Arthur was pacing his chambers, too wound up to sleep and too anxious to be of any use to anyone. His footsteps were loud in his room, despite all of the noise outside that drifted through his window, open now should the sounds of the search party's return find their way through it. The perfectly ordinary sounds outside, the sounds of calm, everyday life continuing on made him sick and angry and horribly frustrated, though he knew he should be glad that his people were in good spirits. It didn't seem right that everything could go on so normally while Arthur was trapped in his chambers like a rat in a cage, just waiting to hear that his servant had been found.

"Damnit Merlin!" he shouted angrily at thin air, flinging himself onto his bed. "Can't you even be reliable enough to not disappear in the woods?"

He lay there the wrong way on his bed, his feet hanging off of one side while his head and arms dangled over the other, and wondered for the umpteenth time why he was so absorbed in finding this one servant. Merlin's position could be easily replaced-there were people in the town that would fight each other tooth and nail to be the prince's personal servant-and yet the thought made Arthur feel...wrong. It didn't help that, for some strange and unknowable reason, he was still consumed with guilt over the row that had led to Merlin's disappearance.

A knock on his door jerked Arthur's head up, his heart leaping hopefully as he scrambled to his feet, smoothing down his tunic until he was presentable. The door opened a moment later, but the person that poked their head in was not Merlin, and Arthur deflated slightly. Of course it wasn't Merlin. He would have heard the search party arrive. No, it was Morgana, and her pale eyes were cautious.

"What is it, Morgana?" Arthur sighed, turning away so that she would not see the disappointment on his face and picking up his sword. It was a habit of his; fiddling with the blade when he wished not to make direct eye contact.

She allowed herself in, but only half of her long, green velvet gown followed her, the train being left out in the hall. He would never understand why she wore such ridiculously long dresses, but he would not be the one to bring up his bemusement. Her thick hair was tied in a heavy plait behind her head, but wisps curled around her pale face.

"Arthur, I know you're worried," she began.

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" he demanded, whipping around to glower at her. "I'm not worried about that idiot! I'm racked off that he just up and vanished. Now I've got no one to muck out my horses or repair my shield or polish my armor-"

"Arthur, shut up!" Morgana snapped. Startled, Arthur did as she said only because he had no quick refute. When she was sure he would remain quiet, Morgana continued. "It's alright. You're allowed to be worried about Merlin, you stupid prince. But you're not doing any good up here, holed in your bedchambers like you're some spoiled child. Granted, you are."

"I am not-"

"Why aren't you leading the search party for Merlin?" she interrupted his protest, and she sounded incredibly confused. "Usually you're the first one to go after him, so why not this time?"

"I was the first one!" Arthur argued. "I rode out to drag him from his mother's village as soon as Gaius told me that that was where he had gone! But he wasn't there, and I scoured the forest on my way back and found nothing!"

"And what, you just gave up?" Morgana scoffed. She did that a lot at him. "The great Arthur Pendragon sends out his knights because he is too lazy to go himself."

"Don't you dare talk like that to me!" Arthur bellowed, advancing on her. "I am not lazy! I do not use my knights to do my dirty work!"

"What do you call this, then?" Morgana demanded, and her own voice rose in anger, eyes flashing in a way that Arthur thought only a woman's could. "Pacing around your chambers while your knights search for your servant?"

Arthur opened his mouth to refute, and then closed it again without saying a word. There was a reason he wasn't with the search party, and while it was most certainly not the reason that Morgana had come up with, he wasn't sure it was something he should share. Callous at times he may be, but he felt it wrong to share the conversations that he and Merlin had, especially those that escalated into these petty fights. They were private conversations that Arthur felt weren't his right to speak of, and that was saying a lot since as the Crown Prince of Camelot, he had rights to pretty much anything he wanted.

"You can't even argue," Morgana said, tone caught between triumph and disgust. "He's your friend, Arthur. You should be out looking for him."

Arthur swallowed convulsively and crossed to his window, looking down at the sunny streets of the castle. His fingers flexed on the hilt of his sword, and Morgana thought that he looked almost ethereal in that instant. In the light of the sun, his tanned skin looked like beaten bronze, his blonde hair was set aglow by the warm yellow light from outside, and his eyes shone the brightest blue that she could ever have imagined, as though they were two brilliant sapphires lit from behind. He looked magnificent.

