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Matchmaker's Return Policy
The Ides of September

Brennis rode at the front of their party straight-backed and proud. His red cloak billowed over the rear of his horse and his sword clanked at his hip with every step. He would have made the perfect representation of a knight of Camelot if it were not for the bow and arrow—the Pelham family's crest—carved onto his shield.

As young men he and Arthur had trained together, learning swordplay and politics, and trading jibes at their instructor's expense. However as Arthur had grown closer to Merlin and the other knights, their friendship had waned. Now, Arthur saw the knight riding ahead of them as a reflection of the brash, haughty king he could have been.

Brennis held up a fist, their signal to halt, and the large group passed along the message until even the Round Table knights at the back of the pack saw and pulled up short. "Scout returning!" Brennis shouted.

Arthur spurred ahead from where he rode next to Guinevere, clad in her traveling clothes, and pulled alongside Brennis as a man slowed from a gallop to a soft canter. He had light brown hair and a spattering of freckles. This was Drystan, one of the newer members of Brennis' squad, recently promoted from a simple castle guard and still very eager to prove himself. "The path splits for Mercia not far ahead, and further on I've found a defendable clearing for us to make camp."

"Excellent," Brennis said.

"We'll have to travel at a faster clip to make it before dark," Drystan explained further. Understandable, given that the man had left at first light while the rest of them followed with the queen and their pack horses. The sun had already passed its zenith, and it would sink quickly from here. Luckily they had no royal carriage or ladies in waiting to slow them down.

"Merlin will have a fresh horse for you," Arthur said, and pointed his manservant out in the crowd. Drystan nodded and trotted over to Merlin, who had previously been nearer the back, but had of course ventured closer in curiosity. While Drystan swung from his saddle, he tossed his reins to Merlin who winced when he caught the leather straps.

With a cocked brow Arthur approached, setting an offside order to Brennis. "Determine the route with Drystan. I'll tell the others to keep up." Really, though, he just wanted an excuse to stick his head half into Merlin's personal space and ask, "What did you do to your hand?" as soon as they were out of earshot of his childhood friend.

The scout's horse's reins were gripped tightly in Merlin's fist, which also had a thick bandage around his forefinger. Merlin's lie was practiced and smooth, not that Arthur realized. "Smashed it while grinding some herbs for Gaius."

"You've had that bandage for days now; if you hit yourself that hard then you really must be the most clumsy servant in Camelot."

Merlin shrugged noncommittally. "At least I'm not the fattest king ever to grace the throne."

Arthur scoffed. "This is all muscle."

"Covered in a layer of lard, perhaps."

"You're just jealous," Arthur said smartly.

"Of a prat like you? Never."

Arthur smirked, "You should be, idiot." Then he turned his horse sharply to the side and smiled at Gwen, quickly filling her in on the short plan. Merlin watched briefly before Gwaine elbowed him.

"I could tell you were lying," were the first words from his mouth.

Merlin frowned. "I didn't lie."

Gwaine rolled his eyes and muttered, "Come on, mate, you promised." He nudged them both to the side, carefully reading Merlin's body language until the man looked less jumpy at being overheard.

"Maybe I did lie," he said quietly while picking idly at the wrappings, "but what's passed is past, and there is no use in bringing it up now."

Gwaine shook his head, "You owe me more than that, mate."

Merlin sighed. "It's difficult to just talk about these things out of the blue. What if I asked you what I should tell your sister, if I run into her while in Annis' court?"

Gwaine looked uncomfortable. "That's unlikely. We were penniless, and had already sold everything in our family house by the time I left."

Merlin made a face at Gwaine's avoidance of the answer. "See how hard that was?"

Gwaine shrugged, now peeking over their shoulders himself to make sure no one was watching them. "I guess I see your point." He huffed and scowled at the scout's horse. "But I'm tired of the secrets, mate. You trust me, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," Merlin said wearily. "I trust you, Gwaine." But Gwaine hardly knew a fraction of the truth, and his tune might change when he realized just how much Merlin had blurred the lines. On top of that, there was always a strange tension about the knight, like he was holding back.

