His eyes opened, the sun twist out of his eyesight letting only enough to light the room reach them. They didn't burn and his body sprang up, looking around as the sunlight arched around him and avoided his eyes with reverence. He took a breath of relief, swung his feet over the bed and rubbed his eyes. It was the same every morning, the same every night he actually managed to sleep. He'd wake up in a flurry of panic, heart pounding in his ears, hands shaking in terror, eyes shifting around the room nervously. When he established that nothing had been floating, moving, or cleaning on its own this morning, the tension eased a little and the nausea started, making him swoon and forcing him to put his head between his legs and breathe deeply.
Though it wasn't as bad as some other mornings, he still felt sick as the pre-dawn light flitted through his blinds. The streams came in oddly, shifting, bending at odd angles and realized that that was the feeling in his heart. It made him dizzy and pushed against him, but he couldn't let it continue. He had things to do and couldn't go around bending light away from him. So he took a breath and yanked hard on the magic, leaving the sunlight to rest back into his place and fought off another wave of delirium tremens.
Dear Goddess, he hated waking up most mornings, but he didn't have a choice. He had to get going, had to get moving. He took a moment to breath easy and relish the feeling of the world dimly humming around him, even his uncomfortable bed seemed to feel like more than what it was as he breathed in and forced himself to get up. He stumbled at first, but steadied against the wall. He took a moment to breath before standing upright and trotting down the stairs to great Gaius, make breakfast, and get on his way.
When he was in Ealdor, he never had this much of a problem getting up, never had this much of a problem with anything. He didn't wake up nauseous, dizzy, or utterly imbalanced there, yet ever since traveling to Camelot, he'd only gotten more and more clumsier and not because his body was growing too fast for his muscles. No, he'd never had that problem. Everything in him seemed to grow together and in great proportion. At some point in his life, he was very graceful. But that was before he came to Camelot of course... When it first started happening in Camelot, he thought it was stressed. He more like hoped it was stress, and the frequency of magic used in Camelot that he could fight off was enough that he really could play it off as stress. But Merlin had always known that there was more to it than just stress... His magic was cramped and irritated.
He was much too small a container, or rather his skin-like boundaries with the world were negligible at best, they always had been, and his attempt to hold siege around his magic was leading to this. He felt sick. His body was imbalanced and all and all that made him completely imbalanced. He only hoped that it wouldn't spread to his mind otherwise he'd have some serious was still sleeping it turned out and Merlin rather not wake him, taking the time to make breakfast in peace and wallow in his internal roiling.
A few more moments of private peace and he was up, pulling on the armor of his servitude and schooling his features into serenity. It was something he'd had a lot of practice doing. He looked over the list of things Gaius would have him do for the day and started on the most important parts before heading to the kitchens to get Arthur's breakfast and carry it up the stairs to the man who also wasn't up as usual. Merlin entered the room, pulled back the heavy curtains around the bed.
"Time to get up!" he announced. The King grumbled and complained about having to wake up. Merlin paid him no heed as he always did it, but thrust the blinds open, pulled the covers off him and told him to get up with as much snark as he could muster through his disorienting imbalance.
"Oh how lazy, the mighty King Arthur is." It was apparently enough to rile the man and distract him from the tremor in his voice and the phantom queasy sound Merlin could hear in his speech. Arthur sat up, blonde strands sticking up in multiple directions, bare chested and glaring over the expanse of the bed as he got up out of bed with a growl. His loose sleeping pants rode low on muscle sculpted hips and abs. It was a nice steadying view to focus on as a reason not to pass out.
"I am not lazy!"
"Glad to see you're up,sire."
He replied before setting the remaining bits of clothing out and announcing that he would leave him to get dressed in order to take care of a few things for Gaius in time to meet him for the council. Arthur didn't ask questions as Merlin flitted away, oddly light on his feet but wavering still as if he felt awkward in his own body. He brushed it off as Merlin always looked like he was awkward in his own body. He was ready to head down and met Merlin in the corridor in front of the hall. They hadn't even managed to get into the nitty gritty details of the kingdom's financial status when it happened.
