Alaia Skyhawk: Let's see, this is gonna be a rather mixed sub-ep. Arthur putting his foot in his mouth, Sad!Merlin, and you'll see the rest as it goes. Enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

Music: Campfire (Tangled OST clip, 1:18-2:26)

"Whom History Won't Remember" Episode: N/A

~(-)~

Chapter 57: Remembering a Friend ~Part 1~

The day was nearing it's close, the eaves of the Ascetir Forest all around them. As they'd done when riding to Ealdor, they were cutting directly through the forest again rather than follow the road around it to the north. But this time they made the trip with heavier hearts, or at least his heart felt heavier.

Merlin sighed to himself, hearing Bitan whicker in response. He had to admit he was looking forward to returning to Gaius, but at the same time a large part of him had wanted to remain with his mother... The same part of him that didn't want to accept that Will was dead.

They stopped and began to set up camp, when the light started to fade from the sky. Morgana and Gwen seemed to want to leave him to his thoughts, not that he was really thinking about much. They made no comment when he didn't utter a word when told to start building the fire pit, and it was then that Arthur's exasperation at his silence reached its peak.

He turned to face his servant from where he stood, having secured their horses to one side of the small clearing so they could graze. Merlin was never this quiet, and he was starting to find it as annoying as his usual inane babble. At least the babble was less unnerving.

"Merlin, you need to let him go. No matter what he did for us, he was still a sorcerer."

Merlin went rigid, a spike of fury rising in him. He could feel his magic raging for release, but before it could slip his grasp it was startled into submission when Morgana rounded on Arthur.

She stomped right up to him, glaring at him as she loomed close enough to his face to make him lean back.

"He was Merlin's friend! Since when has magic ever had anything to do with friendship?" She looked utterly disgusted with him, her tone reflecting that. "He knew Will far better than we did, and I for one trust his judgement of him. Will proved that Merlin was right to trust him. If he wasn't trustworthy, then why did he get himself killed saving you?"

Arthur stared at her, frowning at the reprimand.

"Magic is against the law. I don't need a lecture from you!"

She didn't back down, shaking her head.

"Magic is against the law here, in Camelot, not there. The accord that Camelot signed dictates that we can't interfere in Escetia's laws. It's bad enough that we went and helped, that was verging on breaking the agreement as it is. Anything else just isn't our business, and even your father has to accept that unless he wants to go to war with Cenrid. I'm not the one who needs the lecture about laws."

Arthur gritted his teeth, unable to counter her argument. Instead he turned, angrily storming off among the trees.

"Finish setting up camp. I'll get the firewood."

Merlin watched him go, murmuring to Morgana quietly.

"You shouldn't have done that. The laws of Camelot may be different from Escetia's, but I still I expected him to say something like that."

Both women turned to him, surprised to hear him speak after being so quiet all day. It was Gwen who spoke, saying what Morgana was about to.

"Expecting him to say it doesn't make it right. Will may have been breaking Camelot's laws, but he wasn't breaking Escetia's, and Ealdor isn't part of Camelot. You have every right to grieve for him without being looked down on for it."

Just a short way away, Arthur paused at those words and hid behind a tree, listening as Morgana put her hand on Merlin's shoulder.

"Would you tell me more about him? How you learnt about his magic?"

Arthur stiffened and leaned around the tree a little, in time to see Merlin swallow uncomfortably in hesitation. The servant then took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and nodding.

"The two of us were always friends. One of my earliest memories involves him and me running away from Old Man Simmons, when he chased us for messing around in the hay barn." He let out a small laugh. "We'd go out into the woods when we'd finished our chores, pretending we were warriors off on some adventure. We were nine when it happened."

He sat down on a log near the fire pit, Gwen and Morgana sitting either side of him, the former tilting her head to regard him.

"You found out about his magic?"

Merlin nodded, thinking back to that day... reversing everything to hide the truth. It wouldn't hurt to tell them, not this way.

