Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Absolutely not,” Merlin says adamantly, protesting so viciously that one might assume that Arthur asked him to hack off his own arm, or something equally ridiculous. Arthur has not, in fact; he thinks he only ever asks reasonable things of Merlin, but Merlin would probably disagree.

“Absolutely yes,” Arthur says, with perhaps a bit more glee than he ought. “You were the one who told me to let the deer go.”

“I won’t ever understand your obsession with tormenting poor, innocent creatures,” Merlin says, and then frowns. “Hang on. It doesn’t even make sense. I told you to let the deer go, so now you’re making me track it? How is that logical, my lord?”

“I don’t need to be logical,” Arthur says, because Merlin is saying my lord as an insult again, and he won’t have it. “You’re my servant. You are supposed to do as I say. So, Merlin, get to it, then! We can’t be standing around here all day.”

That, at least, they both can agree on. They’ve drifted further away from Camelot than Arthur had anticipated beforehand, spurred on by amicable arguments and a lack of game because of the loudness of said arguments. Arthur doesn’t mind; these days, when he goes out to hunt, it’s more for the company than for the prizes. 

Not that this is anything he’ll tell Merlin, who would never do anything Arthur tells him to do again in the smugness of knowing his unique position. He really is quite a horrible servant. That’s not what Arthur keeps him around for.

Merlin normally would get on to his new task demurely, and probably not with all the skill he has at hand. Merlin is at home in the woods, and Arthur suspects he’s probably more adept with tracking animals than he likes to let on, only because Arthur uses his skills in tracking to hunt. Not today, though. The argument has fallen away, and the sun falls through the canopy overhead, speckling Merlin’s hair and face and arms.

Arthur looks away from Merlin, because that’s a dangerous path of thoughts to follow at the best of days, and into the dark shadows of the woods. 

“Arthur,” Merlin says, a cautionary note in his voice, “I really don’t think this is the best idea.”

“One of your funny feelings?” Arthur asks lightly.

“Not so funny, this time,” Merlin tells him, and rubs his own arm. “Besides, we don’t know this part of the forest! And we really ought to be heading back to Camelot. You’re king, you know, and you have responsibilities that aren’t just trampling around in the forest and bothering me.”

On one hand, Merlin is right. On the other, Arthur won’t ever live it down if he tells him so, and he really would like to bring something home. Uther is no longer alive, who’d have stared at him judgmentally for going on a hunt without bringing home any trophies, and there’s no one who would begrudge Arthur if he said he’d just really wanted a ride in the forest with his manservant. Like a phantom limb, though, Uther’s disapproval prickles at his skin, and he casts down his eyes. It’s not yet so late they really need to turn back, and Arthur feels something sour close off his throat.

He doesn’t need to prove himself. He doesn’t. 

“One more hour,” Arthur says decisively, and this time he doesn’t look at Merlin because of the look he knows he will receive for this. Merlin’s disapproval isn’t any more fun than Uther’s, but at least Merlin’s forgiveness tends to be swift to follow. A dead man’s understanding is hard to get, especially when it wasn’t so easy to come by in life.

“Arthur…” Merlin starts.

“Just do what I say, won’t you?” Arthur snaps, and tramples forward into the forest. If Merlin won’t track, then Arthur can just start walking, and be assured that his manservant will follow. His chest feels tight for it, but at least it’s true. Merlin jogs behind him, several twigs snapping under his feet as he hurries to catch up. 

They’ve left their mares behind them—Arthur usually rides to the edge of the forest, where the undergrowth thickens and the game is plenty, to continue on foot so they can be more agile and quiet. Still, it makes him feel abnormally small today. The light of the sun feels as if it has a green hue to it, so far into the forest have they strayed, and all the sounds around them are those of nature; the only thing man-made is Merlin’s ragged breaths behind him.

