A/N: Is anyone still paying attention? Because this one is not from a previously published work… It is, however, from my very first NaNoWriMo story, which I've adapted here for consumption by Merlin fans!... If, y'know, anyone is still paying attention to reposted chapters…
6. Part 1: Get It Out
("Former Things" from The Tune-Tinker)
There was a tempest of emotion inside, as all outside seemed to still into a single held breath.
Merlin was tired, still. And therefore, a bit short-tempered and headachy. As a consequence of doing nothing but sit in a cell for a few days, he felt bored and restless, lazy and lethargic – but to be released for battle magic…
Weighted with responsibility, and scared he wasn't strong enough.
Worried, at how Arthur looked after the fighting he'd already been involved in, the commanding, the deciding. And, knowing that the fact of the secret Merlin had kept from him, and that it was magic, formed an impassable chasm between them, a very sharp pang of disappointment in his own failure.
I can't do this, he thought, laying his hands palm-up on the wall atop the southwest guard tower where they stood, just the two of them in the lull between attacks from the beseigers. I can't do this on my own...
Arthur was speaking, and Merlin opened his eyes to better concentrate on the words, though that released tears down his cheeks, quickly dried in the chilly air.
"They won't wait to give us time to prepare our defense any further." Arthur wasn't addressing Merlin directly, merely voicing observations for the sake of calm for both of them. "They'll have a plan for our refusal already in place, just as they'd have a plan for our surrender… Most of the fireballs came from the south, though there were a few from the west as well. We think from the timing and placement that there is only one magic-wielder, and if you can do something – well, anything, really – about him, we can take the rest of the renegades on more even ground."
Merlin inhaled, noting the smoky-foul taint of battle. The first sharp edge of approaching snow, as the air currents high overhead moved south from the mountains to the sea.
It was a hint, a hunch, a dissipated shadow-warning. No proof… no coincidences.
South-south-east. Sixty yards, maybe.
Merlin began to hum tunelessly to calm his own nerves, to ready the magic that found expression in music, for him, trying to ignore Arthur shifting uneasily next to him, and the splinters of regret that his friend's reaction sent spiking toward his heart.
"When it was dark, we could see them form. Sometimes. Very low to the ground, their arc upwards, but now that it's daylight, I don't know if we'll have much warning–"
Merlin gasped aloud as the sensation of wrongness suddenly coalesced to a pinpoint, then exploded outward, rushing toward them. Emotion faceted the attack, and he could identify each. Jealousy… malice… ambition?... greed. They blazed up like a pagan's sacrifice, hungry and devouring, snarling through the web of loyalty and generosity Merlin had composed in and about the palace.
No. No, this isn't right. To use it so. This isn't defense, enlightenment, guidance, construction.
But antagonism and oppression, disorder and destruction.
Merlin raised his voice louder on the tune, not the words – clear the smoke, the stench, with wind – divert the wildfire – purify the gift.
He felt the stone of the wall press into thighs and stomach, felt the sting of his hair around his face as breeze increased to a gale in the space of a heartbeat. His music was the raw dissonant shriek of pipes' lament – mourning, protesting, refusing to accept inevitability without sacrificing all effort.
The inimical magic faltered.
The ball of crackling envy-cruelty-hunger hovered, whirling. Finding its forward progression blocked, it finally turned, back the way it had come. Turned on its master like a caged predator, like a beaten slave, like a snake seized by the tail.
For half a second Merlin tried – he thought about trying, he began to try – to call it back, to explode it harmlessly somewhere above the people, above the treetops.
But it was not fully in his control. He was the instrument. To shape and direct and refine, maybe, to express, but the power and intent and decision came from beyond him. Merlin was caught motionless for a moment, until the retreating light splashed in the distance, radiating energy outward like a turning reflection.
He sensed Arthur's gasp and flinch, but not with the physical sensation of touch or hearing. He gripped the stone of the wall, rough-hewn, the mortar crumbly, cold and somehow harder because it was cold.
Arthur hoisted himself upon onto it, crouching and balancing himself as if his need to be higher and closer could not be denied even for considerations of safety. The saber-blade belted at his side struck the stone and reverberated lightly. He raised the fingers of one hand to his mouth and whistled shrilly, a complex series of calls.
Commands. To his men, the cavalry below and beyond the wall, waiting to charge.
Merlin's neck was stiff, and hurt when he shivered. Arthur glanced down at him, fierce and focused, but checking on him – as an ally, a friend, a comrade – Merlin's insides tingled a warning and his eyes jerked back to the same point of focus he had sensed earlier.
Shifted perhaps fifty yards, as far as a person might sprint through wooded territory in the ten seconds it had been since the fireball's failure.
