Part two. I think I've done a fairly good job in posting this less than 24hrs later, right? Don't get used to it, haha. I will try for a chapter every other day or so but seriously who knows. It will be finished though, do not fear. I hate leaving things unfinished so even if it takes years I'll finish it. It shouldn't though. I've managed a chapter everyday for over a week before and I'll do it again.

Gwen had long since stopped crying.

But it still seemed like her eyes got duller with each passing day. And it broke Arthur's heart now more than ever. He had to stay strong for her or she would shatter, but he felt like he would break at any moment.

"I never thought you to be a coward."

And the servant had quite evidently taken that as a challenge.

…

"Arthur?"

He hummed, looking up at his beautiful wife with a smile. But she didn't smile back, and so his faded. "I know, Guinevere."

"It's just- another month has gone by with no word," she said. "I don't know what to think."

Is he dead?

The thought went unsaid, but rang loud and clear through their minds, impossible to ignore. He stood, holding out his arms, and she fell into him. "I miss him so much, Arthur. He was my best friend."

"Mine too," he agreed, resting his chin on her dark hair. "Mine, too."

…

He wandered into the physician's chambers without a word, but Gaius doubtlessly knew he was there anyway. For a long time, neither of them spoke. "Can I help you, sire?" Gaius eventually asked, stopping his grinding of herbs to turn and look at Arthur inquisitively.

Arthur paused, looking up at the ceiling before his gaze wandered to the locked door above the small staircase. "Do you ever go in there?" he asked.

Gaius also looked at the door, so still and plain but so ominous in its meaning. "No," Gaius said. "It isn't my place to go through his things."

"Even if…"

Gaius glanced over sharply. "Even if he's gone," Gaius said. "I won't. I can't bring myself to do it until I know for certain, sire."

Arthur gestured helplessly. "He's only a servant. I don't know how he could have survived over a year alone and without anyone knowing where he's gone to."

The old man gave him a slow, steady look. "I think Merlin is more capable on his own than you realize, sire," he said.

"How?"

…

One Year Ago

"Rise and shine!"

Arthur groaned and reached around until he located a spare pillow and he flung it in the general direction of the voice. He heard laughter, feminine and light, next to him and he crack his eyes open to look at Guinevere, who smiled.

He grinned back and then yelped when the covers on the bed were drawn back. Merlin, completely uncaring of their mutual states of undress, whistled merrily and walked away. Gwen shrieked a bit and covered herself back up as Arthur began to curse at the servant, "Dammit, Merlin! Someday I'm going to have to execute you for seeing things you're not supposed to see!"

Merlin laughed. "I'm not going to look at Gwen, Arthur. My job is not making sure that she gets out of bed, only that your royal backside gets into clothing and into the council meeting in an hour."

He glanced at the light through the window and swore again, getting a pair of breaches flung in his face just as he made to get up. "Merlin…" he warned, and then the shirt quickly followed.

"Sire?"

"You really are the most rotten servant. I don't know why I put up with this. I ought to sentence you to the stocks for that."

"But you won't, because you've got a list of chores long enough to stretch the length of this room for me to do!" Merlin cheerfully announced. "Honestly, I can't catch a break."

Arthur, having successfully pulled his clothing on, got up and walked to the table, where he then ordered, "Merlin! Get out so Guinevere can get dressed!"

The servant laughed and did as he was bid, the door clicking behind him. Arthur rolled his eyes as Guinevere then hopped out of the bed and made her way to the closet, tugging out a blue dress and disappearing behind the changing wall. "Arthur?" she asked.

He hummed in acknowledgement, shoving a piece of fruit into his mouth as he walked to the closet to get a jacket for him to be seen in. "Have you noticed that Merlin seems to be a bit… off, lately?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "He's Merlin. He's always a bit off."

She laughed, but then it died down and she said, "That's not what I meant. He just seems- distant."

As he thought it over, he realized she was right. He opened his mouth to speak but- "Can you help me ties these, love?"

He stood up and joined her, running his hands over her shoulders before taking the ties and beginning to work them into their proper knots. When he finished, he turned her around and kissed her. "Beautiful," he said. "How am I so lucky?"

"It is I who is lucky," she said, and kissed him again.

…

They planned a hunting trip two days later. He took his finest knights- Leon, Percival, Gwaine, Elyan, and Mordred, and they rode out at dawn.

Then the obnoxious whistling took up residence among them, and Arthur was abruptly reminded of his wayward servant, who tagged along next to him. He sighed. "Can you stop that?" he demanded.

The whistling got louder.

He groaned and the whistling was replaced with snickers from all the knights and Merlin, who treated Arthur to a cheeky smile. Something- something off, quicksilver, flashed through his eyes, but it was gone before he could decode it.

And that quicksilver emotion appeared every time Merlin looked at him. It became more obvious the more he looked for it, and he realized that this is what Guinevere was talking about. He looked lost, maybe, or just sad, hopeless.

Arthur didn't know why, and he wanted to fix it, but he didn't know how.

The first day came up with nothing, no thanks to Merlin, and the second turned out much the same.

"Merlin?" Arthur called, and there was no response.

He turned around, looking around the camp, "Where did that idiot go?" he asked the empty air.

"He said something about refilling the water skins, sire," Elyan responded, unpacking his bed roll on the night of the second day out of the four planned.

Arthur nodded decisively.

And then time passed. No sound, no sign, no nothing.

"I'll go look for him, my lord," Mordred said, and when Arthur nodded to him, a worm of worry in his heart, Mordred vanished into the trees.

It was only when the knight managed to do things like that that he remembered the boy was a druid, and they all seemed to have the innate skill of blending in even in plain sight.

More time passed, and when Mordred was gone for an hour, Arthur stood. "Sire?"