Mid-step, Merlin tenses, and grabs Arthur’s wrist to halt him in his tracks. Arthur wants to whirl back to snap at him, but Merlin shakes his head so desperately that Arthur stops. He hears it too, then, the faint sound of voices being carried over to them; men, and a larger group. They are humming, and there is some kind of song. At least it has a melody, Arthur reconsiders, because he doesn’t think songs are supposed to feel… ominous?

“We should turn back,” Merlin whispers, and tugs at Arthur. His fingers are insistently tight around his arm, but when Arthur shakes him off, Merlin lets his hand fall and presses his lips closed. “Arthur, I don’t think—”

“Sounds like a spell,” Arthur says, and he creeps closer. He feels like a hunter closing in on prey, but this time, it’s not a deer or a wolf that he hunts. Now that he can hear the singing—spell-work?—it’s not so hard to find out where it comes from, and he hears Merlin curse under his breath before he follows him. 

“They’re too many for us,” Merlin insists, when Arthur finally peaks over a thistly bush to see the sorcerers, a little below them in a valley. There are eight of them, all holding hands as they chant in rhythm. Dark cloaks are thrown over their heads, but they don’t look so imposing in stature. Arthur’s hand goes to the sword on his belt.

“What are they doing?” Arthur asks in disgusted fascination. He won’t ever understand magic, he thinks, and maybe he doesn’t want to. It tore apart so many things in his life—his mother, his relationship with his father, the goodness in Morgana. Rationally, he knows it’s not only magic to blame, but it is certainly easier than it is to blame other things.

Arthur sometimes feels like a coward at heart. Still, it doesn’t matter for today. Even if magic isn’t inherently evil, as his father always made it out to be, he would give up Merlin’s left leg if these sorcerers were up to any good.

“It’s dangerous, Arthur,” Merlin insists, his whisper sharper this time. Arthur doesn’t listen, and leans forward to face the sorcerers—

Only to fall down when Merlin clings to him in an ill-guided attempt to stop him, and rolls right into the valley with Merlin. The valley isn’t that much lower, so the fall isn’t long, but it’s more steep than Arthur had thought before. If Merlin hadn’t stopped him, he might have jumped into the circle of sorcerers and broken a leg doing so, although he isn’t sure that rolling into the valley is much better.

He hits his head against a stone, and manages to stop his descent by pushing down his heels in the ground. He catches on a tree branch and comes to a halt right away, stumbling in place for good measure before he actually gathers himself. His head feels woozy, and he doesn’t doubt that his body will be littered with scrapes and bruises when he finally makes his way back home to Camelot and into a warm bath.

If he makes his way back, Arthur assesses, when eight sorcerers stare at him.

Arthur raises his sword in reflex more than anything else, and suddenly feels rather foolish. One sorcerer would be able to fell him with one spell, and here there are eight, who had seemed adept at their craft, judging from the spell they’d been casting before. Arthur just wants to swing forward, no matter his odds, when one of the sorcerers shouts out in alarm.

They hadn’t just been standing in a circle, Arthur realises. Twelve stones are placed in a perfect circle in a clearing, perfectly round and faintly gleaming with whatever magic the sorcerers had been casting. One larger boulder, the size of a pillow, lies in the middle, along with Merlin—unconscious, by the looks of it, and Arthur’s heart jumps in his throat. Merlin clearly hadn’t been able to catch himself as Arthur had.

There’s no way that he can fight off eight sorcerers and run back with a knocked-out Merlin.

“The stone, the stone,” one of the sorcerers yells, and somehow that seems more important than the knight of Camelot in their midst, because they all jump back. Arthur looks, and the stone near Merlin’s head glows; a dark green, first, and then brighter, so that he has to avert his eyes.

“Go,” another sorcerer calls out.

“But—”

“The stone!” the first one says again, and that’s the last thing Arthur can hear. There is a sound of sizzling, and then a loud boom from the stone nearby, as if it has exploded into a thousand tiny rocks. Arthur ducks, covering his head with his arms as he drops his sword by his feet. 