There were new elements that he discerned without conscious attempt. Hatred… enmity. The recognition that the resistance met wasn't wholly natural.
The discovery of Merlin, and magic.
The wind gusted again in a second attack; Arthur braced against it, lowered himself down from the wall.
Merlin felt as though scraps of his soul were being scoured and sent whirling away like pieces of a weathered banner, flapping and snapping and gone. Dust and moisture pitting his skin, and he struggled to draw air into his lungs from that furious rush. He felt an unexpected lull and warmth, and blinked to identify what had happened-
Arthur had stepped to shield and shelter Merlin with his own body, his head ducked against the whipping wind.
Turning his head to see better, Merlin noted the last brown leaves yanked from the clawing treetops and scattered across the clouded sky like dust blown from a smooth surface.
Then the wind died, by degrees neither gradual nor sudden, and he breathed, and Arthur breathed and opened his eyes to meet Merlin's with hope-
Evil shifted again. Again, as far as a person could run in a dozen seconds.
Closer to them. In attack, not retreat, and the fury was white-hot and focused, the bulls-eye of the target in sight and attainable.
Merlin faced the threat he deserved, and Arthur didn't. He was expendable; Arthur was important. He turned, rising on his toes and throwing out his arms to knock Arthur back, to shield him, this time–
And the fire struck.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Arthur struggled to breathe in the shrieking tempest of air, trying to stand where his body would break the unrelenting flow for Merlin - who was more important in the moment than he was - squinting in trying to keep his eyes open and clear of the moisture caused by stinging particles.
Then something checked. Something nearly physical and something unnervingly sentient in the invisible wind released its hold. Slowed, and waited.
He could feel Merlin's body heaving with every gasp he dragged into his lungs, they were so close.
"Is that–" Merlin inhaled raggedly– "it, then?"
It felt like nothing more than an ordinary windy day in autumn, last leaves skirling aimlessly from their branches.
They panted, and waited, and watched. He twisted around to the east, alerted by some noise, some distant shout or clash of metal from the cavalry's skirmishing.
"You tell me," he returned. "I don't know if–"
A shadow moved. A line of light shot toward them from the forest.
Arthur seized Merlin to shove him out of the way, but the sorcerer resisted, pushing against Arthur, arms flying up to maintain balance in their moment of struggle.
The light sought them, honing in like a live thing, faster than blinking.
Arthur barely had time to flinch, and it struck him in the shoulder like a hot coal from a whirled sling - and stuck, burning.
Someone screamed, and didn't stop.
His legs failed him; air failed him as they tumbled to the stone platform of the watchtower, Arthur underneath Merlin. He'd pulled the magic-user down with him – because their defender would be safer here below the level of the wall – even though Merlin was a stranger and a liar and a spy and magic he still cared-
Merlin was still screaming. Thrashing uncontrollably, bruising Arthur's ribs with his elbows, tugging maniacally at the coal embedded in his shoulder, and it hurt.
Arthur clenched his jaw and his eyes shut on the white-hot pain, attempting to pacify and restrain the younger man by touch, by force – just stop moving!
And then the paralyzing heat disappeared from his shoulder, leaving an uncomfortable warm trickling sensation, as though his clothes and skin had melted and run like wax when the candle tips, his nerves seared to only a dull impression of pain.
But Merlin was still bawling with agony like a calf in a wolf-trap, taking a breath to release more involuntarily guttural noises.
Arthur rolled awkwardly – so heavy and so slow – gaining his knees against the threatening pull of his left shoulder toward darkness. Merlin curled on his side, twitching and rocking, his cries muffled but still uncontrolled. Arthur shuffled to him, training kicking in as he scanned the sorcerer's lanky body for the injury.
He'd been shot.
Horror and relief noticed it was only Merlin's left forearm, no arteries or organs threatened, but the arrow was still straight through flesh and maybe bone, head and the shaft both visible and Merlin's sleeve was smoking.
"Arthur… Arthur!" he gasped, finding him with wild, dilated eyes. "Get it out. Get it out!"
He tried to hush the younger man. "It's not bad. Hold still – it'll hurt more when you move. Calm down if you can, we'll get you to Gaius."
Merlin kicked out, shrieking fit to curdle Arthur's blood again – and he'd never heard a sound like that before, pure fright or anger or pain not ever. He plucked at the arrow himself, but his other hand was already bloodied.
And – Arthur caught a clearer glimpse – blistered. What?
He cursed, snatching at the arrow, searing his own fingers. Nope, it wasn't going to wait. Whether it had been an ordinary flaming arrow – head wrapped in oil-soaked wool and lit – or something magic-heated, it couldn't wait.