Mordred had returned, and without Merlin in tow. Arthur shot him and questioning look but Mordred spread his hands helplessly. "There's no sign of him, my lord."

The boy looked worried. Very worried, and there was something else about him that made the hairs on the back of Arthur's neck rise. "What's the matter, Mordred? There's something else, isn't there?"

He hesitated, and when Arthur kept staring at him, the other knights doing the same, Mordred folded. "There was a message, sire. In the stream."

"What do you mean?" Arthur had a cold feeling spreading through his whole body, and he didn't like it. Merlin couldn't be gone.

"It just- it said-"

"What, Mordred?"

The boy swallowed. "Not even Emrys can help you now," he recited.

The line was familiar, but he couldn't remember where he'd heard it before.

…

They extended the trip, sending Elyan back to inform Guinevere so she wouldn't worry too much about their being late. Knowing his wife as he did though, her worry would only increase with the news. Still, it had to be done.

They searched first around the stream, and poor Mordred just about burst into tears at the sight of the message again, burned into a stone at the bottom of the stream. Arthur pulled it out with difficulty, and when he managed to retrieve it, the message was gone. To say the knights were unsettled would be the understatement of the century.

"Merlin?" Arthur kept calling, each time more irritated and worried than the last.

There never was an answer.

…

"How?" Gaius repeated.

Six Months Ago

Arthur nodded, waving his hands absently. "That idiot can barely hold a sword, never mind stay in the wilderness alone for over a year."

Gaius said nothing, and instead just looked back at the door.

He walked over to the stairs and swung the door open.

Arthur got up and followed quickly, entering the small room behind Gaius. The bed was unmade, and the clothes were gone. There was a floorboard upended under the bed, and there was no sign of anyone ever having lived here other than the sheets. The window was open, the glass cracked and splintered.

Arthur wandered over to it, looking at the scuff marks on the windowsill, and on the roof below. "Gaius?" he asked. He turned around and saw that the man was pale as snow, leaning heavily on the doorframe. Concerned, Arthur walked to him and rested his hand on the old man's shoulder. Gaius directed his gaze to Arthur's, and the king smiled at him, shakily. "Are you sure that Merlin never came home?"

Gaius swallowed. "If he did, sire, I never heard it."

…

Arthur curled around Guinevere, who was crying again. George had just left, the perfect servant, and some days she was okay with him, but this was not one of those days. "Shh," he soothed, running his hand through her curls. "It'll be okay."

"I'm not so sure about that, anymore."

"I'm doing all I can," Arthur promised. "There is only so much I can do for a servant."

Guinevere closed her eyes against the word and choked on another sob. Arthur's voice had broken on the word "servant". They both knew the truth.

…

"Sire?"

Arthur glanced up, quill against his lips, to peer at the door. His eyebrows raised at the sight of his knights. "Yes?" he asked.

It had been Mordred who had spoken. He shuffled nervously now, and so Leon took pity on the poor thing and stepped forward. "We haven't looked in one place, sire-"

"No," Arthur said, barely a breath. He pushed aside the documents on grain to tug the map closer, refusing to believe that Merlin could be anywhere near that place. "I didn't want to think…"

"We have nowhere else to look…"

"It's surrounded by magical enchantments to prevent anyone from going through- we've never been able to reach it," Arthur pointed out. He bit at the feathers on the quill as he thought.

Percival said, "Is it worth that risk? We could be walking straight into a trap."

"Of course it's a trap," Gwaine snapped. "But it's Merlin, and we've let this go too long."

Arthur agreed, but he didn't say it. "I've done everything I know to do."

"You could call in a sorcerer," Percival said, voice soft, and all eyes snapped to him. "It's all we have left."

"Magic is illegal," Arthur said. "And I will never use it again."

"Sire," Mordred said. "If I may…"

"What is it?" Arthur asked, trying to keep his voice level. Mordred was skittish on the best of days, and with his emotions so obviously high, it was best not to scare him off.

"I grew up with magic," Mordred said. "I know people who are superb trackers, if we had something that used to belong to Merlin, perhaps we could find him if you swear to let the person go afterward."

Arthur lowered his eyes. He bit more at the tip of the quill, an awful old habit that Merlin had broken him of ten years ago, but he'd picked it up again in the man's absence. "I'll think on it," he muttered at last, and Mordred bowed in acknowledgement. "Dismissed," he said.

The knights left, but- "Mordred," Arthur called.

With a clap to the shoulder, Elyan slid by the druid, the door just slightly open behind him. Mordred glanced back worriedly, but turned back to the king. "What do you know about this place?" Arthur asked, gesturing to the map with the quill.

"I know Morgana has made frequent use of it in the past," Mordred said carefully.

Arthur's heart stopped. "Morgana?" he repeated. "You're saying that Merlin could be with Morgana?"

Mordred nodded, slowly. "I've suspected it for a long time, sire, but since we've never had much luck with finding her I didn't think it was necessary to bring to light. To be frank, I am surprised that no one brought the idea up sooner."

Arthur had thought about it. Merlin was told everything about the whole of Camelot, from the stocks of livestock to petty rumors about the stable hands to some of Arthur and Guinevere's most personal of secrets. There was little the man couldn't access as the head servant, and such knowledge falling into the hands of his devilish sister made him want to scream. That aside, Merlin was one of his closest friends, not that he'd ever say as much, and the idea that he might be dead or worse by her hands made his vision go red.

"Thank you, Mordred," he said tightly. The druid bowed and walked away, shoulders back and head held high, but Arthur didn't miss the shaking hands.

I beg, right now. Send me prompts. Anything you want to see in this story, I'll see if I can make it happen. Bombard me with your ideas and speculations!