It lasts for a few seconds, or at least, for far longer than any explosion should be able to last. Arthur thinks he’s pelted with bits of smouldering rock; whenever he is hit, the debris feels exceedingly hot, and then it falls to the ground. Arthur doesn’t dare to look, because he’s fairly sure he’ll go blind if any piece of rock hits him in the eye. So he sits still for a long few seconds, and then the noise subsides and all the debris seems to stay on the ground, and he looks up again.

The sorcerers have all fled, or at least that’s what he thinks. The stones in the circle are still left, but the largest one in the middle is gone. All that remains of it is a scorch mark, dark from the ashes. And there is still—a bundle, far smaller than Arthur remembers it being, with Merlin’s clothes.

“Merlin!” he calls out, and nearly falls over himself to take the three remaining steps to his manservant. He breathes hard, putting a hand on the raw, red material of Merlin’s tunic. There is something under there.

A head peeks out, and blue eyes stare at him.

“Who are you?” a child demands, with Merlin’s familiar eyes and a mop of dark hair falling over his forehead, and two ears sticking out from his face. “How d’you know my name? Are you a knight?”

“Oh, no,” Arthur says, in what he thinks is a very apt assessment of the situation.

~*~

Arthur has a certain idea of what Merlin’s childhood must have been like.

It’s what he does, sometimes, to indulge himself in thoughts of an easier time. Arthur’s own childhood came with many trials and tribulations, because there are certain expectations of a prince, especially when he’s the king’s only child. He had envied Morgana for her freedom, in many ways, for being a girl and the king’s ward only, and it had resulted in endless squabbles both in childhood and adulthood.

But sometimes he looks at Merlin, and thinks back to Ealdor; thinks about Hunith and her quiet, gentle demeanour, the way she’d brushed Merlin’s hair out of his eyes and hugged him so familiarly. He thinks about Merlin’s friend Will, the one who had protested Arthur’s presence so viciously, and thinks about a childhood of playing by a stream and hiding among the trees before being called home for dinner. He thinks of the hardships and comforts of the smallest of communities, where responsibilities are divided up evenly.

And he knows Merlin, of course, perhaps more than he knows anyone else. Merlin is always ready with a comforting word and an easy smile, and makes friends with an ease that Arthur envies. When Arthur thinks of Merlin as a child, he thinks of a child with the same qualities—that smile that’s so easy to lure out, that same openness, running around everyone with a child’s witticisms and abundant energy. 

But the Merlin that Arthur leads out of the forests is a quiet, sullen little thing.

Arthur hasn’t been around many children since he was one himself, but he thinks Merlin can’t be any older than ten. Definitely over seven, though, he thinks, even if Merlin is so small. Merlin doesn’t even come up to his shoulders, and Arthur constantly has to look down to make sure that Merlin is following at all.

“The horses are nearby,” he says. Merlin makes a sniffling noise, but doesn’t otherwise respond, so Arthur continues, “Have you ridden a horse? It won’t be far to Camelot, and then we can have you checked out.”

“For my ankle?” Merlin asks, his voice quiet.

Arthur blinks. “Sorry, what?” When he’d asked Merlin to stand, he’d done so without question, and with a bit of insistence, he’d followed Arthur. He hadn’t looked at him any more closely, already apprehensive about how Merlin came to be a child in the first place.

“Never mind,” Merlin says swiftly, but the damage has been done.

“Sit down,” Arthur commands, and at least Merlin sits down immediately on one of the thicker branches. The forest isn’t so overwhelmingly thick anymore, but Arthur will be glad to be rid of it entirely.

He needs Gaius, and he needs him now.

“It’s really nothing,” Merlin tries, when Arthur gingerly takes off Merlin’s boots. They are far too large for him, but he’d thought it would be better to keep them on. He doesn’t want a child to walk this far with bare feet, where anything might cut him open. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea, though, he considers now, to have Merlin walk at all.