His left arm hung nerveless, useless, so Arthur straddled Merlin, snatched his cuff down over his right hand and grabbed the arrow. Heat flooded his grip through the fabric; he jammed the pointed head hard into a gap between the blocks of stone of the tower floor and snapped the shaft just below the tip.
Merlin choked an inarticulate cry, writhing beneath him.
Arthur pulled, but succeeded only in drawing Merlin's arm closer to him, his upper body lifting away from the floor of the tower-top. He tried again, yanking with unexpected swiftness – no success, only a full-throated scream of agony that scraped every nerve in Arthur's chest raw with shared misery.
Okay, backup plan. He fumbled for the knife in his boot, fumbled against the sorcerer's uncomprehending flailing and the unresponsiveness of his own off arm.
He was going to stab one of them, like this.
Throwing himself down against Merlin, covering and stilling him by force, he controlled their movements at least partially with his greater weight.
"Get it out," Merlin pleaded thickly, and his fingers slipped, bloodied, from the shaft.
Arthur cursed his left arm, dragging it clumsily to assist him.
The fabric of Merlin's sleeve had blackened and curled away from the wound. There wasn't much blood, but the flesh around the base of the arrow was deep red - and bubbling. Lines of black like poison radiated outward, following the veins.
His curse was more of a prayer, this time. He commanded shortly, "Hold still."
Merlin moaned; Arthur forced the fingers of his left hand to grip the arrow, the pain distant and vague, the instinct to jerk back resistible. With a winced apology, he set the point of his knife to the wound, and pushed.
Merlin's off hand. But still so important to a musician. The muscles he might be severing, the nerves he might be destroying – the blade of his knife rasped on bone.
The younger man was panting, whimpering, his movements involuntary and abrupt, but he was trying to obey him, Arthur thought, with a colossal effort of self-control.
He smelled burned flesh and his hand shook and he withdrew the knife on an upwelling of blood.
The arrow stuck.
"Arthur…"
The sound of pain and entreaty cut into him and he shifted the knife to the opposite side of the shaft. If it stayed, would it kill Merlin? Would he lose use of the arm and would it be Arthur's fault? Skin parted beneath the edge of his blade and blood trickled in a steadily increasing stream, a steadily-expanding pool beneath them.
Was that good or bad. He didn't know. Grimly he kept on, cutting the obscenely abnormal missile out of Merlin's arm. Unconsciousness threatened, as the younger man's struggles sent hot agony waving out from Arthur's shoulder. Blurriness edged his vision.
Merlin's movements were less than completely conscious now, a twitch of nerves, his grunts of pain reactive.
The arrow slipped in Arthur's fingers. He growled, gripping it, twisting his knife, and it grated loose; charred skin and flesh clung to it like a skewer discarded after a camp-fire meal. He flung it clattering away.
Blood still dripped, dark and thick and sticky. He hoped it wasn't his imagination that the dark tracery of poison on Merlin's pale skin was fainter.
Let it bleed clean, or wrap it up? He rested on his side, trapping Merlin's arm between his body and the stone floor of the tower, to bring his knife down to the hem of his tunic, make the cut that allowed him to rip off a wide strip. Then, maneuvering up onto his hip, he began to wind his impromptu bandage around his friend's arm.
Just a moment more, and he could rest - then stand and check the battle, check his men, go for help–
Merlin cried out as he tightened the makeshift bandage, sobbing, and hit his shoulder with a fist. Purposeful or involuntary, it didn't matter. It felt like Arthur's body had cracked and shattered.
His chest scraped the stone, then his chin.
He made one attempt to fight back as the darkness crowded in, but no part of his body responded to command, and then his eyes failed him, too.
6: Part 2: Get It Out
("Things That Go Bump in the Night" from 3's Company)
One of the last things Merlin's father had said to him, before the rumors and then the knights came to chase Balinor from Ealdor, and nearly from Merlin's memory, was that if anything ever happened to him, Merlin was to take care of his mother and his brother. Even as young as he'd been when his father was forced to disappear from their lives, Merlin had taken that charge very seriously.
His younger brother Mordred had nightmares from a very early age. Merlin had sufficient control of his magic to make the little carved animals their father had made and then left for their toys, dance about in midair to soothe his baby brother back to sleep. As they both got older, Merlin would roll over under the blanket they shared on the floor, and nudge Mordred awake from his slumbering terror. Then they'd lie on their bellies, bodies touching down one side, and Merlin would make pictures from the sparks in the fireplace til Mordred's eyes grew peacefully heavy.
When he'd come to Camelot and heard of Lady Morgana's nightmares, he'd wondered, til Gaius had explained. Not the same thing.
Merlin leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together, watching his younger brother fall into an exhausted sleep, pale and a bit sweaty, but his arm bandaged nicely and on its way to healing after the skirmish in the marketplace and the subterfuge necessary to slip away from the prince's pursuit to the safety of the physician's chamber.
