I know, I know. It's been ages. Plus, this story is on hiatus, so really I shouldn't be posting yet, right? Ah, well. Hate me if you want. This little piece just wouldn't stay silent on my laptop files any longer.

Disclaimer: Not mine, guys. Well, except the rabbit. My rabbit.

Quick Info- Morgana is evil, Uther is alive, and Arthur is still a prince. Sort of an incomplete-not-quite-a-reveal fic.

Drabble 10- The Truth Comes Out

It hadn't been Merlin's idea to go into the big, creepy, dark tunnel. Oh, no. That had been all Arthur. All because that stupid rabbit just had to go into that dark entrance, and Arthur's stupid pride just had to kick in, and Arthur just had to insist that he (meaning he and Merlin, of course) go after it.

Not Merlin's idea by any means. Hunting trips were supposed to be a pain, yes, but a pain in a why-do-I-have-to-carry-all-these-dead-animals around kind of way. Not in a we-could-die kind of way.

Or so Merlin had told Arthur (to which Arthur had promptly told Merlin to shut up). And that is how both men ended up trudging down a dark, moldy stone tunnel in some nameless ruin, listening to the faint echoing drip of water and holding hunting supplies and a few animal carcasses (Arthur, of course, carrying the former and a reluctant Merlin luging the latter.)

"I don't see why you have to kill this rabbit," Merlin grumbled, adding his voice to the staccato of footsteps and water.

"I don't see why you can't be quiet," Arthur retorted. "Or is Merlin afraid of an itty-witty wabbit?"

"I'm not afraid of the rabbit," Merlin said, somewhat indignantly, as the duo trudged on. "I'm wary of what else might be in this tunnel with the rabbit."

"You're just being paranoid," Arthur dismissed airily. "They're ruins, Merlin. Hence, abandoned. Hence, no danger."

"What if the ceiling caves in? Or what if there're bandits hiding out here?" Merlin challenged, walking in a wide arc to avoid a particularly muddy-looking puddle.

"Paranoid," Arthur echoed, which Merlin took to mean the prince had no real retort.

Well, the royal could say whatever he wanted, Merlin knew something was off. It wasn't just the ominous surroundings- although in Merlin's opinion, they should have been enough to warn any reasonable person away. No, Merlin could feel it. His magic was coiled tightly, tensed up within him like an animal that knew a predator was near. It sensed what Arthur, apparently, did not; something was here, dark magic. And the warlock did not like it one bit.

Sending a quick glance at the prince, who was walking just ahead of him, Merlin made sure the blonde prince's attention was not on him. Then, as quietly as he could, Merlin muttered under his breath, "ostende te inimicus*."

Instantly, in his mind's eye, a familiar face appeared. Merlin froze, horror trickling through him. Oh, no. He needed to get Arthur out immediately.

Arthur, unaware that his friend had stopped walking, kept on going for a ways until he too stopped. For a moment Merlin thought the prince had noticed the absence of his servant's footsteps or, better yet, had decided that the whole fiasco had been a bad idea after all.

The hope spluttered out and died when Arthur knelt down to take a closer look at something ahead of him on the ground. Just as Merlin opened his mouth to try once again, with more urgency this time to dissuade the prince, Arthur spoke.

"Merlin, look at this," he said. Merlin, jogging slightly to catch up with the royal, let his curiosity temporarily overpower his worry. Maybe he could use whatever his friend had found to drag Arthur away from the tunnel. What he saw made his blood run cold.

There, lying motionless on the uneven stone floor, was the rabbit. Its head, twisted and bent at a sickly, unnatural angle, lay so that both men got a clear view of the creature's wide, lifeless eyes. Its white fur was matted with blood.

"Arthur," the sorcerer managed after a moment, "come on, let's get out of here."

"What could have done that?" Arthur murmured, ignoring his servant. "Such a clean break… this was deliberate."

"Arthur," Merlin urged again, a little panic leaking into his voice. "I really think we should leave."

"Yes, Arthur, run away like a good little boy," sneered a new, cold voice. At the end of the passage there was an arched, shadowed doorway; from this shady spot a familiar form emerged.

"Morgana," the prince breathed, shock flitting across his face that was quickly guarded by disgust. Merlin could not claim to be as shocked- instead, he watched with the guarded wariness of an exasperated parent who had warned a wayward teenager to mind himself but had gotten into trouble anyway.

"All by ourselves, are we Arthur?" The witch's eyes roamed the stone corridor in barely concealed excitement. Her joy turned to a morbid glee when she, seemingly for the first time, spotted Merlin.

"And you brought your little pet!" She cried, grinning like a cat that got the canary. "Possibly the two people I hate most, just handed over to me? Fate is too kind."

"Fate has horrible deaths in store for monsters like you, Morgana," Arthur spat. The sentence seemed to suck all the joy from Morgana's bright face and shadowed it, so she seemed older and more hardened.