Gwaine's eyes flicked from Merlin's finger to his friend's tense expression. "Why don't you want to tell me?"

Merlin sighed. "Mostly because it's a long story and you'd have a lot of other questions that I'm still figuring out how to answer."

"You got a short version?"

Merlin hesitated, then looked away. "The lady who did this to my hand is dead. She was killed because she knew...about me."

Gwaine was obviously surprised, and he was only partially joking when he asked, "That's not a common event, is it?"

"No, but…" Merlin trailed off, looking troubled and antsy again.

Gwaine stopped him. "I get it, that's all the answers I'm going to get today. Hide all your flaws until after our wedding, right?"

Merlin balked, "What?"

Gwaine winked with a cheesy expression until Merlin cracked a grin, relaxing again. Then Gwaine smiled and explained himself, offering a bit of his own hidden truths. "It was a joke my sister used to tell. She said you couldn't get a good noble husband unless you had an aura of mystery."

Merlin chuckled and shook his head. "You're insane, Gwaine."

The knight laughed darkly, flicking his hair over his shoulder and leaning in closer. "Is it too soon to say, 'Till death do us part'?"

Merlin bent over the handful of tinder and struck his flint. While his body blocked the low breeze, the sparks caught on the shaved wood in bursts of red that ate through the tendrils faster than others could light. He had to curl the tinder into the bowl of his hands and coax the fire with his breath, and when he was finally awarded with smoke and flame, he had to move quickly to catch that moment with thin sticks.

After that it was easy to feed increasingly larger pieces of wood onto the growing cone until the campfire flickered strongly in the evening light. He sat back on his heels and smiled, allowing himself the pleasure of this small victory.

Forbærne had been a spell he'd known and used before he'd truly known the word. Magic had come to him so instinctively that seeing the manual, intricate way of doing things had always fascinated him as a child. An artisan's ability to create something from nearly nothing with only their two hands was a special brand of magic.

With starting the fire the last of his available chores, Merlin looked about their camp, wondering what he should busy himself with now. Arthur and Gwen's bedrolls were nearby, and a ring of guards had already lain their own mats around them. Brennis and a group of men had gone to clear the area, though, so it was fairly quiet. Plus, with the Round Table knights already on their way to Mercia, Merlin was mostly left to his own devices.

As the flames heated his knees while he wavered, he couldn't help but be reminded of the dragons. He'd have to tell Kilgharrah how things were going with Gwaine. He also hoped Aithusa was doing better, and wondered how Kilgharrah would heal her legs, if he could.

"Merlin!" Arthur called as he returned to the clearing. "Working hard or hardly working?"

Merlin rolled his eyes and stood, holding out his arms for Gwen's traveling clothes. She had just changed into something more comfortable to sleep in. "I've got it, Merlin," the queen said and sat on her bedroll, pulling over one of her packs and beginning to reload it.

"You're sure you don't want me to make a hot meal?" Merlin asked the royal couple.

"Not unless you have enough for the rest of the men and yourself," Gwen returned without looking up. She was digging through the pack now, removing things she had already spent the time to replace. "Oh dear," she said. "I didn't bring the fancy slippers."

"What do you need those for?" Arthur snorted.

"For the festival!" Her brow creased. "Or do you think it's outdoors? It is a harvest festival."

"Ealdor's was always outside," Merlin offered, perhaps unhelpfully. "And there was always dancing."

Gwen laughed brightly, "I have yet to see Arthur perform a courtly dance. Though that means I've had little chance to practice."

"Court dances are very boring, and if we ever get trapped in a line, I'm sure you'll learn very quickly."

"Arthur won't dance with you because he is terrible at it, and he always steps on his partner's feet," Merlin grinned.

"I do not," Arthur defended.

Merlin leaned over and in a loud whisper pretended to pass along a secret. "When he was a prince he always stepped on my feet when we practiced."

Gwen burst into giggles as Arthur's face reddened. Stroppily he said, "Why are you always starting rumors like that? Leon still thinks we practice poetry in our spare time."

She had to clench her hands over her abdomen as her laughter intensified. Emboldened, Merlin's eyes began to twinkle. "Because if I didn't, your giant head—"

"Don't say it, Merlin."