His ankle is a dark blue, mottled across his pale skin, about twice the size it ought to be. Arthur hisses at the sight of it, both in sympathy and in horror. He should’ve checked him over for any other injuries before he’d left so swiftly—but the only thing on his mind had been reaching Gaius.

“You should’ve said,” Arthur says, gingerly running his fingers over the bruise. It might be broken, and they’ve been walking for nearly half an hour already. “It’s only going to be worse the more weight we put on it. How did you even walk on this?”

“Just did,” Merlin says defensively, and crosses his arms. There’s a dark blush on his cheeks, and now that Arthur is paying closer attention, his eyes are a bit glassy. He must be in more pain than he’d wanted to let on.

“We’ll need to have this wrapped, probably, but I’m not sure how,” Arthur admits. “I’ll carry you the rest of the way. Is there anything else that’s hurting?” Merlin shakes his head, and Arthur sighs. “I need to be sure, Merlin. You didn’t tell me about your ankle. Did you hit your head, maybe? I’m trying to help.”

“Just my ankle,” Merlin says, and shrugs. “I don’t know what I did to it, though. I don’t remember anything.”

“We’ll get it all sorted,” Arthur promises. He isn’t sure if he is supposed to tell a young boy that he was an adult only an hour ago—or what response to expect from Merlin when he’s defied all Arthur’s expectations already. 

“I just want my mum,” Merlin says, his head drooping.

And there’s another thought. Arthur should have a letter sent to Hunith if Gaius can’t figure this out. Except that Gaius must figure this out, or Arthur isn’t sure what he’ll do. He didn’t get a good look at any of the sorcerers, and it will be impossible to find them, even if they were inclined to turn back Merlin. If they even can, that is.

Arthur takes a deep breath. “I promise you, everything will be alright,” he promises. One way or another, he’ll make it true. “We’ll get to Camelot, and Gaius will help you with your ankle, and—everything else. There’s no need to worry.”

“You’re worrying,” Merlin says. His eyes are hooded, and he bites his lower lip. He looks so young—he is so young, Arthur corrects himself, his cheeks still holding onto the last of his baby fat, rosy with both exertion and pain. 

“Yes, I am worried,” Arthur admits. “But that doesn’t mean you should be. You see, Merlin, I am worrying so that you don’t have to. It doesn’t make much sense for both of us to be doing it at the same time, don’t you think?”

Merlin’s lips twist for a second into a facsimile of a smile, and Arthur decides to take it as a victory.

“Alright,” he says, and twists his fingers, looking down again.

Arthur turns around to offer him his back. “Hop on,” he says. “The horses are close, and then we will ride for Camelot, and then you’ll see. I’m always right, Merlin. It’s best you learn early—maybe it’ll stick in adulthood.”

There is a long moment of hesitation, and then Merlin climbs on his back. He holds onto Arthur’s neck so tightly that Arthur is worried his throat will be crushed, but then Arthur settles his hands under Merlin’s thighs to hoist him up and that makes it easier to hold him. Merlin’s fingers are not yet those long, slender ones he will have in adulthood, but he still tightens his hold against the cold metal of Arthur’s armour.

Arthur carries him, and only tries to focus on all the answers that Gaius will have for him.

~*~

Except things never go as smoothly, the way that they never do around Arthur and Merlin.

It takes them a fair while to find the horses, because Arthur goes far slower with a child around his neck. And then Merlin’s stomach churns, and while the adult Merlin might’ve had lunch not even that long ago, he isn’t sure if the same holds for child Merlin. So he stops before they’ve reached the horses to unpack the bread that’s gone stale in his pack, and that Merlin nibbles at without complaint.

When they finally do get to the horses, Merlin’s grown so tired that his head keeps dropping on Arthur’s shoulder, and it makes it hard to carry him and keep an eye out for their surroundings. The sky is a rosy pink in the faraway distance, and Arthur had wanted to be back already by this time.

