21A/N: A huge thank you to everybody who favorited, followed, and reviewed, you guys are so sweet! Whelp this chapter got massively out of hand: over three thousand words, my longest chapter ever by far, so kudos to those of you that get through the whole thing. Oh, and the ending might seem kind of slashy, but that's not how I meant it, but everyone's entitled to slash goggles if they wish. As always, I don't own Merlin and all that tripe, so enjoy!
None of the knights had noticed Merlin's hasty departure, distracted as they were by the whole murderous sorcerer debacle. However, they could not fail to notice that for the entirety of the ten minutes since said sorcerer's defeat, the Arthur had been staring straight ahead, slack jawed, as though the world as he knew it had been torn out from straight under his feet. (It had.)
Therefore, it was an extremely bewildered group of knights that was dismissed by the irate king, as he hastened to Gaius' quarters, to where he assumed the man he had once called his best friend had fled.
However, he was not greeted by the sight of the lanky manservant/sorcerer he had been seeking, but rather by Gaius, who was sitting on his work bench, clutching a piece of parchment in his hand so tightly that his knuckles had gone white. Tentatively, he called out, "Gaius?" hoping to elicit a response from the older man. Gaius merely tilted the parchment towards Arthur in an invitation for the king to read it. With a deep breath, he took the note and began reading, "Dear Gaius," it began, clearly written in Merlin's scrawling pen, "Arthur has found out about my magic. He hasn't taken it well. I need to leave Camelot immediately. I don't know where I'm going to go just yet, and I can't tell you in case they question you about me. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Thank you for being the best and the truest father I've ever known. I'll never forget you. Love, Merlin."
Arthur gripped the table in an attempt to keep the world from spinning around him, because Merlin was gone. The Merlin who had been there through every high and low of Arthur's life for the past decade was gone. And in that moment, Arthur didn't care about the magic, the lies, the sorcery, he cared that the one person who he trusted unconditionally, who he trusted to be there, suddenly wasn't.
He briefly considered sending a group of knights out after Merlin, but decided against it after a few moments' contemplation. From what he'd seen in the throne room, Merlin appeared to be an extremely powerful sorcerer, as he had changed the direction of the knife without a spell, which he had never seen a sorcerer do. The magic had seemed almost instinctive, so Arthur figured that if Merlin did not want to be caught, then he would not be. Besides, if he sent knights out after Merlin, he would have to explain why he was having his manservant chased down by armed guards, and Arthur wasn't certain whether or not he wanted people to know about Merlin's magic.
Slamming the note down on the table, Arthur whirled around and practically stomped out of Gaius' chambers, shutting the door (quite forcefully) behind him, and leaving the physician to his silence. For almost an entire day after the incident, Arthur remained tight-lipped, despite his knights' cajoling and Gwen's concerned questions. Even the servants were wondering where the King's bumbling, lovable manservant was, and what had caused his master's terrible mood. The two had fought before (oh how they had fought), but Merlin had always been there regardless, cheerily picking up the King's breakfast and chattering on about what a prat he was. The fact that he wasn't there rang alarm bells in the heads of the majority of the older servants. Since they were powerless to do anything about it, the servants watched the High King of Albion stomp about his castle for almost an entire day before he went back to Gaius' quarters.
After a full day of attempting to piece together Merlin's motives, deduce when exactly he had begun practicing magic in a kingdom where it was banned, and why the man had run away without giving Arthur a minute to react to the revelation that the man he had trusted above all others was a bloody sorcerer, he decided to speak to Gaius, who had obviously known of his ward's magic. According to anonymous sources (read: servants Arthur had covertly eavesdropped on in the hall), Gaius had listlessly dispensed his regular medicines, then retired to his chambers for the rest of the day, even though it was closer to morning than to afternoon.
Upon reaching Gaius' room, Arthur decided against knocking and simply stepped into the room, where the old physician was rather despondently mixing multicolored chemicals. "Gaius?" he called, in case the other man had missed his entrance (he was quite getting on in years, so his hearing was starting to falter). The man in question turned around and, upon viewing the King, fixed his face into an unreadable mask. Resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, Arthur began, "I wanted to ask about Merlin's magic. That is, I wanted to-"
Silenced by what had been dubbed the older man's "Eyebrow of Doom" by the knights and Merlin (the thought of whom sent a pang from Arthur's chest down to his stomach), he listened as Gaius began his explanation. "Merlin," he sighed, "is a very special case in that he never chose to practice magic. He was born with magical abilities, a warlock rather than a sorcerer." Arthur could not stifle a small gasp at the revelation. He had always assumed that people were gradually corrupted by their magic; however, Merlin had been in possession of magic for his entire life, and he didn't have a single corrupt bone in his body! Arthur couldn't imagine the amount of fear and secrecy that would have been a part of every day of Merlin's entire life. The fact that Merlin had ended up relatively sane was a miracle in and of itself. The King had always known that he would mitigate the sentence for sorcery on Merlin's behalf, but now he was wondering if there should even be a punishment at all.