Merlin cleared his throat. "Your giant head would float right off your neck and into the clouds." Arthur's expression went blank, then he vaulted forward and caught his friend's head in his arms, digging his knuckles into Merlin's scalp and waiting for cries of mercy. Unsurprisingly Merlin yelped, "There are witnesses!"

Arthur released him and leveled a finger at Merlin's nose, fighting back a grin. "Let that be a lesson to you. And for clarification, if we practiced the dances, and if I stepped on your feet, it would be because you kept messing up the woman's parts."

"Yes, sire," Merlin agreed with a smile, hands still protecting the top of his head. He winked at Gwen who giggled again.

"Well if you've taught Arthur everything he knows, then surely you can teach me as well?" Gwen raised a brow and held out her hand. Despite her broad smile, she had perfected the imitation of a haughty noblewoman being dragged onto the dance floor against her will. That was, until Merlin whirled her to her feet and the illusion was lost in her laughter.

"Well then, my lady, I'll show you the harvest dance from my village." Merlin placed her arms length away and propped his hands on his hips. "The adults called it the Spiral, but as a boy I always called it the grapevine."

"Oh?" Gwen said.

"It's all in the feet, and the pattern reminded me of the twisting vines," he explained while his feet imitated his words. It was a simple over-under motion that Gwen followed quickly. "That's it! Then you mix it up if you want." He held out his hands and she lay her hands in his. Some of the guards were watching by this point, but she ignored them for the beat her friend began to tap against her wrists. "Ready?"

He grinned and then launched them around the fire. At first the circle was simple and Gwen matched his steps easily, but maybe she shouldn't have quipped, "This isn't so bad."

"We're still warming up," Merlin smiled wider, then whirled her about. She stumbled for a moment but caught onto the faster pace, this time following a spiral path that nearly trampled Arthur and a few nearby guards.

"Excuse us!" She laughed breathlessly, soon unable to even concentrate on speaking as they sped up again, flipping back and forth in snakes and spirals. Merlin began sounding out the beat of the song, and she was lost in the whirlwind of steps and both of their gasping laughter. She wondered if the dance was usually this wild, but found she was having too much fun to care.

When her hands finally slipped from his grasp, she fell onto her rump. Arthur quickly scooped her up and deposited her back on her bedroll as Merlin collapsed on the ground, catching his breath between chuckles.

"I tried to warn you," Arthur joked.

"It's much better with a large group," Merlin said from the ground. "Join us next time, Arthur?"

"And risk someone else seeing me involved with that flower party? I'd rather be caught naked."

"Oh, Arthur, you are such a sour old man sometimes!" Gwen planted a kiss on his cheek. "Lucky for you though, I love you."

Arthur, however, was still caught up teasing his friend, who had rolled his eyes with such vigor that his whole head had moved. "Don't get excited, Merlin, I know you like to admire me when I'm shirtless."

"Those are looks of pity, Arthur." Merlin climbed to his feet and walked the steps to his own mat, flopping into it bodily. "Gwen's love for you has blinded her to your many faults. Do you know I slip her smelling salts when the stench of your socks becomes too much?"

"That's not true, Arthur," Gwen cut in after after a stern glance at Merlin. "He's teasing you."

Merlin woke suddenly at the changing of the guard.

He had drifted to sleep against his will in the early night, and now in the darkest hours he lay staring at the canopy of leaves shifting in the wind. As his mind caught up with his body he noticed Arthur's light snores from nearby, and the low voices of the men as they whispered either instructions or jokes.

After a few minutes it was obvious he was far too wired to lay there waiting, so he flipped the blanket from his body and slipped his feet into his boots. He was careful to avoid the bodies as he picked his way out of their encampment, and slipped into the treeline with only the briefest of glances from a knight. Maybe they'd think he'd needed a walk.

That was true in a way: he'd needed a brisk one to put some distance between himself and any watchful eyes and ears. At first he had been caught up in the escape, but the other noises of the forest obscured the guards' murmurs and the crunch of his steps faster than he expected. The insects were loud and calling each other in the last weeks before winter, and the rush of a small brook filled the spaces in between.