"The druids were supposed to be keeping him safe," he said aloud.
Gaius turned from his work-table, the little glass vial in his hand raised to the light to check for desired color and consistency. "No one with magic is safe in Camelot, I trust you know that very well by now," he said sternly.
"I do, I know," Merlin answered. "It's just…" He sighed. A shock to hear his little brother in such proximity, screaming telepathically for help. "We'll, he's safe enough now, I guess."
Gaius grunted, turning to his work again. "Perhaps not for long. We need to get him back to the druid clan he's been living with, before someone remarks on the coincidence of a young boy arriving as your visitor the very hour the guards lose a fugitive of the same age and gender."
Merlin straightened to object, "Arthur wouldn't–"
Gaius raised a forbidding eyebrow. "Uther would. Come tomorrow, you must discover what Arthur knows about the reported locations of druid encampments, and return your brother to them."
"I wish he could stay a few days," Merlin protested. "What about his wound, surely he needs rest and care?"
"Which the druids can give," Gaius countered. Setting the vial down, he stared at Merlin a moment. Then said slowly, "What has your mother told you about Mordred's nightmares?"
Merlin shrugged, not sure what the old man was getting at. "I remember he's had them since he was a baby. She's said that he must be woken from them as quickly as possible, and you told me, they were probably not anything like Morgana's."
"That's all true." Gaius ducked his head to observe the sleeping boy a moment more. "Have you ever noticed anything unusual happening, while the nightmare was still occurring, and before either you or your mother could wake him?"
"You mean like magic?" Merlin said.
"Anything unusual." Gaius did not commit to specifics.
"Once or twice, I thought… he was attracting the shadows, somehow," Merlin said, but that was a vague youthful memory. "I could have been wrong. I remember thinking how bad the dream must be if his magic could – I don't know, reflect his dreams onto his surroundings. Maybe it was just me, scared for him and imagining the darkness closing in because I was young myself and couldn't do much… But he never remembers anything of what he's seen – or even felt, if he was scared in the dream. It's only that he's so agitated while it's happening."
"Did your mother," Gaius said deliberately, "ever mention a curse?"
Merlin was on his feet before he knew he intended to move, but said nothing. Gaius turned back to his worktable, ladled water from their bucket into four mismatched bowls, then poured a few drops from the vial he'd been working with, into each.
"I need your hands, Merlin," Gaius said, picking up two of the bowls and indicating with a nod of his white-haired head that Merlin should do the same.
He obeyed, following the old physician – with a brief curious sniff at the bowl in his right hand, smelled like chamomile and sage – back to the patient's bed where Mordred slept. Gaius positioned himself carefully, holding each bowl out to the sides – north and east, Merlin realized, and did the same with his two out south and west.
"Gaius," he said," what is going on? Is there something wrong with Mordred?"
"Not yet," Gaius answered. "Light all four bowls at once, please, Merlin, this requires simultaneous fire of a magical nature."
Merlin instinctively twisted to see that the chamber door was shut. It never – okay, hardly ever – happened that his old mentor requested magic. There was no one there, of course – but Merlin gave Gaius another questioning glance before speaking the spell. "Forbearnan samod."
Gaius nodded approval as tongues of flame flickered their dance above all four bowls at once. Slowly and carefully he lowered the bowls to the floor; Merlin copied his movements and Mordred slept on, oblivious.
"What do you mean, not yet?" Merlin asked when Gaius had straightened – more slowly than he, due to age.
"When you were an infant, your magic was obvious, according to your mother." Gaius retreated to the physician's stool, sat straight-backed with his hands on his knees to watch Mordred sleep. "Strong and controlled – relatively speaking of course, at least it wasn't chaotic or destructive. You've heard her refer to it as your gift, haven't you?"
Merlin nodded, dragging the bench from the table to straddle it, where he could give his attention to Gaius, while keeping his brother in range of his vision, too.
"Do you recall an old woman named Valdis, in your village, around the time of your brother's birth?" Gaius asked. "I have the impression from your mother that she wasn't a permanent resident, as such."
"No, I…" he paused. "There was an old woman who helped my mother. I sat outside our door and my father… walked back and forth. Worrying. And the old woman told us we could come in – and my mother lay in the bed with Mordred so tiny in her arm, and she was crying – and I never saw the old woman again."
Gaius nodded. "Valdis was a Seer. She told your mother, each of her sons had a destiny laid on him, foretold since time beyond memory."
Merlin nodded again, leaning forward. "And we've said, mine is to protect Arthur because he'll be a great king. Someday." He held his tongue on the sarcastic details he voiced more often than his hope, hidden far deeper than daily irritations.