"Yes," she hissed, almost to herself. "It does, doesn't it? But fate will not triumph over me there… he will not kill me. An old man! He couldn't possibly!" At her words, a stunned, confused Arthur shot his servant a baffled look, as if to say, "she's crazier than we thought!"

"Well, at least you know you won't win," Arthur managed, any decent comeback lost in his bewilderment. It was like Morgana had gone from one to three and skipped two without any warning- and, worse (in Arthur's personal opinion, at least), Merlin didn't seem half as confused as the prince did.

Merlin, as a matter of fact, was not confused at all. There was only one person Morgana could be talking about.

"Wrong." Morgana hissed, furious. "Emrys will not evade me!"

"Emrys," Arthur echoed, arching one eyebrow skeptically. "Morgana, any doubts I had about your sanity are confirmed, believe me. Emrys is a myth."

Both Morgana and Merlin stared at him, dumbfounded. Then-

"You know about m- Emrys?" Merlin cried, stunned. He was too surprised to even remember the witch watching on- luckily, said witch was just as surprised.

"How?" The dark-haired woman asked, sounding painfully like the old Morgana as her menacing demeanor slipped in her shock.

"Morgana, you forget I lived during the Great Purge. There was a time during my lifetime when such nonsense was still heard of."

"But you would have been an infant, a toddler at oldest," Morgana argued.

"What?" Arthur asked, looking almost offended. "You think an entire magical community just disappeared overnight? It took time. And I may be royalty, but you honestly believe I wasn't observant enough to take notice of a myth regarding a magical savior?"

"Your skills in the 'observant department' have been lacking in the past, Arthur," Merlin muttered, shaking off his shock in an attempt to remember the real threat: Morgana.

The words seemed to shake Morgana from her stunned diplomacy and remind her oh, right, I want to kill them. Still, a crazy light was still in her shadowed eyes- Emrys had been involved. In Morgana-speak, that meant all logic and reason (or as much as any evil sorceress would have) flew out the window.

"That's right, Arthur," Morgana sneered. "Never observant enough, are you?"

Both men knew she was talking about her time as a hidden magic wielder in the castle; neither rose to the bait. After all, one can only apologize so many times.

"Perhaps you will see this, though. Try to keep up," Morgana mused, almost as an afterthought as she raised one hand. Blue energy crackled between her fingers. Arthur drew his sword, but Merlin knew between steel and magic, Morgana would triumph. In that moment, the warlock would have given anything for a handy tree branch to conveniently knock the prince out with- but in an abandoned tunnel, well, resources were limited. Meaning, of course, no such tree branch was to be found.

And Merlin couldn't let Arthur get hurt, secret double life aside. So he did the only option left that he saw- he threw himself at Arthur and shoved him out of the way. Arthur stumbled sideways and hit the wall hard. He slid to the ground, dazed but not knocked out. Meanwhile, Morgana's blue energy hit Merlin square in the chest, arching across his slender figure and sending him skidding across the floor where he lay motionless.

"Merlin!" Arthur shouted, stumbling to his feet. "Leave him out of this, Morgana," he managed, unsteadily planting himself between the witch and his fallen manservant. "If you've killed him…" he added, and despite his weak condition, the look in his icy blue eyes was anything but.

"Relax, brother dear," Morgana sneered. "He's fine. Just very, very honest at the moment."

"What?"

"Well, it would have been optimal if it'd hit you, of course. Then any information you had on my- ah- opponent would have been mine. But no matter. I think Merlin has a secret or two you'd be interested in hearing yourself. Try asking him about poison, when he wakes." She surveyed the two men coolly, a small smirk on her face like they were the punchline of a great joke. "And I do hate to get my hands dirty. Maybe you'll do it for me. Until next time, your highness." And in a twirl of black satin and tangled hair, the witch was gone.

In her wake, she left one baffled king and one honest warlock, who was harboring a lot more than one secret. She had no idea, but poison would be the least of Merlin's troubles when he woke. Because in his case, honesty could be either his armor or his Achilles heel- and Morgana had fired the arrow for him. (Here's a hint- she wasn't aiming for the armor.)

*Reveal thy enemy

A/N: Just in case anyone is confused, Morgana intended to hit Arthur with a truth spell to find out if he knew anything else about Emrys. When it hit Merlin instead, she opted to leave him "under the influence" of the spell thinking that when Arthur found out about Merlin trying to kill her, he'd kill Merlin in his anger. She left then so Arthur could "do the dirty work"- kill Merlin- and then later, it'd be that much easier to kill Arthur once Merlin was out of the way.

Now, before anyone asks what happens next, etc.: I WILL BE POSTING A TWO-SHOT VERSION OF THIS STORY THAT CONTINUES ON AND SHOWS MERLIN UNDER THE TRUTH SPELL/THE REVEAL. IT WILL NOT BE POSTED IN THIS DRABBLE SERIES- IT WILL BE POSTED AS A SEPARATE STORY CALLED "LIAR, LIAR".

I know the plot for this story is pretty weak... but it's Fanfiction and just a bit of fun, so bear with me please. :) Reviewers get cookies- (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)

-Qwerty