~ Chapter 11: One Sleepy Night ~

- Arthur -

Everything Merlin said kept sounding in my head. He really had a difficult time in Camelot, yet this was the first time he'd ever talked about his struggle.

We stopped for lunch a little after his outburst. Merlin gathered some roots and food that he always got for stew and muttered some mumbo jumbo under his breath to speed it up a little bit.

As we were sitting there eating, I decided to ask him about something he had said earlier. "You mentioned before… Morgana, Agravaine, and… and Mordred," I said. I felt a stab of pain in my chest. Mordred had been one of my closer friends. "I knew about Morgana and Agravaine, but Mordred? I thought he was my friend." I paused as I remembered when he left. "At least until he ran away from Camelot and stabbed me with a magical sword."

"He was," Merlin admitted. "But he was your bane. He was destined to hate you and kill you in the end."

"You said he was. What changed it?" I asked him curiously.

"The girl," Merlin explained. "You had her killed and that broke Mordred. He was blinded by love so he couldn't see that you gave her the chance to live. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it."

I sighed. We finished eating quickly and then continued walking. Our journey was starting to take its toll on me. My lack of sleep and the difficulty of traversing the land was making me stumble more often than not. I was used to braving the wilderness and the strenuous exercise, but it was still a lot for me. I didn't know how Merlin was doing it. He just seemed so full of energy. And he'd done so much more than me.

I stumbled once and was having difficulty getting up. Merlin was at my side in a moment. "My lord?" He asked. "Let me help you."

"There's nothing you can do Merlin. I'm just tired," I told him. "I just need to rest."

Merlin said a string of strange words and a strange feeling spread through me. When it had finished, I felt oddly refreshed.

I jumped to my feet, amazed by my surge of energy. Merlin slumped back, looking tired.

"What did you do?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "I'll be fine in a moment. That's an exhausting spell. It gave you more energy," he explained.

"I can feel that, but what did it do to you?" I asked him.

"Like I said, it was an exhausting spell. To give energy to someone you must take it from somewhere. It's like giving and taking a life. The balance has to be restored," he told me.

"You shouldn't have done that," I told him. "I was fine."

"You were not fine," he argued. "I know I can't give you everything you need, but this was the least I could do."

"You shouldn't have done that," I repeated. It was the little things that really made me realize how much Merlin did for me. "What's going to happen when I get hungry again?" I tried to make a joke out of it.

"You have hands," Merlin told me.

I chuckled. "Nice to see your sense of humor is intact."

I put my arm under his and helped him walk. He seemed to get better as we progressed, but he was still nowhere near back to his normal self.

Despite his weakness, we made decent progress, getting more than halfway through the forest of Eden. Even though there was still sunlight, I decided to stop for the night. Merlin definitely needed the rest and we had travelled enough that we would arrive back at Camelot by the morrow.

Merlin sat down by a tree. He told me what herbs and materials to collect. It took longer than he ever took, mostly because I was trying to find them by Merlin's description. He mixed them together and made them into a stew once I had scavenged enough.

"I'll stay on watch," I told him. "You get some sleep."

Merlin nodded and quickly fell asleep. He hasn't slept in two days. His fatigue did not surprise me.

Despite my words, I found myself drifting in and out of sleep.

I was abruptly woken up by the screams and footsteps enclosing our camp. I saw Merlin sit up, wide awake. Bandits.

There were at least twenty of them. Way too much for two men. Or at least that's what I thought. Merlin's eyes flashed gold and a bandit that was sneaking up behind me flew backwards about fifteen feet. I hadn't even noticed him. In the second that he did that, I jumped to my feet and pulled out my sword.

I took on the first bandit I saw, while Merlin made two of them fly back again.

I saw what Merlin was doing. He was making sure that he didn't kill the bandits. He only frightened them away. I was trying to do the same. Not frighten them off, obviously, but tire them out.

Most of the bandits were coming after me, but a couple were going after Merlin. He was doing a good job though, holding his own.

When there were only a handful of bandits left, everything changed. I heard a gasp in his direction, and I turned just in time to see a bandit pull his sword out of Merlin's back.

Merlin fell to the ground. This couldn't be happening.