"Sire!" Leon said as he came into the council looked up at him in interest, "What is it Sir Leon?"
"There's a villager here saying something about a path of lilies..."
Arthur frowned, "A... path of lilies...?"
"On barren ground sire..."
Merlin swallowed hard as the young woman came forward, curtsying lightly. He recognized her as a girl from the lower town. He remembered running into her a couple of times in his quest for certain herbs that Gaius needed. He didn't remember her being there at the dead of night when he went and prayed that no suspicion would be directed at him. He figured that all the other times he's been caught in the crossfire of sorcery accusations were enough to make anyone suspicious, he didn't think that his reputation could take one more.
Good maybe then you can blast this stupid castle to the ground, Merlin shoved that thought away. That wasn't him, that was the under-siege magic talking, saying words that spoke something about his sentiments towards Camelot's policies... He felt it sneaking towards his boots to erupt and splinter the flagstones and cut that line of connection before it could take hold. Another wave of nausea came, he clenched his jaw and didn't move.
"What... Why is this important?"
"I walk that way every day sire, to pick herbs... There has never been anything but grass and trees in the meadow, and barely that...but this morning there were... I don't know a field of some sort of flowers and medicinal herbs that had never been there before. I had only gone early yesterday afternoon. Nothing grows that quickly... The trees had grown, everything was so green, I... I was just scared that there was magic involved."
What kind of sorcerer makes the flowers grow?
Merlin swallowed as she was dismissed with the assurance that her concern was well noted and they would look into it. Leon had already gone to see and pointed out there were a set of footprint shaped patches of basil before the lush field stretched out.
"It leads all the way to the Lake of Avalon."
Arthur frowned, "We'll keep an eye on it."
Merlin wasn't sure whether to be relieved or annoyed. Who worries about a sorcerer that makes the flowers grow anyway? If Arthur was such a fanatic about everything being magic-free he would really hate it when Merlin stopped keeping his food warm, the water chilled or anything else he did. The meeting went on and was dismissed, Merlin went back to rushing about the palace. His magic had built back up extremely quick, faster than he expected anyway. Apparently fostering a near meadow of flower, herbs, and spice wasn't even a dent into it. He couldn't help but think that this wasn't going to end well. Especially since Arthur was planning another hunting trip.
Goddess, how he hated hunting, not only did they go out and kill poor animals, but being surrounded by all that life, all the green and the like would be hell on his control. Unfortunately, he had to got because Arthur wouldn't know how to cook a deer tender even if you wrote him an instruction manual. He packed and readied the horses himself following after the knights as they headed out into the forest past the newly formed grove. It drove a spike of guilt through him and for a moment the defenses were weakened, but only for a moment.
"That... definitely looks like magic..."Percival swung off his horse to kneel and take a look, picking a bit of basil and sniffing it."It's... rather fresh..."
He shrugged carrying on into the forest, chewing a mint leaf, tethering the horses as Arthur and the knights spread out to find something to hunt down and bring back to the castle.
Couldn't they find something better to do? Merlin thought in exasperation.
Not that he wasn't a fan of meat, but he could feel every time they cut something down. He just wished that it would be for something more than sport. But rather than say so, he headed to the lake to fill buckets for the horses and gather firewood. It didn't take them long without Merlin scaring away most things with his clumsiness, and sometimes his intention. The brought back a deer, gutted it, hacked up and Merlin was in charge of roasting it. They laughed and chatted, teased, and Merlin said nothing, focusing on the flickering flames. He doled out the meal, poured water and said nothing. He served them as needed and went back to staring into the fire away from the small band of knights around Arthur that laughed.
He felt Gwaine approaching him. He was light on his feet, not a real leaf gave way, but Merlin didn't need those normal signs. With them distracted, he could sit to the side and channel his magic into his senses, expanding outward and letting the world see him. He felt infinite in those moments, and the nausea lessened the longer he focused on it.
"What's going on with you Merlin?" Gwaine asked, sitting down beside him. "You've been off a little lately..."
Merlin snickered, "You... have no idea."
"You should eat."
"Not hungry."
"You haven't eaten since we left..."