"Yes. We have." One of Gaius' eyebrows arched as he contemplated the sleeping boy.
"So Mordred has one, too? Do you suppose it might be the same as mine? I don't think he's ready for Camelot yet, but someday…" Merlin couldn't help smiling, thinking of having his brother with him. Mordred had always been a bit of an old soul; he'd understand and share Merlin's worries as even Gaius couldn't.
But Gaius was shaking his head. "Unfortunately, your mother was told that your destiny and Mordred's were both equal and opposite."
"What… does that mean?"
"It means that only one of you can fulfill your destiny. If you succeed, Mordred fails. And if he succeeds – you fail."
"That doesn't make sense, Gaius," Merlin said. "How can only one destiny succeed? Doesn't a destiny have to succeed? And if mine is protecting Arthur, saving his life with magic, does that mean–" He stopped short, his mouth suddenly dry.
"It means your brother will bring about Arthur's doom," Gaius said heavily.
"No." Merlin was on his feet again. "What if we were wrong about my destiny–" Gaius gave him a look, and his heart lurched in his chest; no, he wouldn't want any other, anymore – but how was it fair if Mordred didn't have the same chance to choose? "No, it can't be. Mordred doesn't even know Arthur, and Arthur really is decent, for a prince, what reason would Mordred ever have, to – to–"
Kill Arthur, he couldn't say. And if it was true, how could Merlin protect his prince from his own brother? It was not the same at all as protecting him from someone like the Collins witch or Valiant or Sophia-the-sidhe.
"Which is why," Gaius gestured, and Merlin looked back at the flickering bowls, fire and liquid, "we are trying to keep that curse from taking hold."
"Oh," Merlin said. Oh. "So there's a chance that won't be his destiny?"
Gaius shook his head. "I cannot say, Merlin. This is why he belongs with the druids, who know so much more about this. He should not be so close to the object of his destiny, and without the proper safeguards, as young as he is."
"But I thought," Merlin stuttered, "the bowls, the fire…"
"I have done my very best," Gaius said. "But no. I am not sure."
"All we have to do though is watch him tonight, right?" Merlin demanded. "Wake him from the nightmares? Will that keep his destiny from – taking hold?"
"Again, I cannot be certain," Gaius said, brusquely, irritated as always to be questioned – at least when he had no definite answers to give. "This close to Arthur, if the prince's death is Mordred's destiny to accomplish, and–"
"And what?" Merlin asked narrowly.
"There is another power very near here who has an interest in seeing every aspect of destiny and prophecy fulfilled."
He straightened, knowing what the old man meant. Kilgarrah, reluctant ally and game-player; Merlin could never decide what the dragon's plans for Arthur might be, in the end. "Do you think he might–"
"Merlin!" Gaius said, suddenly and sharply anxious; he knocked over the stool and staggered a bit in rising and retreating, pointing toward the window over the table.
He spun to see – black smoke.
Oozing around the panes stood ajar, as if a great fire burned right outside… a high citadel tower? It puffed not upwards but sideways, floating – bunching – reaching and twisting, tendrils connecting and strengthening with a sickeningly relentless indolence.
What do I do? What do I do?
Merlin stepped between the oozing darkness – too opaque for mere smoke, too sly and intelligent and malevolent – and his brother, spreading open palms.
His mind was wiped blank of spells. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could use – rising terror tightened his throat as he thought of midnight in his mother's hut and the darkness closing in.
"Wake him up!" Merlin shouted to Gaius. Some piece of furniture clattered behind him; he spoke again in desperation. "Ic the aflieman wirgness!" Leaning forward, bracing as if he could push the trailing evil back through the window, out to the darkness.
It didn't slow. Like blood in water it traveled through the air, but without fading or diluting.
"He isn't waking!" Gaius called behind him, a note of panic in his normally-calm physician's tone.
What would happen if Merlin touched it? He didn't want to know, but it curled and roiled forward, undeterred – his hand was still outstretched, but he took an involuntary step back.
Then the door opened.
The prince entered, pushing his way inside as he always did, with arrogant assurance of his right to do so, no matter which room. Seeing the foul black cloud building in midair where it did not belong, Arthur froze, eyes wide.
And it seemed to Merlin, the darkness paused.
Noting the newcomer. Recognizing him. Itself the palpable representation of Arthur's destined doom.
Oh… no.
Merlin reacted without thinking as the miasma shifted – preparing to take its victim directly? – lunging for the closest tendril. The hell you will!
His fingers closed around it – and he felt nothing but air. But the rest of the smoke shot forward, wrapping around Merlin's wrist… then diminishing as if it was absorbed into his palm.
Merlin's arm numbed – his heart-rate–
slowed–
Overwhelming pain spiked through him, every single nerve exploding into–
Darkness.