But then he spoke, and the illusion was broken by the small voice that left his lips, so un-Arthur-like that she had to replay it several times over in her mind before she came to the conclusion that it was still his.

"If I was out there, he would never show himself," he said quietly. "They are more likely to find him if I stay here."

"Arthur, you cannot really believe that," Morgana said incredulously, moving to his side.

He shrugged away the hand she set on his shoulder and strode back to his bed, sitting heavily on the soft mattress and for once not finding it in himself to enjoy the way he sank into it. It felt like it was trying to swallow him. He noticed irrelevantly that her train had finally managed to join them in the room, though it was wrapped around her ankles in such a way that she was like to trip over it.

"Arthur, Merlin would give his life for you!" Morgana exclaimed, turning to stare at the prince. "He trusts you more than anyone. How could you think that he would not show himself if he thought you needed him?"

"You don't understand," Arthur grumbled, flopping backwards and watching his sword sink into the thick covers. "I am definitely the last person he wants to see right now."

"Arthur, you are a world-class idiot," the woman spat at him. He lifted his head to stare at her incredulously. "If he's gone, it is because he thinks you don't need him. The only way to prove to him that you do need him is to go out and look for him yourself! Sitting here moping will not bring Merlin back."

"What would you know about what Merlin thinks?" Arthur asked, but it was an empty question. He lay his head back down to admire the ceiling again, and he noted that the spider had gone.

"I know enough about Merlin to know that he would never do what you're doing now," she said emphatically. "Angry or not, scared or not, Merlin would never sit back and wait for someone else to find you if it were you that went missing. Merlin would be out searching under every log, every rock for any trace of you. He would never forgive himself if he did not do everything in his power to find you. He would never act so pathetic."

"Have care how you speak to your prince," Arthur warned her, sitting up once more. "The king's ward or not, you should remember to whom you speak."

"Oh I do," she said coldly. "I'm speaking to a whiny little boy who would rather let others search for his friend than do it himself and hurt his precious ego. Just remember, Arthur; Merlin has saved your life a hundred times over. Every time something happens to you, he is the one that fixes it. Remember that, while you wait here and do nothing, all in the name of your pride."

With that, she swept out of his chambers, flinging the door shut behind her so hard that it shook the wall fixtures and caused a bit of dust to fall from the ceiling. Arthur stared after her, his mouth slightly agape. Had he really just allowed that woman to speak to him in such a rude manner?

"Pain in the backside, she is," Arthur grumbled.

But… Was she right? About Merlin, undoubtedly, but about Arthur? Was he simply being foolish, lazy even, by sending the knights out to search for the servant without him? Was he only refusing to go out of pride, rather than because he thought Merlin would not show if he was there? Certainly he didn't want to put himself in the wrong, but then, at what cost was he willing to be right? If it lost him Merlin…

Arthur shook his head. It was no good dwelling on such things, and he definitely couldn't let Morgana see that what she said had actually had some impact on him. With a groan he turned onto his stomach, fingers playing with the hilt of his sword. The heat of the day made him feel uncomfortably lethargic, as though getting up was simply too much work, and his current state of mind certainly wasn't giving him any energy. Soon he felt his eyelids begin to droop, and he lay his head heavily on his arms.

When his eyes opened again, the sun was sinking, and it cast an angry red glow over everything, bleeding into his bedroom through the windows to stripe the wall like vicious wounds. He rubbed his eyes blearily and sat up. His first thought was that Merlin had forgotten to wake him, but then he remembered the events of that day, and his heart sank when Morgana's words came back to him as well. Arthur was about to rise-to do what? Even he didn't know-when the raucous noise of a small group of horses on pavement echoed through the open window. Metal clinked on metal, signaling the arrival of the armored knights. Arthur leapt to his feet in an instant, Morgana's words and his sword forgotten, and lunged for the window. Through it, he could see the square where his horsemen were all dismounting now, stained red in the sunset. He looked frantically for the tall, lanky figure of his servant, but was greatly disappointed when no such figure could be found standing among the knights.

The men, Arthur noticed, were curiously subdued. One turned to his horse and slid something from the saddle, bowing a little under the weight of said something at first but then straightening up and turning to the entryway. Arthur's stomach lurched when he caught a glimpse of the thing that the knight was holding. He only saw it for a moment, and then the other knights converged, hurrying inside, but it was more than enough time. A long, slender body, with a mop of dark brown hair that had bits of twig and leaf tangled in it, and a tattered, red neckerchief.