Percival tried his best not to fidget through the ceremony, but he felt like he was being torn into separate pieces. He needed to be there for Gwaine, he needed to be strong for Merlin, he had to be here as a Knight of Camelot, showing his support for the Kingdom and its Queen, but his skin was crawling with the need to get away from everyone. They were all looking at him to be strong, but Percival just felt like he was flying apart.
As soon as the ceremony was over, he darted out. He wanted to get back to Gwaine, but knew he couldn't keep the façade of strength up. He had to pull himself together first, so he headed for his place of refuge, where he could always went when the hustle and bustle of city life got to be too much. He headed for the stables.
Wanting to ask after Gwaine and Merlin, Leon tried to catch Percival's attention and trotted after him, trying to catch up to his longer stride, but he was distracted by another knight asking him something or other and by the time he'd gotten free of him Percival had disappeared. Muttering imprecations under his breath, Leon finally tracked Percival down. Luckily, as tall as he was, people tended to notice him, so a few questions and pointing fingers lead him to the stables. This was still taking way too long, though. He had things to do. Many, many things to do, and really didn't need to be chasing his knights around. As he burst into the stable, striding down to the end where Percival's horse was usually stabled, he didn't really know what he expected to find, but Percival curled up in a corner of the stall sobbing quietly was definitely not it.
Finding a strange, bony nag in place of his favorite horse had been the final straw. Percival dimly remembered trading in his well-trained chestnut for this horse back at the village when they'd been desperate for fresh horses, but he'd totally forgotten about it until, brush in hand, he'd come face to face with the replacement. Everything came crashing down on him and alone, in the darkness of the stables, he gave in to his grief.
Forgetting what he was going to say, Leon found himself down in the straw, his arms around Percival as he held the sobbing knight. He'd never seen Percival like this before. He was always so quietly cheerful and optimistic, his smile wide and quick. He hadn't realized how much he'd come to rely on the young, dependable knight, and now here he was, as broken as the rest of them.
"They keep dying, Leon. Everyone keeps dying." Leon slowly pieced together the words that Percival was sobbing into his shoulder, but for the life of him he couldn't think of anything to say and hoped his presence would be enough to comfort the other knight.
Taking a breath to steady himself, Percival couldn't bring himself to meet Leon's eyes. "My family, Lance, Elyan…when Gwaine, when Gwaine…I'll be the only one left. You realize that? All of Arthur's commoner knights, except for me, will be gone."
There really wasn't anything to say to that, so Leon held Percival, rubbing his arms, his shoulders until the sobbing died away. Eventually he felt Percival take a breath, steeling himself to face the world again with his mask back in place.
"Ready to go back to the infirmary?" Leon asked quietly.
Percival nodded shakily and Leon climbed to his feet, holding a hand out that Percival reached for and used to pull himself stiffly back to his feet, a sudden determination coming over him. This wasn't right. It wasn't fair. He was still alive while the best of them lay dying. There had to be something he could do. Gwaine wasn't dead yet and his mother had always said 'while there's life, there's hope' and he couldn't remember his mother ever being wrong—and they had Merlin after all and Merlin was magic. He hadn't been able to help Gwaine before, but he'd got his strength back now, and maybe there was a spell or a sorcery they hadn't tried. There must be something they hadn't tried. Gwaine was still alive, he hadn't given up and Percival wasn't going to give up on Gwaine.
…
Gwaine hadn't been able to stay awake for very long after he and Merlin had spoken, although he had choked down some water. After he had fallen back to sleep, Merlin paced the room briefly, too worked up to sit still, before huffing a sigh and flinging himself down in the chair next to Gwaine's bed. He could not lose his friend. This was not happening. Gwaine would be fine, Gaius was clearly wrong. He looked up from his hands briefly and listened to Gwaine's labored breathing. Gaius had to be wrong. He had to be, because there had to be something they could do for Gwaine, though Merlin was currently too tired and worried to think of it.
Feeling kind of awkward, Percival had thanked Leon and now that he had himself back together again, headed determinedly back to the infirmary. He knocked before letting himself in. The scene didn't seem to have changed since he'd left in the morning. Merlin was sat by the side of an unmoving Gwaine. "How is he?" he asked.