Merlin shook his head and didn't correct him. It had bee much longer than that. He'd made breakfast for Gaius, made it seem like he'd eaten, but didn't. He didn't eat dinner the night before either, or lunch, or breakfast...
"Maybe later."
He was too dizzy, he didn't want to think about what would happen if he allowed his body to get some food. He'd have way too much strength to run on magic alone. And even though his magic was feeling cramped in too small of a container, it was giving him the energy to move about and not faint from lack of food. His movements were clumsy, but they were controlled as best they could be. It wasn't a good idea, if he had physical strength along with the magic, the small stream of energy he was focusing would gush out with life and he'd have a much bigger problem on his hand than an empty stomach. Soon they would be heading back depositing the rest of the meat in the kitchen before heading back to the more boring duties of being a King's manservant. Merlin wouldn't have much to do now as he'd scrubbed the entire castle at least a few times over and was too physically tired to support himself without the absorption of his own magic. But Gwaine had been persistent, getting him to finish a whole bowl of stew and a healthy cut of meat before heading to sleep. He knew he'd need to release before they headed back, before his body had the chance to absorb the food, thus when most of the camp went sleep, and at the very least he was sure Arthur was asleep he stole off into the woods, running as fast and as free and as guiltless as his feet could carry him.
Arthur didn't sleep, or rather he was woken up by a tug on his senses. Someone was moving away from the camp-fast. Looking around, he realized that it was Merlin missing, a twist of terror went through him and he got up, following the sound of footsteps and billowing clothing. He caught a glimpse of Merlin's body but no one else. At least he wasn't being kidnapped. Most of the chase revolved around him trying to figure out what the hell was going on, but Merlin was fast, extremely fast with a medicinal satchel across his body and rushing through the forest. Had Arthur known he was such a fast runner he wouldn't have bothered, but he also didn't really know what Merlin was doing, only that he'd woken up and Merlin was rushing off into the woods. He lost him in the dark, it was too dark for him to see anything, but he could hear Merlin's footsteps in the distance. He cursed as it was too dark to track where Merlin might have gone and thus he returned to camp only to find Merlin sitting by the fire placing more wood in the flames and stoking it.
"Merlin..."He looked up his satchel was full of herbs and the like and he was separating them by the light of the fire. "Where'd you...get off to?"
He raised an eyebrow and then the filled satchel, "Gaius asked me to pick some herbs up while we were out and about... You look... out of breath. Maybe you should lay off the stew."
He could see the King's pride hurt. Arthur was in great physical shape, trim, all solid lines and stern muscle. He could run fairly fast with, and without, his armor... But whoever he was chasing was apparently faster. Merlin smirked on the inside, he'd outrun the King, but he wouldn't tell him that. He only needed to bruise the other's pride to get him off his back. Insinuating that he was out of shape would be enough. He turned back to the fire, not paying attention to the man that was trudging up behind him.
Arthur huffed, "Are you trying to say something Merlin?"
"No, I already said it."
He took that moment to swat Merlin over the head and neither said anything when Merlin ducked. To call it "dodging" would have done it an injustice. Merlin had merely tilted his head out of the way, a mere rotation at the neck to avoid it. It was quick and fast as if he'd had more experience ducking and dodging than he let on, or at the very least more awareness of how to do it. He'd never dodged Arthur's swats before, never. Arthur had never known he was capable of it, but the fact that he was now brought up questions as to why he allowed himself to be hit all those other times? Was he always allowing himself to be hit? Had he only just now been able to dodge? What changed now that he could? Does anything change? What the hell was going on?
"You missed," he said, but the statement lacked any cheek, no snark, just a statement of the facts.
Arthur swallowed, and the lonely man inside him winced and whimpered at the tone. It was so distant, and cold as if the little bit of sunlight in Arthur's glittering world of pomp and circumstance, the only source of true reality had been taken away from him. He didn't let it show though, that would be to be weak and he couldn't afford that. He was Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot, he didn't have time for weakness, people depended on him.
But who am I to depend on...?