He was filled to bursting with a roiling fury of palpable and concentrated evil, searching and hungry, and he resisted, feeling his mind scoured and his stomach turned inside out –
Memories of fear. What-is-happening… what-do-I-do… what-if-it-works-what-if-it-doesn't…
WhatifIgetcaught – !
The moment of absolute and roaring silence that always accompanied death - that he remembered, that he felt in the darkness, Mary Collins Knight Valiant Edwin Sophia - repeated over and over and unending. Gladness that he lived undiscovered churned with guilt that he killed – a sick delight in and shame of his power. Over and over. Unending. The absolute worst of what fulfilling his destiny meant. Terrible things – tempting things.
The darkness oozed into a place in his soul where his innocence had been. Before Camelot, before Arthur…
It filled the hollow that deceit and law-breaking and isolation left and whispered are you really different than anyone else who kills to achieve their own ends and wouldn't it be better to accomplish them more swiftly and easily –
If Uther is no more, you need never fear retribution for your magic.
If you care about nothing and no one, then you never need suffer loss again.
If there never is any anger or betrayal or disgust in those princely blue eyes because there is no light of life left in those princely blue eyes.
If you don't have to worry about Arthur anymore.
Then your magic would be utterly free.
He felt himself shuddering. Someone was yelling and the discordance filled his ears; he resisted the pull and influence of the darkness…
Why resist? It's impossible, in the end, death ultimately inevitable –
no. no. all else failing, he'd have to live with himself and he couldn't. he couldn't, if he gave in, and so –
He reached blindly beyond the darkness, to the light of his magic. No matter what use he molded it to when it was brought forth, always it felt so pure inside.
A thread. A spark. A drop. A crumb. Enough.
Merlin woke on his feet, throat hoarse as if from screaming, light blazing like noonday through the chamber – but Arthur and Gaius remained in place only moments had passed it was still midnight and Mordred still sleeping he must not have been screaming after all–
The palpable evil and darkness disappeared, rolling in on itself and dissolving, releasing Merlin's hand and wrist, drawing back from his entire arm like blood draining from a slashed wound but horizontally. And then it was gone, the other men blinking the shock of light from their eyes as the room dimmed to ordinary candle-glow. Merlin dropped his arm heavily, staggering with exhaustion and a full-body ache – but no more than any other day after stable duty or training exercises.
"Merlin!" Gaius exclaimed. The old physician's bulk, surprisingly strong, appeared under his right arm to support him.
But Arthur.
Braced back against the door behind him on one open palm, eyes and mouth wide with shock. Of the sort Merlin had seen on the prince's face before, when - magic.
He'd seen. The fear Merlin felt was old and familiar and should have been worn dull from experience, but it wasn't it was razor sharp slicing his lungs to useless ribbons and shredding his heart even as it struggled to continue beating.
"Was that magic," Arthur stated, in the flat tone he reserved for hiding all confusing emotion. Pointless, he said it, and yet so significantly. "Merlin. You just did magic."
Merlin didn't look away – couldn't look away – the anger in Arthur's eyes was his lifeline and without it he'd drown in despair.
It was reaction, not conclusion – it was transition, not decision.
But when the prince pushed upright and stalked forward, his hand was nowhere near the sword-hilt at his hip as if he knew instinctively that neither Merlin nor his magic could ever harm him. That was something, and that was everything.
Arthur demanded, "Explain to me. Right now. What just happened."
"A visible manifestation of a curse," Gaius said. He was simultaneously trying to check the signs of Merlin's physical health, lead him to a seat, and respect the moment between royal and servant. "Merlin challenged it in his brother's place and… won."
Only for his brother would Merlin look away from Arthur, and only because Arthur was trying to pull him to the bench as well. Mordred slept so peacefully, Merlin dared to hope – for him at least…
"That did it, then? Mordred's free? No more nightmares, no more–" Destiny to kill princes and topple kingdoms into chaos and war? Merlin couldn't say.
"How often do I have to say it before you understand?" Gaius scolded. "I am no expert, I cannot know for certain."
The bench hit the back of Merlin's knees and he sank – but because he was somehow clutching handfuls of Arthur's long jacket, the prince dropped down beside him, rather than break his hold. "For my brother," Merlin said to him, searching his face and finding nothing he recognized, now. "You understand, don't you? To save my brother's life, I had to. I had to save…"
"Calm down, no one's hurting you," Arthur said, and didn't even push Merlin's hands away. Shielding, it may be, his ignorance and shock, with sarcasm. "I didn't know you could do magic – you learned a spell to protect your brother from this curse? What sorcerer cast it – that's who's responsible, we'll find him and make him –"
"I'm afraid this curse doesn't work like that, sire," Gaius said, shaking his head. "Greatness naturally requires a rise and a fall – if someone can be responsible for aiding one action, another will be responsible for its converse. Eventually. In this case, we had assumed that fate had chosen two brothers to be each other's opposites, opponents, but now…"
"You mean, I may have taken the curse on myself?" Merlin blurted, aghast. "I thought I…" Resisted.