This idea was solidified by the subsequent hours, in which Arthur learned of entwined destinies, a two-sided coin, and a warlock whose loyalty could only be overshadowed by the love he had for his friends. By the time Gaius had finished speaking, his voice was hoarse with both emotion and overuse, and Arthur's face (though he would deny it to his grave) was covered with tear tracks. He couldn't even begin to imagine how Merlin must have felt; Arthur had killed the girl he loved, and yet Merlin remained loyal. When Merlin's father had died, Arthur had told him that no man was worth his tears, and he hadn't even been given time to grieve properly before having to smile like nothing was wrong. Arthur had mindlessly spouted anti-magic vitriol at Merlin for years, and yet the warlock had remained ever faithful. It was utterly unfathomable, and yet it was.
However, one thing still preyed on Arthur's mind. After a few moment's contemplation, he tugged at his hair and asked, "Why…" licking his dry (and suspiciously salty) lips, he continued, "Why did he run away? If he had so much faith in me…why did he not even give me a chance come to terms with his magic, rather than running away as though he was guilty of some unspeakable crime?"
The Eyebrow of Doom returned. "Well, Sire," the physician replied, "if I'm not mistaken, magic still is an unspeakable crime. He cared about you and your opinion of him so much that your response to the discovery of his magic haunted him from his earliest days in Camelot. His fear in that moment must have overwhelmed him, and he instinctively fled." Arthur mused, "From what you have told me, I now know that Merlin has never fled in the face of danger before." Gaius' eyebrow inched impossibly closer to his hairline as he responded, "Merlin never truly feared the evils he has faced, because he has faith that, somehow, he will succeed, and that as long as you are safe, nothing else matters. You, Sire, have the power to hurt him in a way that no-one else does, because he cares for you above all others."
Arthur could not help but feel humbled by Merlin's apparent all-consuming loyalty and faith in him. However, he decided that he would not, could not, be the one to bring Merlin back to Camelot. If Merlin wanted to run away, then that was just fine with Arthur (or so he told himself). He would just be spared Merlin's constant annoying prattle whilst he drafted the proposal to lift the ban on magic in Camelot.
He lasted about a week.
He had convened with the Round Table (or rather, the knights occupying it) a few hours after finishing his conversation with Gaius and washing up. The group was locked in the large room until well past midnight as Arthur related everything that Gaius had told him mere hours before. Tears started to leak out of the corners of his eyes once more, but seeing as all the knights' eyes were glittering by the end of the story, none of them particularly felt like pointing this out. They unanimously decided to support Arthur's plans for legalizing magic while Gwaine muttered about "damn slippery secret warlocks" and bemoaned all the enchanted liquor he could have had if he had only known. Of course, all of the knights wished to go after Merlin when they learned why he had run away, but were forbidden by a resigned Arthur, who explained that it wouldn't be safe for Merlin to return until the ban was officially lifted. Grudgingly, the knights agreed that they would not seek out Merlin until magic was free in Camelot.
For days, Arthur argued with his council, and all but fist-fought them into seeing the sense in repealing the ban, until they, too were swayed. He did not include Merlin in his argument, as he did not wish to reveal Merlin's secrets to those the warlock himself did not trust (almost) implicitly, or make it seem as though he was doing it solely for the sake of his friend. Yes, that was how it had begun, but as he debated various council members on the issue, he began to believe more and more that possessing magic in and of itself was not a crime. The more he thought about it, the more Arthur decided that magic was like a pen. It could bring destruction and death, as king signed a death warrant or a declaration of war with it; conversely, it could bring peace and a new era of prosperity, such as a king signing a peace treaty. Everything depended on who wielded the power and what they were doing with it, and he resolved to make everyone he could persuade view magic this way, rather than as a resolute force for evil.
The official law was still in its drafting stages when Arthur decided that enough was enough, and that he was bringing his wayward warlock back to Camelot. He knew that after fleeing the citadel, the most obvious place for Merlin to flee would have been Ealdor. (You didn't have to be the other side of Merlin's coin to deduce that.)
Unfortunately, there was still the problem of getting out of Camelot undetected to contend with. He had dictated to the knights that they were under no circumstances to bring Merlin back to Camelot; he couldn't go back on his own words. So, bereft of any other options, the King of Camelot snuck out of his own citadel like a common thief.
Donning a dark cloak, he left Guinevere a vague note not to worry about his whereabouts that she would surely see right through, and snuck past the guards. Slightly concerned about how simple it was to bypass security in his castle, he snuck up behind the unsuspecting stable boy and knocked him out as gently as possible. Assured that there would be no lasting damage, Arthur took his horse (it wasn't stealing-the horse was his, after all), and rode out of the city without the guards batting an eye. He decided that when he returned, he would have a strict conversation with his guards about letting cloaked strangers sneak about during the night. However, since it was working to his advantage at the moment, he pushed it to the back of his mind for the moment, and continued riding towards Ealdor.
He rode swiftly for the one and a half days needed to reach Ealdor, stopping only for a few hours to rest. Arthur wondered at the lack of bandits and thanked whatever deity was watching over him for this spot of luck. (It was, of course, an experimental spell Merlin had put on him to repel bandits, after yet another aggravating patrol incident.) He came riding into Ealdor at a full gallop, in the time between morning and afternoon, his hair whipping behind him, and probably looking quite the sight.