His heart shivered at the fact that he'd been able to voice that question through the haze of his assumed personality. He was weakening. What was happening? What was this big eared commoner doing to him? Those were questions for another time...
"Be glad I did, I would hate to have to explain to Gaius why your face is scorched."
Arthur took the time to bundle down, ignoring the shuddering change of the night and hoping that in the morning the world would return to normal. Gwaine woke up to take shift with Merlin. He wondered again why Merlin was taking shift, but it didn't matter as he drifted to a deep looked at Merlin fiddling with herbs across the camp fire.
"What's going on with you Merlin?" He asked. "You've been acting weird lately."
He shook his head, "I'm fine, Gwaine; I wish you all would stop asking that question."
"You scrubbed the entire castle... twice, everyone is wondering what on earth is going on with you?"
"I... I just have a lot on my mind."
"You wanna talk about it? Despite what most people think I can listen."
Merlin snorted, "I know that, Gwaine."
"Then I'm listening."
Merlin sighed and winced as he felt strength returning exponentially as the food absorbed in his stomach. Apparently, the run hadn't been enough. There was more coming, much more and soon his magic was returning to borderline too-strong-for-words. It had almost caught him off guard, he felt it pushing at his slightly relaxed control, but it was merely Gwaine so some of the side effects of the rush weren't necessary to be hidden. The heady intoxicating feeling, the joy that his own power always brought it was a little disorienting, elevating his emotional state higher than what was safe.
"I..." He wavered, swooning in the euphoria. Gwaine watched in confusion, not really sure why Merlin's eyes were fluttering, his jaw was set and he looked somewhere on the edge of screaming for mercy and screaming for more.
"You?" Gwaine asked. Merlin leaned over the fire to speak in lower tones as to not wake anyone, so that no one could hear.
"It's... my disposition."
Gwaine blinked looking at him until their eyes met and he could see the tiny flecks of gold tearing through his blue irises at once fading and rebelling as Merlin blinked. The flickering gold-blue, amber-ice, was noticeable, but nothing was happening around them so he wondered what exactly was Merlin doing with the fluctuating energy? The fire danced a little and decided not to ask. No sense in putting himself in danger for bringing it up, especially not since Arthur was so close to them and probably not sleeping as hard as he wished he was.
Gwaine was right, Arthur was barely dozing off when the conversation started. He got hints and the word "disposition". What the hell did that mean? What disposition?
"Well... what about it? Are you sick?"
"Something... like that."
He wouldn't call it a sickness per se, but it felt pretty damn close. He felt ill, but it wasn't debilitating, just altering in strange ways. He had symptoms of wooziness, dizziness, but it wasn't dizziness. There were extreme headaches, weird places in his body that ached, his limbs wouldn't listen to him, he felt sluggish and insane, but his mind was clear...
Something like what? Arthur thought, itching to now. Gwaine's voice had been soft enough to blot out any sense of understanding from where he lay. Whatever they were discussing, Gwaine wanted it protected... and Merlin, the idiot didn't seem to realize that someone could be listening in. It wasn't fair that he'd known Merlin the longest, yet it was Gwaine that was getting this private talk. He always thought that they were close enough that Merlin would come to him if he had a problem.
You haven't made it particularly easy for him, now have you? He glared at Arthur who'd said that. It was the real Arthur who looked more upset about it, but blamed prat!Arthur all the same. He admitted it was his fault but that didn't meant that Merlin had the right to hide things from him. He wanted to know.
"When... when I keep it locked up, it gets angry," Merlin said, easing the words across the fire.
Gwaine raised an eyebrow, "How... does that work?"
How does what work?! The real Arthur shook his head at his temper tantrum. It seemed that Merlin, as he knew, was smart enough to know what Arthur sounded like when he was dead to the world.
"It's because it's my disposition rather than a... learned behavior."
"Uh huh," Gwaine said, all this talking in code was a little confusing but he was sure that Merlin was trying to say that his magic was angry with him. "Your disposition is angry with you?"
"Something like that, it's the best way to explain it. I tried to explain it to my mother once and she understood it that way."
Explain what to his mother? Understood what? Is he sick? What on earth is going one?!