He wanted to shove himself away from Arthur for the prince's own safety, just in case, but his legs were too wobbly to move his weight on the bench, other than to sway in place. He did manage to let go of Arthur's jacket, and the prince settled back to a distance more comfortable for both of them.
"I believe you may have deflected it from Mordred," Gaius said, in the stern voice he used when answering Merlin's less-rational suggestions, or when forced to present a theory he had no evidence to support. "I am not certain it is possible to simply erase such a thing from existence."
"So it may still find someone to fulfill it?" Merlin said.
Gaius shrugged and part of Merlin wished he could change things back – to know who was destined to kill Arthur would be a relief in knowing that nothing and no one else could. But it could not be so clear-cut, and he would not have that person be his little brother, for all the world. Honestly, it might be better if he could somehow carry it without losing any part of himself, or his control…
"I think we are done with this for tonight, at least," the old physician added. "If Mordred is to remain until his arm heals and we find a way of returning him to the druids-"
Merlin glanced up at Arthur – brief dawning realization, quirked eyebrow of disapproval at Merlin for his subterfuge during the earlier search – but the prince didn't interrupt.
"We will have to have to put more precautions in place tomorrow," Gaius finished.
"Yes," Arthur said, turning his gaze from Mordred to Merlin, in narrow calculation. "We will."
6. Part 3: Get It Out
("Aid and Alliance" from Heir of Aetlantys)
Merlin tried to lie as still as possible, the knee of his injured leg propped up slightly on his other; it hurt less than lying flat. The broken-off arrow lodged there was throbbing still, and flaring furiously if he so much as twitched, but he was content, now. The earth cradled him, the air blanketed him in comfort… and Arthur was with him.
There was no trace of indecision in the human prince's expression, no hint of censure or disapproval. And evidently he hadn't led any of the knights to capture Merlin after his escape, after he'd been shot and tumbled off the dock. He'd crossed the lake, swimming beneath the surface to avoid being seen, he'd crawled ashore and attempted to make his way through the woods… and that was the last thing he remembered before waking, just now, to find that he'd been found after all.
"Why did you come to the lake?" he asked, his voice little more than a whisper, in this position, and trying to use no muscles at all.
Arthur sat next to him within easy view, one knee let fall to rest on the ground, the other raised and bent to drape his arm over. The last few moments, his blue eyes had been fixed thoughtfully on the distance, but as Merlin spoke, the prince straightened attentively.
"I mean," Merlin added, swallowing with difficulty, "with the king, and… knights?"
"Long story," Arthur said ruefully, reaching to position the hard mouthpiece of the water-skin so Merlin could wet his mouth and throat without moving.
"Distract me," Merlin suggested breathlessly. "What of – Gwaine?" Had it been his imagination that the roguish knight his particular friend, had been present only moments earlier?
"He should be back soon," Arthur said, focused on the water-skin. Then he met Merlin's eyes, and a look of chagrin passed over his face. "Oh – no, he wasn't with us, Merlin. Not this morning, not this patrol. Nor Percival."
"Gwaine was on duty last night," Merlin remembered. It seemed longer ago than that, already. He recalled leaving the banquet, distracting the guards, walking the streets. Missing that sense of being watched… though evidently the traitor Gosyn had been watching Merlin in turn. "What did Sir Go- what did he tell you?"
Arthur set his jaw and answered reluctantly. "He said he'd heard a rumor, and noticed signs himself. A monster…"
Humans didn't like what they didn't understand. Merlin nodded, feeling dirt rub into his hair. He tipped his head back, opening his eyes wide to gaze at the tossing green-on-blue above him. Hoping the air would dry the moisture accumulating in his eyes before he embarrassed himself further. Monster. Yes, of course.
"I didn't even think," Arthur went on in quick desperation. "I didn't once consider… I thought you'd be in Gaius' apprentice room, asleep. When he said – when my father told me, the report of a monster… Merlin, it didn't even occur to me to connect that with you."
"It's all right," Merlin told him hoarsely. The earth whispered to him of approaching steps – two horses, he thought. "I probably shouldn't have come out here. If it hadn't been him, it probably would have been someone else one of these days, seeing me swimming with tail and scales and thinking…"
"It's because it's a lake," Arthur interrupted, his tone a shade more wry. He glanced up as Merlin both heard and felt the two horses halt, and a man's footsteps start – but he didn't look away from Arthur. "If we were at the sea-coast, no one would mistake you for anything but what you are."