He found the water soon enough, and the flat expanse of it stretched from his left and spilled over a bundle of rocks at his feet to wind away to his right. Small bugs dotted the surface of the stream, and larger ones skittered after them on long legs and membraneous wings. A pair of shining dragonflies alit on a branch near his face, seemed to dance around each other, and then flew on for another perch.

The large wings of an owl swept by him and into the heights of a tree above, it's hunter's sight focused on a rodent nibbling in the greenbriar. When Merlin moved to sit on a flat-topped boulder, its head swiveled and it stared at him with large, dark eyes.

The souls of this place teemed around him, with more creatures just out of his vision, yet filling his senses until his entire being beat with the drum of the earth. Life built up in a crescendo, and at its fullest Merlin leaned his head back and roared for the dragons.

In that moment, something odd happened. His sense of self had fuzzed around the edges for a split second, and it left him wide eyed with a funny hum in his ears.

He would have normally explained this away with lack of sleep, but his instincts told him this was not true in this case. When he had channeled the raw magic of Albion while trapped in the Sarrum's castle, forcibly ripping aside the veil between his magic and the chaos that was the world's magic now, he had invited some alien effect on his soul. Despite the sieve being mostly healed, Merlin doubted he would ever feel entirely the same.

Without any conscious effort now, he saw the magic he'd expelled to call Kilgharrah spiraling before his face. It was a golden curl, spinning in an infinite loop, and wafting over his head in widening ripples like the beacon it was.

While he had never seen this particular shade of magic before, that was not what made him pause. He could still feel the energy vibrating; or was it that he could still hear it buzzing? It was a strange sense, like his magic did not just encompass his body. After many long moments filled with confusion he realized-he had a peephole into the vast array of energy around him.

Curious, he used his usual magic to release a ball of blue light overhead, and he waited for the familiar feel as the sliver of his own magic left him to return to the earth. But this time, as the ball of light began to fade, he reached out through that crack in his veil and grasped the fading spell. That magic that had formerly been his now felt foreign, unstable, but he tightened his hold and lit the ball aglow again. This time he did not have to feed it from his own source of magic, but instead through the trickle of raw magic around it.

It was a fascinating challenge. At first he was clumsy and heavy-handed, as if he were weaving with numbed fingers. Then, once he'd talked himself into channeling that magic through himself, it chilled like ice water using his core as a turnabout. He was fully preoccupied until Kilgharrah and Aithusa landed nearby, the latter of which immediately dunked her head into the river.

Her legs were still crippled, and Merlin asked, "Are they fixable?"

Kilgharrah understood his train of thought and answered swiftly, "Yes, over time. I've healed the existing fractures and bruises. Now I hope for her to regain her strength before we begin to rebuild her bones and muscles." Kilgharrah sounded thoughtful. "I will have to do it incrementally."

Still curious, and noting that Aithusa mostly seemed to ignore them, he asked, "Can she speak yet?"

"Teaching her the Common Tongue is not my priority, young warlock. Aithusa will learn in time." Kilgharrah tossed his head. "Now I have some questions for you. What have you told the knight?"

"Not much in the grand scheme of things," Merlin muttered. "He knows that you won't attack Camelot, but he thinks that's due only to our friendship. And he knows how valuable you are to me, and to Arthur's future."

The Great Dragon snorted. "Unsurprisingly he is viewing the trees of the wood, and not the forest around them."

"He's a good friend, Kilgharrah, and he will be a great ally in the fights to come. You don't see him when you look for the future?"

"One of Camelot's various knights? Not everyone has a great destiny."

Merlin frowned. "I met a dwarf on a bridge who once called me Magic, and him Strength."

"Strength?" Kilgharrah mused. "Now that would make things interesting."

Aithusa hopped forward and plopped her head in his lap, distracting them both. She was not yet dry from the river and the water soaked into his trousers. Uncaring of the chill she smiled up at him, and, unsurprisingly, an image of Morgana slipped past his vision. Merlin sighed and said in the dragon tongue, "I'm not sure, Aithusa. I haven't seen her since. I'll try to find out, for you, when I have some time, alright?"