"Okay, so what happens when it gets angry?"
"It... comes out at unexpected times...It more like gushes out if it can, if for one moment I lost control."
"Uh huh... so... how come it hasn't done this before?"
"It has, when I was a teen in Ealdor, but since I've arrived in Camelot there have been enough major events that detract attention from me."
It was an understatement of course. That hadn't been a gushing, or just a wildfire, it had been a volcano of the culmination of teenage angst, not fitting in, never knowing his father, and everything else that had been weighing on his young mind. He remembered it and shivered at the power and horror when he realized that he could have killed someone. Lightning tore through the sky, touching down around him, striking land dead. Trees fell, clouds gathered and the entire forest scattered around him. He'd escaped to the forest away from Ealdor to avoid hurting anyone,(he thanked the Triple Goddess everyday since for giving him sense enough to do that) but Will... dear Will had come and found him. Apparently, he'd been worried that Merlin was out in the storm, or maybe Hunith had asked for him to look for him as Will was the one person who knew where Merlin liked to hide in his moments of extreme emotion. He'd seen the other coming through the trees and that had been his first pseudo-homoerotic moment. All of his power had vanished, evaporated into nothing, swirling into silence and shame inside him.
He didn't want Will to see him like that, he never wanted anyone to see him using his power, accidental or he hadn't been quick enough, Will saw. He'd been too quick and the drawback in power had overwhelmed his entire being. He'd collapsed in the clearing, Will caught him, kissed him and he did more crying than making out as his magic thrashed around on the inside, flickering in his eyes and tearing at his skin-like boundaries fighting to get out. He trembled, whimpered and smothered screams of pain in Will's shirt until it died down and the pain ebbed. They woke up the next morning with Will wrapped around Merlin for comfort and calm. It was the first night in a long time that he didn't wake up levitating over the bed or with anything else around him levitating.
"Ahhh... so you in peace in Camelot is a problem."
"A very major one..."
Ealdor? Camelot? What's the difference? Arthur thought with a frown. Was he planning on going back to Ealdor?A streak of panic went through him. Merlin couldn't leave! He wouldn't allow it.
"Well, how much longer until it... gushes out?"
Yes when are you planning to leave so I can throw you in the stocks to keep you here...
"I've been trying to avoid it: high emotional states, physical rest-"
"You haven't slept...?"
"No."
"And the eating..."
"It's part of it."
"Merlin are you insane? You can't-"
That's right Gwaine, tell him he can't leave!
"It's the only way for now, since that villager is apparently afraid of lilies and basil."
Gwaine snickered, "Well, did it help?"
"For a while... not very long."
He'd coming back then? Well, how long is not very long?
"That's why... you've been assaulting our armor lately?"
"Yes."
Gwaine shrugged, "Well, whatever floats your boat... How long can you keep this up though?"
"I don't know... when I was younger it was easier, there was less of it and more chances for me to exercise it... I lasted a week then."
A week? A week's not that bad...so long as it's only a week...
"How long have you been..."
"Almost three months."
THREE MONTHS?! We'll have to talk about the length of sacking yourself and holiday. You'll miss Yuletide and who else is actually going to get everything that needs to be done in the way that it needs to be done?
Gwaine shook his head, "This isn't going to turn out well."
You're damn right, Gwaine. He'll be in the dungeons for three months if I have my way...
When the rest of the knights woke, Merlin had already prepared the horses, put out the fire and was ready to go home. The Knights didn't comment on it, thinking that Merlin was just being Merlin who hated to go hunting. Arthur wouldn't let it go, not after the bits of the conversation he'd heard the night before.
"So eager to get back to Camelot? Can't handle the woods, Merlin?" Arthur asked looking at him suspiciously.
"Whatever you say," was the reply.
He mounted the horse and the ride back to Camelot was simple, easy and with no problems. That night, he didn't bother running outside the castle gates, as it was obvious that someone was following him. He figured that someone was Arthur, but didn't call him out on it. He just stopped leaving the castle all together. Instead, he spent the night organizing all of Gaius' books, vials, herbs, labeling everything, he was scrubbing the floors when Gaius woke up to look at him strangely.