Merlin would bring him dinner, and it would be enough for two, and Arthur would let him steal off his plate with an indignant grunt he never meant. The candles would flicker on the walls, and the hearth would crackle, and Merlin would call him something insolent, and all would be right with the world.

Arthur wishes he’d never made Merlin track that deer, but wishes have never done much for him.

Normally, Arthur wouldn’t dare ride through the night. But there have been fewer bandits along the road, and he knows the way by heart, and then there’s the small matter of Merlin and whatever has happened to him. Arthur doesn’t think he could sleep, and thinks Merlin can sleep even on a horse, so he gets his own first and makes sure that he holds on tightly to Merlin in front of him.

It’s more of a weight for his mare, but he can switch to Merlin’s horse if she gets tired, so he tries not to feel too bad for the additional load.

It takes them a bit longer to return to Camelot in the dark of night, but it’s only a ride of an hour or two. It’s not even close to morning when Arthur finally spots the gate of the citadel, the guards’ torches lighting the way home. Merlin has been half-asleep and half-awake in turns, but at Arthur’s sigh he must have woken up.

“We’re nearly there?” he asks in a whisper.

“Yes,” Arthur says, in his normal voice. There’s no one around to wake, after all. “See, Merlin? That’s Camelot. She’s usually a bit more impressive, but you can’t see her so well in the dark.”

“It’s big,” Merlin says, carefully awed. “I’ve never seen anything that big.”

“And at the back of it, the castle,” Arthur continues. He’s never been able to show Merlin around in Camelot when he first arrived; he isn’t aware it’s something he would’ve wanted to do until now, really. “That’s where we live. Isn’t she beautiful?”

Merlin tenses. “We?” he asks.

“The knights,” Arthur corrects quickly. “And a lot of servants, too.”

“And the king,” Merlin says.

“Yes, I live there, too,” Arthur tells him, and ruffles his hair. “Would you like to see it? I doubt you’ll be able to walk, but I can carry you again. Or the other knights—I’m sure they’ll all want to meet you.” He thinks about Gwaine, and winces. “And get up to no good with you, doubtlessly.”

Merlin is very, very quiet for a long moment. “You’re the king?”

“Oh,” Arthur says, and blinks. “Yes. I suppose I can’t have expected you to know that. But you see, Merlin? I am the king of Camelot, so when I tell you that everything will be alright, you can’t doubt my word. I’ll do anything I can to make things right.”

“Can we get off the horse for a second?” Merlin asks. “I’m really not comfortable anymore.”

“But it’s only a short ride to Camelot,” Arthur says, frowning. “It’s really best to get home as soon as we can. The physician needs to look at your ankle, and at—everything else.”

“Please?” Merlin pleads. “I’ve never sat on a horse before. My bum is hurting, and I really just want to get off for a second. I’ll be very quiet afterwards, and I’ll do anything you ask, I promise.”

Arthur doesn’t think he’s heard Merlin say this many words since he found him as a child. Wordlessly, he gets off his mare, and lifts Merlin to the ground. Merlin stretches, for a second, mindful of his ankle as he leans against the mare.

“Is that better?” Arthur asks. “You know, it might be more uncomfortable to have to get up again.”

“I think there’s something there,” Merlin says, apropos of nothing, and glances back to where they came from. Arthur turns back instinctively, already reaching for the sword in his horse’s pack. He’s been proven wrong by Merlin once today, and is not in the mood to be proven wrong twice. 

There’s only a plain field, though, and the only movement Arthur sees is that of the wind rustling through the grass. The world is painted silvery blue by the moon, and he looks around carefully to see if there’s anything that might be coming from them. So close to Camelot, though, it seems unlikely.

“I don’t think—” Arthur starts to say to Merlin, only to find out that he’s gone from where he was standing. A small figure is running across the field, though, clearly favouring one side. He’s nearly made it back to the treeline, and Arthur curses, running after him. Losing a child in the forest is one thing—losing Merlin is another.