"I told Arthur, quite a while ago, that I'd met a sorcerer once. That they'd passed Ealdor by, not harming anyone and just going on their way with their friends. He was hunting in the woods with two of his companions, and was only four or five years older than us, just a kid too. He almost shot me with his bow by accident." He sighed. "Will freaked. He thought they were going to hurt me, so he reacted. He threw one of them through the air without touching them, to protect me, and then when he saw how shocked I was he ran away. He thought I'd reject him because he had magic, but instead it made our friendship closer."

Morgana smiled in understanding.

"It became your secret, just the two of you."

Merlin bowed his head, looking at his hands.

"In the years after that, when we'd go out to the woods, that was when we'd explore what he could do with it. It was just a game to us, he never used his powers to hurt anyone. Instead he practised so that if he needed to, he could use them to protect the village instead. When he saw Arthur with us when we came, it meant he'd have to hide his magic instead of using it to help the village. That was why he kept getting so angry. He was angry because Arthur being there was forcing him to choose between his own life and the lives of everyone else, when otherwise he wouldn't have had to. But in the end he knew what mattered more. Saving his own life would have meant nothing if he'd lost everyone he cared about."

Morgana sighed, her expression thoughtful.

"He was a hero for what he did, no matter how he did it. He had honour as great any knight. If he didn't, then why else save Arthur?"

Merlin glanced at her.

"Yeah, he had honour, but that wasn't why he did it."

"Then why did he?"

Merlin found Gwen still watching him, pinned by observing eyes from both sides.

"He did it because he trusted me, and I told him that Arthur was worth protecting no matter what his father is like. He looked past his bias, because of what I said, and acted because from what he'd seen he believed that I was right. People who have magic might hate Uther and want to hurt him, but that's no reason to blame his son for the things he's done. Not that Will hated Uther, he just thought he was an arrogant fool. There's no point in hating someone you just think is stupid."

Behind his tree, Arthur stood conflicted at those quiet words. He wanted to condemn Will for using magic, but the conversation he's just heard stopped him. He quietly moved away to finish collecting the wood, suddenly torn inside as he remembered that moment Will had saved him.

He'd been angry when he'd realised magic had been used, that the sorcerer responsible could only have been one of the two people stood right by the heart of that whirlwind. When he'd saw those two were Merlin and William, that anger had become tinged with terror that Merlin might be the one. Then that changed to shock when Will had saved him, disbelief when he'd admitted to being the sorcerer, and then startlingly... guilt at the thought that Will expected him to kill him while he was already dying. There had been no hate in his eyes, only fear of the death that was creeping up on him, his life being leached away by the arrow in his chest. When Merlin had come out of the house, his eyes had been reddened with tears. Magic really hadn't meant anything to do with his and Will's friendship, they had never let it come between the trust they had for each other.

Arthur paused in what he was doing, uneasy with himself. While he should rightfully be disturbed to learn that his manservant would think so highly of a sorcerer, he could not deny that Will had saved his life at the expense of his own. Was it any wonder Merlin refused to view magic as evil, refused to do so without proof that it was, when he'd known someone who was a complete contradiction of that belief? No, it wasn't, and it begged the question of if nor not the law was truly right. Once again Arthur found himself questioning his father's beliefs, just as he had after that light had saved him at the Caves of Balor. Gaius had as much as agreed with Merlin's views, when he'd spoken to him about that light. He'd admitted that while magic could and did corrupt people, those prepared for the responsibilities of it could perhaps use it for good.

What if Will had been one of those people? Understanding what was the right and wrong way to use his powers, and choosing to use them to protect those he cared about.

That thought was still in his mind when he returned to the camp, but he said nothing. He would not raise the subject again, unless Merlin did so himself. Instead he contented himself with watching him, and hoping that the old, cheerful Merlin would soon return. But if the shadowed look in his eyes was any indication, when they'd settled down to sleep, it wasn't going to happen all that soon.