"Merlin... what are you doing?"
"Keeping busy," he said quickly wringing out his towel and moving to dump the water out before walking over to the fire and pulling out their breakfast. They ate in silence, Gaius looked around with a swallow as Merlin seemed to be eating nothing more than what was absolutely necessary to keep him from passing out from hunger. He couldn't have that, no telling how his magic would act without him conscious.
I'd run amuck, he snorted. Even his magic was a snarky git.
"Merlin... did you... do all this..."
"Yes."
"From the look of you, you did it by hand... don't you think you're wearing yourself out?"
"I have to, Gaius."
Gaius frowned, he didn't understand. Merlin didn't blame him either, he never told Gaius about the intricate details of his disposition as he'd taken to calling it. It would have only made the man worry about what Merlin was doing, it would have only made things a whole lot worse. He prayed that Gaius would just let him run himself into the ground, a part of him knew that it would last long. A few hours later, Merlin was passed out, still scrubbing at some piece of armor in his sleep. As Gaius approached, Merlin sat back up, awake and continued scrubbing as if he'd only just dozed off and intended to continue. There was a fire in his eyes, burning too brightly to be comfortable.
He only hoped his ward wouldn't do something stupid, like get himself almost killed.
When they arrived back at Camelot, Arthur had kept Merlin up and at his beck and call, something that Merlin was thankful, even if he'd rather not be at the King's beck and call when he seemed to be in such a bad mood. He was more of a prat then general and hardly let Merlin out of his sight. He'd been pulled onto the training ground to be beaten to a black and blue pulp by Arthur and a few of the strictly noble knights. Though he ached all over, he was internally grateful for it. It gave his magic something to do that could be brushed off or hidden underneath his clothing.
Despite all of that, Merlin had been right. With every passing week it only got worse, even with his constant state of exhaustion and his lack of sleep, he knew that it was only going to get worse when he started blacking out huge chunks of time. He'd been on the training field the first time, the tin helmet was practically suffocating him, but that hadn't matter. For a while he'd only heard his own breathing and then woke up to see Arthur on the ground looking up at him, looking shocked.
"Why Merlin, I think you just knocked me over! Seems like you're finally getting better."
Merlin dropped the sword at his words and swallowed thickly. That wasn't a good thing, no matter how surprised Arthur seemed to be about it. of course, that didn't happen again as Arthur knocked him down consistently for the rest of the day and sighed. It was just luck he'd said, shaking his head. He didn't know what had happened but he avoided Gwaine and his probing questions like the plague. He took any chore anyone would give him, anything: mucking out the stables, washing clothes, fetching water, cleaning the leech tanks...His chores were done, he had no recollection of doing them, but there was no magical residue in the air, no sense of his altering. He took a seat to think and found his world tilting when he realized that the was utterly exhausted and if he sat down any longer he would be asleep, possibly levitating around or making a patch of barren ground sprout daisies and wake up with a death sentence in a dungeon cell.
At least you'd sleep comfortably...
Obviously, he didn't sit down much longer after his world began to tilt. He swallowed marching back to Gaius' chambers to pack a bag and explaining to Gaius, "I need to get out of the city. Tell Arthur that I've... I've gone home to see about my mother's health or something."
"Merlin what's... going on?"
He pulled the bag over his shoulder, "I'll explain when I get back, I promise, but I can't right now. I have to go."
Merlin rushed out in a flurry of movement leaving Gaius confused. He and Merlin had always been close, he knew Hunith was in perfectly good health so he wasn't going to see his mother. But where he was going he didn't know and couldn't really fathom. Maybe he was going to talk to Kilgarrah or something, but there hadn't been any need for it that he could see. He could have been going to the Lake of Avalon to visit Nimueh, but he doubted it. Merlin didn't seem to be in the mood to visit the dead. He seemed agitated, exhausted, rushed, and a little frantic. Was there something else bothering his young charge? What else could it have been? There was definitely something Merlin wasn't sharing with him.