“Let go of me!” Merlin yells when Arthur grabs him by the collar. Merlin’s adult clothes look amusingly large on him, and Merlin nearly manages to slip out of the tunic before Arthur grabs him by the middle and hoists him up. “Let go, let go!”

“Why are you running?” Arthur asks, gritting his teeth to refrain from saying something unsuitable to a child’s ears. “Merlin, what are you doing?”

“I don’t want to go to Camelot!” Merlin yells, trying to hit Arthur in the shoulder. He is thrashing, though, which makes it hard to hold onto him. Arthur throws him over his shoulder, grabbing hold of Merlin’s maniac foot movements, mindful of the ankle. “I don’t want to—you have to bring me home!”

“Calm down,” Arthur says. 

“Let me go!” Merlin cries out, and devolves into sobbing wholeheartedly. Arthur wishes he could run his hand over his face, but they are all full with a tantruming child. There’s not much he can say without knowing why Merlin is so staunchly opposed to Camelot, so he stays quiet and marches straight towards the capital.

It’s time to get to the bottom of this, and get back the Merlin who likes to be there.

~*~

“I really haven’t heard of anything like this before,” Gaius whispers. He seems unable to shake off his large eyes and the perplexion in his face, because it’s been stuck like that for half an hour. Merlin is sleeping on Gaius’ cot, wondrously small, tucked in as he is. There are still tear tracks on his cheeks that Arthur can’t bear to look at.

“That isn’t what I wanted to hear,” Arthur hisses, and straightens his shoulders. “Gaius, it’s the consequence of magic. I really don’t know what happened, but there must be something to turn it back.”

“Well,” Gaius says. “If it is magic, I suspect only magic will be able to undo what it did, Sire. But I don’t even know of any such spell, so even so, I can be of no help to you.”

The exhaustion has set in Arthur’s bones; not just from a lack of sleep, but from something that runs deeper. The idea of going to work without Merlin there, for example, or even the plain concern about the dreaming child with his twisted ankle. It seems even more bruised than it was when Arthur checked the first time. Running presumably didn’t help him heal.

“Well, what can we do?” he demands.

Gaius presses his lips together, the lines stark on his face as he looks over towards Merlin. In his sleep, Merlin mutters something inaudible and tugs at his blanket, hiding most of his face. “I really don’t know, Sire,” Gaius confesses. “It sounds like a spell gone wrong, and there really is no saying what might fix it. Perhaps… Perhaps time itself will sort it out?”

There’s a hopeful lilt to Gaius’ voice, and Arthur fixes him a disbelieving look. “I don’t think magic has ever sorted itself out.”

“Then again, you don’t know much about magic at all,” Gaius points out. “We should start small, I think. We need proper attire for a child—do you know how old he is? What are his memories like?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur says. “I was focused on getting him here in the first place. He doesn’t have his adult memories, though. I don’t know how much of his… child memories he still has. He did mention his mother.”

Gaius hums thoughtfully. “Well, he seems about seven, or perhaps eight, with the memories of himself from that age, perhaps.”

“Should I invite Hunith?” Arthur asks. “Who do we know who has children of that age? And how to deal with them?”

The silence lasts far longer than it should. None of Arthur’s knights are married, and he isn’t entirely sure he should let them know about the current set of circumstances. Then again, he isn’t certain how he’ll keep it secret at all. His head is aching.

Gaius pats Arthur’s hand. “I’ll ask around tomorrow,” he says sensibly. “You forget, Arthur, a great many of us old folks saw you grow up yourself. And he’s not a babe, who might require so much attention. We will ask him what he remembers, and what he wants, and then we’ll decide how to proceed.”

Arthur is king of Camelot, but suddenly he’s grateful for all the advice he receives. Ruling a kingdom feels far less intimidating than taking care of his eight-year-old manservant, and he has far less practice at it, too. Gaius makes it seem not so daunting, and that helps him catch his breath.

“Well,” he says slowly, and glances at Merlin one more time. “I suppose I’ll just—go to sleep, then. Let me know if you need any… help with him.”