Merlin was startled from his thinking by Percival's voice, standing so quickly in his surprise that he nearly knocked over the chair.
"Oh, he... he woke up, but not for very long. I got him to drink some water, but..." he said, and shrugged, indicating that Gwaine's condition really hadn't changed. He looked very carefully at Percival, whose eyes were more red than they'd been earlier when he'd left the room. "Are you okay?" he asked, realized this was probably the stupidest question in the world, and shook his head. "I mean, that is...well. Sorry," he added, stepping away from where he'd been sitting to offer Percival the chair.
"It's okay," Percival shook his head, letting Merlin keep the seat: he was Gwaine's best friend after all. "That has to be good, right? That he woke up?" He ignored the question about himself.
Merlin, rather than sitting back down, resumed pacing, though his chosen route didn't take him very far from Gwaine's bed. He shrugged one shoulder at Percival, torn between saying something that he knew was false but might buy the knight some happiness, and telling him the truth that would just upset him. In the end, he decided he owed Percival the truth, and shook his head once.
"It's... it doesn't mean a lot. The stuff is still in his lungs, and his blood," Merlin said. "I don't know what to do, Percival," he admitted, pausing in wandering around the room to look at Gwaine, motionless on the bed.
"But—" Percival looked around the room, although it was obvious there was no one else there. "Are you sure you can't...?" he held his hands up and wiggled his fingers in the way he thought maybe sorcerers cast spells.
Merlin couldn't help it. For the briefest of moments, he was amused at Percival's hand-signal, and he almost laughed, but the amusement quickly faded. He shook his head. "I tried, remember? It didn't work, not really." Granted, Gwaine was no longer spouting the truth unless he wanted to, but that hardly counted as a victory when the poison was still killing him. He stopped pacing and in a moment of temper, slammed a fist down on the sturdy old table where he and Gaius usually ate their meals. "I am useless! There has to be something, but I can't..." he stopped, took a deep breath, and forced his hand to relax.
"You were exhausted before. Maybe it would work now?" Percival was too determined to find something to back off so easily.
Merlin nodded. "Look, watch," he snapped, less at Percival than at everything else, and pointed at a candle. "Forbaernen," he told it, and the candle attempted to burst into flame by curling up a single little thread of smoke. "See? No magic. It's not working the way it should. I can't even light a candle," he growled, and maybe he was getting a little frustrated with Percival because why did he expect Merlin to be able to save Gwaine? He'd clearly proven that he was not a whole lot of use in saving people.
"Why's it not working?" Percival asked. "Did you break it? Can you get it back? You've used it before right? Loads of times! I mean, I thought ages ago...the people that tripped, the fires that suddenly flared up, just at the right moment."
"I don't know why it isn't working!" Merlin half-shouted, "But the lightning storm and Arthur and the past two days might have something to do with it," he said, which they might. Using an aging spell, plus the lightning storm, plus trying to keep Arthur comfortable... heaping stress on top of exhaustion was probably not helping the situation, and he was only making it worse by getting angry, but he couldn't help it. "I don't know, Percival, alright? I've been using magic since I was born and it's not working," he snapped.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I just...there's got to be something. A spell? A sorcery? Have you got books or are there any other—" he wiggled his fingers again, "—people we can ask?"
"There might be spells, but I don't know them, and we don't have all the time in the world to sit around and try to find them, especially if they don't work," Merlin said, still frustrated, but trying really hard to answer Percival's questions. The man had, after all, been a perfect saint the past two days, looking after not just Gwaine, but Merlin's own sad self, and so Merlin owed him this much. Even if he was ready to light something on fire. "There are other magic users. The druids... they might know, I don't know, they've helped... they've helped me before. They helped Leon..." he trailed off, staring down at the table, his mind following from one thought to the next. "They had the cup," he said, suddenly. They had hidden the Cup of Life, the cup that would heal anyone who drank from it. "That's... Percival, you're brilliant!" Merlin said, looking up at the knight. If they could find the cup, perhaps they could save Gwaine.