Merlin had no time to think about his mentor's concerns. He didn't waste time. With every footfall through the city, his magic twisted and curled like lightning through his legs, it felt an oncoming freedom, a temporary end to the siege and was pushing against the walls hard. He had to reel back from letting it control his running and running too fast. He was out of the city as fast as he expected and through the forest. He ran, practically flying over the branches and lettinig his magic ext through his footfalls, restoring life in patches and rushing towards the lake of Avalon.
Unfortunately, for him Arthur had been on his way back from something and saw a flash of movement through the trees. Against his normal judgement, he followed the sound of it and soon found boot shaped patches of near glowing green grass. For a moment, he heard it stop the flurry of movement ended, but it was human breathing. Whoever it was, had either seen him or seen something.
A sorcerer...
It moved again and he was after it. It was faster than him, but with growing footsteps, it wasn't hard to track. But the footprints stopped at the edge of the lake of Avalon, disappearing it seemed under the smooth surface of the lake. He huffed, sheathing his sword and listening around him. There was no sound, nothing, but he knew that whatever, whoever, he'd been chasing wasn't far off. He felt it in the stillness of the woods, all the hair at the nape of his neck was standing and he hated the way the shiver felt down his back, but it didn't matter. Unless it dove, intangible into the lake, it was gone. The lake was placid and peaceful. Nothing had entered it that was tangible anyway. Rather than tackle this alone, he headed back to the city to talk about it with the Knights and enlist Merlin to come along. When he arrived however, Merlin was gone. Gaius was in his chambers, which were more organized than he ever remembered. Apparently, Merlin's cleaning spree was still in effect.
He's such a girl sometimes...
"Where's Merlin?"
"He... went back to Ealdor to check on his mother's illness."
He frowned, Merlin had never mentioned his mother. As a matter of fact, he'd never mentioned his father either. For someone he spent so much time with, sometimes obsessive, sometimes not, he didn't know much about Merlin outside of his snark and loyalty. He'd met the woman when they'd gone to save the small village, but other than that there was nothing else.
"Is she... alright?"
"I don't know," Gaius said. "He didn't say much about it..."
"Well, when did he leave?"
"About an hour ago on foot."
He snorted, the idiot could have at least asked for a horse, but no matter. Maybe this is what he and Gwaine had been talking about... It would make some sense. It's possible that Hunith had a terminal illness of some kind. He felt more than guilty that he'd thought about detaining Merlin in the dungeon when his mother was dying... He only wished that Merlin had told him, or talked to him about it. As much of a prat as he could be, Arthur wasn't heartless, he would have given Merlin whatever he needed to go and see his mother. He headed back to the training grounds with a strange feeling that there was something going that he didn't quite grasp. He tried not to think about it but it was niggling him from the inside. There was something off, something up, something off balance. But he didn't let it take over his thoughts at practice, it wasn't until he was eating dinner at his desk, pouring over reports that he let it reign.
Merlin had been acting strange, but he couldn't say exactly what it was. He'd always been fidgety, but it was more so now. Much worse than normal and his physical awkwardness was worse too... expect for that moment in which he knocked Arthur over on the field. It had been a moment of intense grace, agility, and skill that he was sure that Merlin didn't have. He replayed the moment over. He'd been pushing Merlin back, across the field. Telling him to keep his guard up, but the other didn't seem to be able to do that. He wasn't speaking, he couldn't hear the other's breathing even though his own was labored. He couldn't see his eyes either... or maybe he did.
Arthur squinted his eyes through his memory to focus on that slit in the helmet. He couldn't see his eyes... because they were closed. Merlin's eyes weer closed! And then it happened. Merlin stopped, his back leg fell into the proper and perfect position, he'd brought his shield up to block Arthur's attack, shoved hard. The shield caught Arthur's grip guard and Merlin pulled. No, the shield didn't catch it. Merlin had tiled the shield to do so and pulled it. Arthur had reacted on instinct, rather relinquishing the blade than run into the possibility of Merlin's sword ready to run him through. It went flying, and the shield came crashing down and across Arthur's chest shoving him back and then Merlin stopped, swooning on his feet and looked at him, as if waking from the dream.
"Why Merlin, I think you just knocked me over! Seems like you're finally getting better."