She harrumphed and a flicker of flame lit in her nostrils, but then she followed by thumping her tail playfully against his leg and rolling onto her back. Merlin leaned down to tickle her stomach, and she chirped.

"She does seem much stronger," he said to Kilgharrah.

"She is," Kilgharrah said proudly. Then continued, "Aithusa, show him your breath."

Aithusa rolled back to her feet and twisted so her jaws faced away from him. Happily she stretched until the bright scales of her neck darkened, and from her mouth shot a jet of white hot flame. It was short but intense, and Merlin could feel the wave of heat from where he sat. "That's better than yours," Merlin said cheekily.

Kilgharrah rankled. "Younglings can generally reach higher temperatures. It's a defense mechanism." He flapped his wings haughtily. "And she is small for her age."

Merlin reached an arm around her head, and petted her softly on the cheek. "That was beautiful, Little Dawn." She smiled at his praise, and he rubbed at her chin. "Kilgharrah and I want to see you whole again. You will stay with him, won't you? Until you are healed?"

Aithusa nodded, seemingly frustrated but accepting, and then slipped away, her jaw snapping playfully after an insect that flew too close.

"Thank you for flying out to meet me, Kilgharrah. You and Aithusa are safe from discovery, I swear it."

"I expect nothing less, my dragonlord," Kilgharrah replied. "Though I will rest easier tonight." He stalked closer to Aithusa and nudged her with his snout, bringing her attention from the critters and back to them. "Goodbye, young warlock, for now."

"Good luck, Kilgharrah," Merlin said. "If I can help, you'll tell me?"

Kilgharrah nodded and rose through trees with a push of his legs and a few steady flaps of his wings. Aithusa followed quickly after, bidden partially by the order Merlin had bound her by, and soon he was alone again with the animals and river.

With nothing to keep him, and with a desire to steal another sleep cycle before dawn, he trekked back to their campsite. It only took a flicker of magic to let him slip past the nearest guard unnoticed, and his bedroll wasn't much further on.

A murmur came from Arthur's mat, and he paused when the sound came a second time and had the cadence of sensible words. "What?" Merlin ventured quietly.

"Where have you been?" Arthur asked, still half asleep and with eyes glued nearly shut.

Merlin put on a wide, fake smile, not that Arthur could see it. "Er, gathering herbs?"

"In the dead of night?" Arthur mumbled into his pillow.

"It's peaceful."

Arthur cracked an eye and stared at him blearily through the dark. "There is definitely something very wrong with you."

Footnotes:

(1) Sir Brennis is reintroduced fairly well at the beginning, I believe (P1: A Roll in the Hay, Cinderella, A Tale of Two Patrols).
(2) Drystan, also reintroduced fairly well I'd say (P1: It's Just A Prank, Bro).
(3) I took some cues from the Spiral Dance, a group dance for a harvest festival / autumnal equinox.
(4) Merlin refers to some events from P1: Two Can Keep A Secret, where his magic is completely drained and he channels raw magic.

Author's Note:

I have a confession: every time I write "Author's Note", I accidentally type "Arthur". Also, this was such a wonderful week and I feel so lucky that so many people reviewed after a month of silence on my part! A reviewer asked if part 2 would still be weekly, and the answer is yes. Thursday/Friday will be difficult for the next month or so, so we're going with Sunday/Monday for now.

I felt such relief writing some happier moments, it was a breath of fresh air for me and for Merlin. I think he needed it. Also, I am enjoying the dynamic between he, Gwen, and Arthur. They all are close, and I love that. He and Gwaine used to be that close, but I know they're working to fully repair that friendship. It'll happen. There are still some conversations that they very much need to have.

Kilgharrah will steadily be healing Aithusa throughout Part 2. We'll come back and see their progress later, but they'll be on their own for a bit. Thanks to Jewels for preventing me from going really destructive with Aithusa's legs, and to Linorien for her terribly important edits, and for convincing me to extend the dance. And as always, PM's inbound for the non-guest reviewers. Thanks again!

Next time: The Betas.