“He’s a young boy, Arthur,” Gaius says, and chuckles. “I’ve dealt with Merlin for nearly ten years. I’m sure it won’t be such a hassle.”

~*~

It really is a hassle.

“I lost him,” Gaius pants, leaning against the door to Arthur’s chambers. His hair is sticking up in odd, white poofs, and he is still in his sleepwear. “That boy is quick as a hare, Sire! I thought he wouldn’t be moving so fast with his ankle twice the size it ought to be, but—”

“I don’t think he cares about breaking all the bones in his body,” Arthur grumbles. He’s just woken up himself, and he hasn’t had breakfast yet, but that’s mostly because bringing his meals to him is Merlin’s job. As is clothing him, which Arthur also hasn’t succeeded at. He is wearing a tunic he hasn’t worn in five years, and he isn’t even sure where Merlin puts all his clothes, since they clearly haven’t gone in the wardrobe.

“I think he’s gone for the kitchens,” Gaius offers. “Although surely he doesn’t know the way. Someone will stop him, my lord.”

“They don’t know who he is,” Arthur exclaims. “Stay here, Gaius, rest. I’ll make sure to bring him back.”

Leon is on guarding duty, which makes him easy to find. He’s patrolling the entrance to the castle, and raises a single eyebrow at Arthur when he runs for the doors. Despite having been awake most of the night—his shift must’ve started right after Arthur came back to the castle—he still looks tremendously awake, and Arthur envies it for a moment.

“My lord,” Leon says. “I hadn’t realised you were back already.”

“Did a young boy pass you?” Arthur demands, and hovers his hand just below his chest. “This height, something like that? Dark hair, blue eyes? Looks just like a smaller version of Merlin?”

Leon blinks. “No.”

“Well, then where is he?” Arthur snaps, and rubs his eyes. “Sorry, long night. If he comes by, don’t let him pass, Leon. Bring him to my chambers, and keep him there. Oh, and carry him—his ankle is bruised.”

“My lord—” Leon calls after him, but Arthur’s already gone. 

Merlin isn’t in the kitchens either, despite Gaius’ words, and no one has seen him. No one has seen an unfamiliar young boy at all, in fact, and Arthur curses Merlin’s penchant for moving unseen through the castle. Despite being a bumbling idiot most of the time, somehow Merlin seems to be very sneaky.

Arthur is just cursing under his breath, trying to figure out whether it makes more sense to search the entire castle or to consider that Merlin has found his way past the entrance without being seen, when he hears a lilting voice.

He can’t place it for a second, mostly because Percival usually doesn’t sound so calming. The largest of his knights doesn’t tend to speak much at all, and when he does, his sentences are short and clipped. But now, Percival murmurs in a kind whisper, and when Arthur follows the sound of it and peeks past the corner, it’s to see him sitting with Merlin leaning against him.

“—really not the worst place in Albion,” Percival is quietly saying. “The king’s a very fair man. Now, the king before him, that’s the one you were told about. But that’s a long time ago.”

“Mum didn’t make it seem like it was a long time ago,” Merlin says doubtfully. 

“Oh, little bird,” Percival says, ruffling Merlin’s hair. “He must’ve died before you could even talk.”

“I dunno, I’ve been talking for a long time,” Merlin says loudly, and smiles up at Percival. Arthur takes a deep breath; it’s the exact same sort of smile that he’s used to seeing on Merlin’s face, except that it stretches even wider. Perhaps it’s more similar to the one he used to see on Merlin several years ago, actually.

Arthur wonders when that changed.

“I promise, though, the new king won’t hurt you,” Percival says, and Arthur steps into the corridor. Merlin’s head twists, and he pales. He tries to scramble up, but Percival hoists him up, holding him as if he holds children every day of his life. “And I’d never let him,” Percival adds quietly.