Merlin hadn't said anything, the sword fell from his hand and he'd consistently gotten his skinny ass kicked for the rest of the training session. Arthur had hoped for another glimpse of that fencing brilliance, but it hadn't come. So he brushed it off as luck, as if Merlin hadn't intended what he did. But looking back on that, and the way Merlin dodged him when they were in the woods, Arthur couldn't be so sure that was the case...
A tendril of heat curled through him at the thought of Merlin being secretly a better swordsman than him. He flushed at the thought of a match in which Merlin beat him terribly and ravished him in consolation. It was dirty and sweaty in the middle of the training pitch. They were dueling with wooden swords, playing strip -duel. (Where he'd gotten the notion of a strip duel, he didn't know...), but Merlin had disarmed him down to nakedness and had ordered him to his knees to suck him off before Merlin turned him over and screwed him into the grass field.
Arthur groaned looking between the less than interesting reports and the hard-on he'd created for himself and sat back, his eyes flickered towards the wardrobe and more images came to mind. Merlin wasn't bigger than like like Nicholas and Alexander had been, but there was something bigger about him. He didn't really know what it was. There was a power there, bigger than Arthur could ever hope to be and that had been what broke him. He was stronger than Arthur in a lot of ways, he'd made Arthur feel safe and pushed him to do better, to be better while still demanding of him his respect. Merlin made him hot and bothered just by being near him and served as a constant reminder of all the things he could never have...
He shook his head, ignoring his hard-on and went back to work. His body would have to deal with itself, he had a kingdom to run and a mask to wear.
He knew it was Arthur by the way he pursued him, but he was too far ahead for Arthur to know it was him even as the other was screaming, "Stop! Halt!"
As if I would ever...
He made it to the lake of Avalon, stepping through the water and keeping the surface calm as he dove under the surface, deep enough to not be seen, but charm the lake's surface undisturbed. Merlin stroked towards the surface as he felt Arthur gaining on him and pulled himself out of the water and behind the tree, holding his breath and not moving. The lake was undisturbed and he prayed that Arthur would just give up. The clatter of Arthur's armor, the whinny of the horse filled the silence and he waited. His breathing was slow, but felt too fast, sounded too loud in his ears. He trembled in the late autumn air, but kept his teeth from clattering. He heard Arthur sheath his sword and felt him peer out into the distance. Moments bled into seconds, into what felt like hours... He waited, not daring to more. Eventually, Arthur turned to leave. When he was far enough, Merlin let his shivering and clattering go on and sunk to the ground. He sighed, his heart still thudding in his chest and he got up eventually. The foliage that sprouted as he walked and wrung out his clothing.
Leave it to Arthur to be much too persistent in following him. He walked along the lake, eyes glowing gold and a trail of foliage sprouting where there was none, blades of grass straightened, shirking off the burden of a footstep that had crushed them. He felt light, and light headed as he stumbled his way along the edge of the lake and stopped when he was in a direction of Ealdor to which there would be no confusion as to where he'd come from, or where he was going.
He managed to kill, skin, and cook a pheasant with some of the herbs he'd brought with him and ate to his heart's content. His clothes dried quickly by the heat of magical fire and he wrapped his cloak around him tightly. With his stomach full and his magic seeping out of him, he felt content and at peace. The world thrummed in stereo, a peaceful and sleepy lullaby.
At his sleepy will, vines grew between trees lacing together into a hammock, their leaves intertwined to fill it and cushion it as he fell into the soft floating heaven above barren ground. Splayed on the rocking bed, one hand brushing against the ground, Merlin made no move to give a damn that the space he'd stopped in was known to be cursed to never bear life for one reason or another. It didn't seem to give a damn about its curse either. The rocking lulled him into sleep and in that sleep his magic rushed through his fingertips and into the forest floor spreading in all directions and plunging through the trees towards Camelot, alighting the river and reviving it with life. The forest sighed in content as the now growing path rushed towards Camelot at the same time a messenger rushed towards them past Merlin's secret grove where he slept for the four days it would take to reach Ealdor and return to Camelot.