Percival looked at Merlin, watching as the servant, well, sorcerer, lit up and he felt a weight lift from his shoulders. "This cup? It can help? Where is it? How do we get it?"
"It's the Cup of Life! If anything can help..." Merlin replied, already moving on to the next thing. He had no idea where the druids had hidden it, and he didn't really have time to go find them and ask, especially when they might not even tell him. "But I don't know where it is," he admitted, and paced another several steps. He was having trouble thinking.
"Okay, okay, but someone has to know." Percival wasn't going to let a little thing like that stop them, not when they were so close.
"The druids know, but I'm not sure where they are. I could scry for them, maybe, if I can get the spell to work," Merlin said absentmindedly.
"Scry?" Percival asked with a frown of puzzlement, "what's a scry?" He looked over at Gwaine, trying not to hope too much, but unable to help himself. They just needed him to keep hanging on. Merlin could do this, he knew he could.
"Scrying is a kind of spell. You use it to find something you're looking for," Merlin said. He wasn't sure he could even focus a scrying spell at the moment, the way his thoughts kept wandering off. He sat down and ran a hand through his hair again, trying to pummel his brain into working. He was missing something. He knew he was missing something.
Percival looked at Merlin, realizing how pale he looked and how fragile. He'd been pushing the boy—sorcerer, had to remember that part—too hard. Standing up he headed to the table and wordlessly poured Merlin a drink of water and fetched it back over to him. "Maybe you should rest? It might help?" And yeah, he really didn't want to be saying that because who knew how much time Gwaine had left, but Merlin wouldn't be any help to them if he keeled over from exhaustion.
Merlin had long ago got in the habit of taking things that were handed to him, so he took the water without thinking, and then wrinkled his nose at it. Of course, then he realized that he was actually thirsty, and downed the whole thing. "I could try, but I don't think I'd rest," he admitted. The second he tried to sleep, he was going to be trampled by everything imaginable, and he was not eager to deal with it. Maybe he could just stay awake forever...
He looked down at the glass in his hand, mind wandering. He needed to find the Cup of Life. He had to.
He sat up suddenly, realizing what he'd been missing. Why scry for druids when he could just scry for the cup? Maybe he really was that tired. There was a picture of it in one of these books, so it would make a better focus anyway.
"What?" Percival asked, taking the now empty cup back as Merlin suddenly straightened, obviously hit by a thought. "What is it?"
"I can scry for the cup. We don't need to ask the druids. I just need a picture of it," Merlin said, suddenly focused, and stood up to scramble through the books on the table where he'd been sitting. "There has to be one here." He picked up a book and handed it to Percival. "Look for a picture of a cup in there. It's gold and it has four legs on a... a sort of pedestal." This was good. This was something he could focus entirely on, something that would keep everything else at bay. He flipped open a heavy book and started turning pages, not noticing when his eyes went gold and the pages started flipping faster of their own accord.
Percival started to look through the book Merlin handed him. He flinched a bit at the long indecipherable words on the page before reminding himself that that was stupid, he was looking for a picture, he could do this. As he flicked through the pages he couldn't help but become distracted by Merlin's book as the pages flicked of their own accord. Suspecting he was a sorcerer was one thing, knowing it was another, but actually sitting watching him do magic right next to him was in a different league. Percival really started to think that Merlin could pull this off.
"Here! Here, I found it," Merlin said, suddenly, and the glow went out of his eyes. The pages stopped whispering over and over and he held the book out to Percival so the knight could see what they'd be looking for. "Sorry, the words are all in the Old Religion, so they'll only give you a headache if you try to read them." He left the book sitting in Percival's lap and went blundering across the room for a bowl and the pitcher of water. Then he shoved a pile of books off the table and set down the bowl, filling it most of the way full with the water and waiting anxiously for the ripples to cease.
"Oh." Percival nodded, trying to keep up, at least that explained why he couldn't read any of the words in his book either. "But wait—didn't you say your—isn't your magic not working?"
"It is going to work this time," Merlin said determinedly, teeth clenched.
Nodding, Percival watched wordlessly, trying not to disturb Merlin and break his concentration.