As soon as the villagers in the middle of recognized their golden-haired king, they were immediately awestruck, forming something of a small mob. The village leader, an old man named Elric, stepped up in front of them, closest to the mounted sovereign. "What do you seek of our humble village, Sire?" Elric asked timidly, rather intimidated by his proximity to royalty. Arthur answered with another question: "Could you tell me the location of the house belonging to a woman named Hunith?" After all, it had been nearly a decade since Arthur had last seen Ealdor, and he didn't remember where she lived, especially as most of the houses looked nearly identical. The old man wordlessly pointed towards a nondescript home, seemingly no different to any of the others, according to the citizens of Ealdor. However, they deduced that the home must have had great importance to the King, as he rode off towards the building at a gallop before skidding to a stop (much like Merlin had done a week earlier), and knocking on the door with feigned restraint. The door did not take long to open, and the King was ushered inside, the door swinging shut once more. The crowd reluctantly dispersed, and huddled into various smaller groups to discuss why King Arthur himself had arrived in person to speak to Hunith of all people. They knew that her son had been his manservant in Camelot, but surely a king would not gallop across his kingdom at full speed in order to speak to a servant? Granted, Merlin had been acting even stranger than he had before he left for Camelot in the first place, but surely it was no reason for His Highness to come in person? The inane gossip continued as a more important conversation occurred behind Hunith's doors.
As soon as Arthur entered Hunith's home, he looked around the sparsely furnished cottage, desperately seeking a mop of messy raven hair. Had he been wrong? Had Merlin not come to Ealdor? In his panic, he forewent pleasantries (he could hear his etiquette teachers sobbing in the distance) as he blurted, "Where's Merlin?" Hunith leveled him with an impassive stare as she inquired, "Why? So that you can execute or imprison him?" Arthur looked startled at the accusatory tone of Hunith's normally affectionate voice, and explained, "No, of course not! I…I am lifting the ban on magic in Camelot, and I would very much like to bring Merlin back with me." At first, Hunith looked shocked as she processed his words, tears springing into her eyes as she realized that her boy would no longer have to live lonely and afraid. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Hunith said, "I am sorry Sire, but Merlin is not here right now." Before Arthur could have a heart attack, she continued, "He's taken to spending a rather inordinate amount of time in the woods. He should be back soon, however, if you would like to wait here for him." Arthur decided that it would be better to wait for Merlin in his home than to traipse about the woods for him without guarantee of actually finding the man, and indicated his choice to Hunith.
After about twenty minutes of waiting, Arthur decided to go look about the town, in order to see how the majority of his people lived. (That was the official excuse, but truthfully, he was just bored.) As luck would have it, whilst Arthur was wandering about and being ogled by various villagers, he spotted a very familiar mop of black hair by the well. The owner of said hair was very thoughtfully fetching a bucket of water for his mother on his way home when he heard a yell of "MERLIN!" from a voice that he knew all too well. When Merlin saw Arthur, he flinched back, expecting a blow, but was instead swept up into an enormous bear hug, Arthur's arms like bands of steel around his slim torso. Hesitantly, he lifted his arms and hugged his best back, while the villagers gaped at the sight of their sovereign embracing a mere peasant as though his life depended on it.
Arthur placed his arm around Merlin's shoulders and steered him towards Hunith's home, where they proceeded to talk in hushed whispers through for almost the entire night. There were phrases like, "I could never hate you," and "Yes, I'm really legalizing magic," and "Please come back," and "If you ever leave me like that again, I'll have you hung, drawn, and quartered," thrown about all night, and by the end of it, there were tears streaming down both of their cheeks, they had hugged more times than deemed strictly manly, and Merlin was set to go back to Camelot in the morning. Exhausted, they both fell asleep beside one another on the floor in front of Hunith's fireplace.
In the early morning, as Merlin bid his mother goodbye, Arthur saddled the horses and was duly ogled by the villagers (again). When Merlin arrived and started preparing to mount his horse, Arthur asked a question that had just occurred to him that morning, but was now weighing greatly on his mind: "Do you know of any spells that could have transported you home?" Merlin answered rather offhandedly, "Somewhat, but most magic which transport people home are instinctive and are usually only used successfully under extreme duress. Why?" Arthur replied, "I was just wondering why you took the trouble to ride all the way here rather than transport yourself him. I think this would have qualified as 'duress,' idiot." Merlin contemplated his words carefully before answering, "Because, I suppose, I always knew subconsciously, that if I used a spell to take me home, it would bring me right back to you, you prat."
And they rode happily ever after into the sunrise (because sunsets symbolize endings, whereas this was just the beginning).
A/N: So yeah it's the beginning for Merlin and Arthur and Albion and all that, but it's the end of this fic. I think. Unless you guys want an epilogue or something, this fic is done. OH BUT REVIEW AND/OR SEND ME PROMPTS BECAUSE I REALLY WANT TO WRITE MORE MERLIN. And yeah, that's it, so I hope you enjoyed (and will review) my first Merlin fic!
Love,
ancientgreekfreak 3