~(-)~

Their arrival back in Camelot two days later was both chaotic and anti climactic. They were returning victorious, but the first thing that greeted them was several knights sent by his father. Their orders were to escort the two of them to the council chambers, to the king, but when they got there it was clear Arthur wasn't the one Uther wanted to reprimand.

Listening to the tirade, Arthur was glad the two servants had been able to slip away in the guise of seeing to their duties. Merlin hadn't asked for any of them to come, the only ones breaking any rules by going were Morgana and himself. Arthur knew that, accepted it, and so remained suitably subdued in the face of his father's ire.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? When you didn't arrive as planned, Sir Leon's family sent word they believed you were missing. How could you have been so foolish?"

Morgana kept her head high, refusing to give in.

"I couldn't abandon those people! They needed help, and so I decided to help them!"

"You chose to follow a servant!" Uther's tone was almost venomous. "I can see that no amount of talking is going to make this lesson sink in. Let's see how you feel once he's spent a week in the dungeons to remind you of your folly."

Arthur jolted to attention at that, frowning.

"Father, punishing my manservant for something Morgana chose to do outside of his control, is neither just nor right. He tried to get her to turn back, as did I, and she refused to listen to either of us. Since I couldn't force her to turn back short of knocking her out, I went with them to keep an eye on things. The bandits were small in number, enough to be a problem for a small village, but no match for us once we'd laid an ambush for them."

Uther turned to face him.

"Her actions could have started a war!"

Arthur kept his tone reasonable. He wanted Merlin in the dungeons just as little as Morgana did.

"But they didn't. If you want to punish her, I can think of a far better way."

"And what would that be?"

Arthur regarded him mildly, before glancing at Morgana.

"Ban her from riding for a month, maybe then she won't take her freedom to do so for granted."

Morgana stared at him.

"Arthur! That's not fair!"

He cut her off.

"Would you rather Merlin spend a week chained in the dungeon because of you?"

That stopped her, and she bowed her head in defeat. Seeing that Arthur's suggestion had indeed suitably cowed her, Uther nodded.

"Very well. Arthur, have the stablemaster informed that Morgana is forbidden to go our riding until I say otherwise."

Arthur bowed, turning to leave and taking Morgana with him.

"Yes, Sire."

Once outside the council chambers, when he released her arm, Morgana frowned at him.

"That wasn't fair, Arthur. You know that riding is the one thing I really enjoy around here."

Arthur replied to that quiet flatly.

"Which is why it will be such an effective punishment." He looked at her. "And if you want to do what is best for Merlin, then you'll accept it. You claim you went to Ealdor with him because you see him as a friend. Well then, prove it."

After a moment of looking hurt, she sighed as they continued to walk in the general direction of their rooms. Both of them wanted rest, and to clean up after the past week.

"You... You're right, and the punishment is fair. Far fairer that what your father had planned." She paused, solemn. "He would never have let Will die with the dignity that you did, and he would never have forgiven Merlin for hiding that he knew he was a sorcerer. Even though Escetia's laws are different, he would have Merlin executed if he knew. That's what makes you far better man than him. You look past things like that, to the person beneath."

Arthur stopped in his tracks at those words, watching her walk away, a deep sense of shock inside him as he realised what she said was true. If his father ever found out about Will, and Merlin hiding that Will was a sorcerer, then he would show the servant no mercy. Merlin's loyal service would mean nothing to the king if he knew what his son now did, and the moment he realised that, Arthur knew something else.

He would never betray Merlin in that way, no matter what beliefs he had about magic being neither good or bad. He would never let them cost Merlin his life, for as he'd once said, it wasn't a crime to have an opinion. You couldn't control people's hearts with force, their loyalty had to be earned. And wasn't repaying Merlin's loyalty the reason he'd followed him in the first place?

Arthur sighed, shaking his head at how complicated one servant had made his life... Complicated, and yet deep down now he'd never want it any other way.

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: Well, there's part one. There's more Arthur and Merlin tentative!friendship on the way :)