an apprentice. That's not me and hopefully a boy, that way I wouldn't have to do all the heavy lifting.

I hated my job! How come I have to be Arthur's servant and help Gaius in my spare time? Well, its not that I minded helping Gaius, he had taken me in after all but sometimes I didn't want to be involved in all of this yucky dead body, plague crap. At the minute I was stood about a foot away from Gaius who was studying the corpses strange skin under a magnifying glass.

"I've never seen anything like this before." I think he was speaking more to himself than me but I was a little curious as to what it was, not that I'd ever admit it. Honestly, I was just hoping it wasn't anything magickal.

"Could it be some kind of plague?" Actually, a plague might be worse than magick. At least I could stop something magickal, well, hopefully.

"No, I fear that this could never come from nature." Ahh, magick it is then. Wait, plague instead, please. Uther will tear Camelot apart searching for who's responsible and I'll probably end up getting the blame. Shit! "But who has this kind of power?"

"Merlin!" Arthur's voice shouted from the door and with a groan I made my way over to it. He's only going to moan at me for being late, I honestly hadn't thought it would take me as long as it had to move the body with Gaius. I opened it slightly and stood in the gap so he couldn't see what was going on.

"Erm… I'm on my way. Sorry, I'm late." I smiled innocently and he rolled his eyes. Bad mood today. That's just brilliant. Not.

"Don't worry, I'm getting used to it." I started to say something witty when I noticed his eyes were staring towards my hair. I looked at him in confusion.

"Problem?" What did I do now?

"Who gave you that flower?" I placed my hand to where he'd been staring and felt the little flower Gwen had given me. Why was Arthur acting so weird about it though?

"Gwen. She gave it to me. Why?" I was immediately on the defensive.

"Tell Gaius my father wants to see him now." Without another word, he stormed off. What got up his ass? I turned to Gaius to see him hiding a slight smirk. I just ignored him, he found humour in the most ridiculous of things.

"Gaius –"

"I heard." He immediately sobered up and I grew annoyed. He could have just asked for Gaius instead of getting me to play messenger.

"Why couldn't he just tell you himself?"

"Because that's the way it is, you're his servant."

"If he knew who I was, what I'd done – "

"You'd be a dead servant." True. "Come on, get this covered up." Why is everyone ordering me around?

"I'm not your servant!" Although I may as well be.

"No, you're my dog's body. Come on, hurry up." I couldn't help letting out a small chuckle at him as I rolled my eyes and replaced the sheet over the corpse. Yuk.

Gaius and I made our way into the throne room to see the King, Arthur, their knights, two villagers and another body. It was in the same state as the first; blue skin, prominent veins, blue eyes. I recognized him as one of the castle servants, I'd never really spoken to him but we had passed each other in the hallways and exchanged quick pleasantries as we'd passed. This was getting worse already.

"What happened to him?" The King seemed more worried than usual, I was sure a part of him already knew the cause and he was just waiting to have it confirmed. Gaius stood to answer Uther and I remained silent by his side as I looked at Arthur. He didn't seem particularly fazed, or interested. He had no clue what was going on but it wasn't hard to guess so he was most definitely an idiot.

"I don't know Sire, it's the second case I've seen today." Uther didn't like that and I wasn't really all that surprised.

"Why didn't you report it to me?" He remained calm as he questioned Gaius but he was most definitely worried, actually I may go as far as to say that he was afraid.

"I was attempting to find the cause."

"What did you conclude?"

"I don't think it's time to hurry to conclusions. The scientific process is a long one." Gaius was trying to buy us time so that I would be in no danger of them looking for a sorcerer.

"What are you concealing from me?" I hated how well Uther could read Gaius; it was a pure pain in my ass. I would be in so much trouble if they started searching for witches.

"Sire, I have seen nothing like it. The victims are dying in 24 hours and it's spreading fast." Please, let him leave it alone.

"What is the cause?" I should have known better than to even hope Uther wouldn't ask any more questions.

"I think we should say the cause, the most likely cause is sorcery." The look on Arthur's face as he stared at Uther let me know that they would most definitely be searching for a sorcerer and that I had to take better care to hide who I really am whilst this goes on. Uther took Arthur to the side, I didn't bother listening in on their conversation. I already knew what it was Uther would be telling him to do. Make door to door searches for anyone who may be a sorcerer. Come to think of it I was in the safest place, they would search the village but there was little chance of them searching the castle. Those who lived here were trusted and thankfully I lived with Gaius, surely they wouldn't bother him whilst he attempted to find a cure, right?

"Merlin?" I looked up from the body to see Arthur gesturing me to go over to him, I did so and he gently touched my hand briefly. Hot and cold, much?

"Your duties are to help Gaius, nothing more." So I was on a break until this was over? At least one good thing came out of it. I nodded and went to leave. "Merlin?" I looked back to see him watching me with worry. "Be careful." I smiled at him and nodded.

"You too." I left with Gaius but didn't miss the slight smirk that spread over Arthur's face.

Gaius and I were in the village market looking for some ingredients and I could see Arthur and his guards talking to villagers and searching their houses. I turned away quickly and that's when I noticed a boy, about my age, he was ill but still alive His skin was starting to turn blue and he seemed to be in a lot of pain. He reached his hand out to me and I instinctively grasped it, trying to comfort him.

"Gaius! Gaius! He's still alive!" Gaius walked over slowly and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"I'm afraid there is nothing we can do for him."

"But we haven't even tried!" My voice was shrill as I looked at him in horror. He wouldn't even try.

"If we don't know what the disease is then how can we cure it?" The answer was obvious and I knew he wouldn't like it

"With magick!" Gaius yanked me up and I instinctively let go of the boy's hand.

"Have a look Merlin, they're suspicious of everyone. This is not the time to be using magick." He was talking about Arthur and his Knights, as Gaius yanked me away I looked back and watched the poor boy slump down in defeat. Tears stung my eyes as I started to feel useless. What was the point in having magick if I couldn't use it to help people? "Science will lead us to the source of the disease." I knew in my heart that Gaius was just trying to keep me alive but what about all of the poor people who were slowly dying. "I'm sorry Merlin, I know it's in your nature to want to help people but you have to help yourself first. If you were caught then you wouldn't ever be able to help anyone again, deep down you know that. If you want to save them, you'll have to help me find the source by using science instead of magick." I nodded and sighed as we made our way back to our chamber.