"And what is that?" Merlin said, self-mockingly. Skinny, broken, naked…
"Prince of the ocean," Arthur finished, with an edge of royal pride.
If Merlin had been upright, his jaw might have dropped.
"Here we are," Gwaine said, interrupting the moment. "Doing a bit better, Merlin? I've managed to scavenge from the others a spare set of trousers, the remains of someone's breakfast, your missing boot, still wet, a bandage roll, and a flask of wine."
As he shifted to a kneeling position over Merlin, Arthur cocked a skeptical frown at the knight who joined them.
"For wound-cleaning," Gwaine enunciated with mild exasperation.
"That sounds like it'll hurt." Merlin attempted a bit of levity, nervous at the way his two friends were laying out supplies and focusing on his leg.
"Like the devil," Gwaine agreed cheerfully. "But nothing you can't handle. How the hell did this happen anyway, Arthur?"
"Gosyn must have followed him," Arthur said shortly. "Or maybe he overheard us talking the other morning and knew Merlin knew of his betrayal–"
Arthur hesitated briefly, and Merlin guessed what he'd stopped himself saying – And I didn't.
"We should've told you," he said. "Told you it was Gosyn. I should've told you – about coming out here to swim in the lake–"
"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur said. "You'll pull it, Gwaine?"
"Hold him down," Gwaine said, shifting lower and repositioning Merlin's legs.
Instinctively his body resisted them, as pain ignited again and spread, even as he tried to cooperate. He thought he might be shaking from the dread of the procedure, even knowing it was necessary and would benefit his eventual wellbeing.
Arthur caught his wrists and trapped them together, leaning over him to hold Merlin down with his own body. "We didn't know it was Merlin we'd find here," he concluded to Gwaine, who knelt to secure Merlin's knees. "We all saw him come out of the lake, and change back to human, and before anyone could say anything–"
Merlin, moving minutely to discover the bounds of Arthur's grip, heard unspoken words again – before I could say anything–
"Gosyn yells, Fire!" Arthur said grimly.
"Would that your father had let me kill him," Gwaine said, in the same tone.
Merlin opened his mouth to apologize again for the situation his carelessness had placed them all in, but Arthur's head was turned away, his attention down by Merlin's leg and Gwaine's hands. Fire waved through Merlin at the knight's first touch on the shaft of the arrow, and sweat broke out all over his body.
A drop rolled down Arthur's temple also, and then the human prince's eyes were very close and intensely blue. "Deep breath."
Merlin couldn't breathe, Arthur was crushing him; he tried to inhale obediently anyway – and Gwaine pulled on the arrow.
Maybe gently, maybe steadily, maybe swiftly – but it felt like he was pulling the bone right out, with a pair of red-hot knives. Merlin's entire body seized; his eyes screwed shut and his spine arched away from the excruciating pain–
that went on–
and on–
"Okay, it's out," Gwaine said – Merlin wanted to disagree, the arrow was still-damn-there, pounded into him like surf on jagged shore-rocks, like hundreds of feet of thundering waterfall – "Gimme the wine."
"For him, right? Not you," Arthur said, a short attempt at humor. Merlin tried to breathe, to relax, to unclench his jaw and open his eyes – "Brace for cleaning," Arthur advised tersely.
Merlin's body bucked again, and he was quite certain he grunted, before locking his lungs closed against air. It felt like they were cleaning his wound with the sharpened edge of an oyster shell, scraping off layer after layer of his skin and flesh. He fought Arthur – fought both of them – tried to freeze his muscles, to see if that might help.
It didn't.
"Okay – okay," Gwaine gritted.
"Wrap it up quick," Arthur's voice commanded. "Tight but not too tight, that'll help stop the bleeding… Almost done, Merlin, I swear."
His body betrayed him, gasping a breath – and whimpering it back out. The intensity of the burning throb eased slightly and he opened his eyes. Initial blurring cleared as involuntary tears trickled down his temples. He breathed, and couldn't seem to stop, dragging in panting lung-fulls of breath, one after the next after the next.
"Well done, Merlin," Arthur said, as the weight of his friend's more muscular body retreated carefully.
It felt like he took Merlin's strength with him, all energy draining from his limbs and leaving them heavy and helpless. His two friends manipulated his leg – holding it up to wrap the cloth bandage, setting it down.
"He's stronger than he looks," Arthur said to Gwaine, sitting back and shaking out his arms before resting his hands on his thighs.
Gwaine glanced at Merlin's face, and grinned to meet his eyes. "Hells, yes."
Merlin felt anything but. It was all right, though, he thought hazily, as the world swung slowly round, and he let himself simply lie. They would take care of him.