Merlin leaned over the bowl, barely even breathing for fear of disturbing the water. He glanced quickly over at Percival and then sighed, trying to let go of everything currently filling his brain to exploding. "Geond lihte gesweorc min," he said softly. The water rippled, but otherwise it did nothing. He scowled deeply and closed his eyes. He had to do this, it had to work. Another deep breath, and he opened his eyes. "Geond lihte gesweorc min," he repeated, and held on to the spell, willing the water to show him what he needed to know.
The headache behind his eyes was becoming exponentially worse, but the water, with a ripple of color, finally showed him something. It was like when he'd looked through the forest, but it was a longer path, and he memorized it, knowing this was the way to the cup. It was in a cave, the entrance of which was half-underground and behind a waterfall. Merlin blinked, but the spell didn't fade away. Instead, it flickered through several more images before settling on one that made little sense to Merlin.
He and Gwaine were fighting with what looked to be a wyvern, but he couldn't tell what else was happening before the picture rippled and he watched himself, Leon, and Gwaine ride pell-mell through the forest after a boar. Merlin shook his head and tried to break the spell off because it was sapping what little energy he had left, and these visions were absolutely pointless. It didn't work, but the picture shifted one last time, and he gasped as he saw Camelot as if from above, but clearly many years in the future. It stood as tall as ever, not a stone missing or cracked, but they were stained, moss grew on some of the walls, and the trees in the garden were enormous, their canopies tangling and blocking any view he might have had of the ground. The vision dipped a little wildly and he felt himself stumble slightly against the edge of the table as it stopped whirling and he saw three figures watching the castle from one of the nearby hills. He didn't recognize the horses, but as the vision took him closer to the three men, he recognized the men: Leon, Gwaine, and himself. They were easy to recognize, because none of them had aged a day. But Camelot... Camelot was old. This had to be fifty years from now, or a hundred, as big as the trees had grown.
"Merlin? Merlin!" Percival shook the smaller man's shoulder, alarmed at the blood that had started to drip from his nose and into the water, and the ashen tone of his skin. He'd pushed himself too hard. Damnit, if Gwaine was awake he'd not be pleased.
When Percival shook his shoulder, Merlin jumped in surprise, his hand knocking the bowl and sending it to the floor. It broke the spell, though, and he raised his hand to his face, surprised when it came away with blood on his fingers. Bloody nose? Perhaps he'd pushed himself a bit far. "Thanks, Percy," he said a little shakily. This whole 'magic not behaving' thing was less than thrilling. Could he just count on it either not working at all or working too hard until it got sorted out? He leaned on the table and took a few deep breaths, but that was also not helpful, so he tried to make it to the chair over by Gwaine's bed. He made it to the foot of the bed, and then, "I think I need to sit down," he said, and did just that.
Percival carefully gathered Merlin up and then settled him gently in the chair next to Gwaine's bed. Looking around he grabbed a clean cloth to wipe his face with. "Can I get you anything?" he asked, kneeling next to Merlin, watching him intently.
Merlin, because he was not feeling terribly cooperative, batted at Percival's hands and held the cloth to his face, tipping his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose as Gaius would have told him to do. "I'm fine," he said, although he was considering taking a nap right there and then, bloody nose or not. "I know where the Cup is. I know how to get there," he informed the tall knight.
Percival's face lit up in delight and awe as he grabbed Merlin in a giant hug. "I knew you could do it!"
Merlin wasn't so sure that Percy hugging him wouldn't just crush every bone in his body, and flinched slightly, but it turned out the man might have actually known his own strength, and Merlin was not squashed. He would probably have waved him off, because he really didn't feel well, but... but it was nice to hear he had done something right. So instead, he raised the arm that wasn't holding the cloth to his nose and patted Percival's shoulder very gently.
"I'll, uh... I think..." he said sleepily when Percival stepped back, but his eyes were already drifting closed, and he fell asleep or unconscious without finishing his sentence.
"I've got you," Percival smiled gently as he carried Merlin through to his own room. Placing the lad down on the bed, he undid the laces on his boots, pulling them off, before covering him with a blanket. That done, he went in search of Gaius, wanting someone who knew what they were actually doing to check on Merlin.