Arthur turned around, startled. Gwaine stood in the doorway, a determined expression on his face.
"Gwaine, what are you doing here?", asked Gaius. "Do you need something?"
"I just want to talk with the Princess about Merlin," said Gwaine.
"So you heard us talking?", said Gaius.
"Yeah," Gwaine replied. "I've had my suspicions of him for a while now. You guys just confirmed them."
"So what do you think I should do?", asked Arthur, as Gwaine walked into the room and sat down.
Gwaine paused. "I've seen a lot of things in my travels," he finally said. "Most of them bars, I'm not going to deny, but other things too. One of the things I saw was a small country. The interesting thing about this country was that magic wasn't illegal there. And the country- it was prospering. People there seemed happy, and normal. Think about that for a second."
"Are you suggesting that I legalize magic?", said Arthur.
"Well...yeah," said Gwaine. "Think about the advantages- whenever Morgana or some evil magic-user attacked us, we'd be able to defend ourselves with relative ease-"
"Relative ease?", said Arthur.
"Yes," said Gaius. "I told you, Merlin is incredibly powerful. If he didn't have to use magic behind people's backs, he'd be able to do so much more for you and this kingdom."
"Yeah," said Gwaine. "There is that advantage. But there are others, too- if magic wasn't illegal, the number of magic-users trying to kill you would probably lessen. They're only trying to kill you because you'd try to kill them."
"That's also true," said Gaius. "Personally, if I were able to practice magic again, healing would be a bit quicker and easier. Science has proved to be a good cure, but with problems of magical origins, it doesn't do much good."
"Okay," said Arthur. "You've both given me a lot to think about, so I'm going to go and do that." Having said that, he left the room.
Gwaine and Gaius were silent for a while after Arthur left. Finally Gaius turned to Gwaine and raised an eyebrow. Gwaine shrugged, and said, "What?"
"That land you were talking about...you made it up."
"Yeah," said Gwaine. "But the Princess doesn't have to know that."