“Sorry,” Arthur says, wincing. “I really won’t, Merlin. I don’t know what you’ve been told about… Camelot, and its king—” Uther, clearly, since he was king when Merlin was a child, “—but I promise, I just want you to be healthy and safe.”

Merlin looks up at Percival, who nods at him. Merlin wiggles a little bit in Percival’s arms. He’s maybe on the big side to be held like this, but Percival seems unbothered by all the moving and just shifts to hold Merlin more tightly. Merlin says, “You’re not Uther?”

“No,” Arthur promises. “I’m his son. Arthur.”

“I didn’t know,” Merlin says, scrunching his nose as if he’s still doubting Arthur’s word. “Mum always said that Uther was the king of Camelot. We didn’t hear that he died. And why’d you even take me with you, then? I don’t know you. Where’s my mum? Why aren’t I in Ealdor? I don’t remember leaving.”

“I don’t know, little bird,” Percival says, and looks at Arthur intently.

Arthur’s shoulders sag. “Why don’t we go to my chambers?” he suggests.

~*~

Gaius is still waiting there when they come in, Percival still carrying Merlin as if he were a sack of potatoes. Which clearly seems to be to Merlin’s liking, if the whooping is anything to go by any time they turn a corner. 

Gwaine is also there. “Leon sent me,” he explains, coming to walk next to them as soon as he catches sight of Arthur and Percival. “Something about a boy, and you running around like a headless chicken. My words, not his,” he adds. “Is this the boy?”

“‘M not a boy,” Merlin complains. “I’m eight.”

Arthur doesn’t ask when one stops being a boy. “This is him, yes,” he says, and sighs. “Better come in. I don’t want too many knights here all at once, but this will… take a while to explain. Percival, please don’t drop him.”

“I won’t,” Percival says evenly, and Merlin makes another whooping noise as Percival swings him around.

“Oh, good,” Gaius says, when they’re finally all settled. Merlin is refusing to let go of Percival, but also clearly considers himself too old to sit on his lap, so he just sort of shuffles against his side. Percival is unperturbed, slinging an arm around Merlin’s frame. He looks even smaller like this.

“Now,” Gwaine says, looking between all of them. “What’s this about, then?”

“Sorry for running,” Merlin says sullenly. “Didn’t mean to.”

Gaius smacks his lips. “No, you’re just sorry you got caught,” he says, a bit harshly, but then he leans over to look at Merlin’s ankle. It’s still black and blue, and Arthur isn’t entirely sure how he even managed to walk on it at all. Gaius probes at it gently, and Merlin hisses.

“I’m not sure how he even ran on that,” Gwaine says in mild interest. “Is anyone going to tell me who this boy is? And where’s Merlin, Arthur? Did you leave him in the forest and replace him with—” His voice falters as he looks at Merlin more clearly. “—a child who’s… pretty much identical to him?”

“I wan’ know why I’m here,” Merlin interrupts, and presses himself closer to Percival. “And where my mum is. And why I’m not in Ealdor. Mum always said I shouldn’t go to Camelot, and I don’t—I can’t be here!”

“But why?” Arthur presses. Even if Hunith had some sort of problem with Uther—and she hadn’t made it seem like she had, those few times he ever met her—it’s still an odd thing to imprint it on Merlin so much. Ealdor isn’t even in Camelot, and by rights, it’s never been Uther’s territory.

“Never mind why,” Gaius says quickly. “There’s more pressing matters to discuss. Merlin, what is the last thing you remember? Before seeing Arthur, that is.”

Merlin sniffs. “It’s all sort of hazy,” he says. “I was with Will, I think. We were fishing in the little stream, because we’d had these sticks, you see, and a few merchants told us a week ago about how you can easily fish yourself if they’re pointy enough and you’ve got good aim. And Will’s da, he’s a knight, so we thought, well, Will should be good with pointy things, and then he joked I’d never catch anything—”

“Yes, alright,” Arthur says, and exchanges looks with Gaius. An eight year old boy with the memories of an eight year old, that’s clear enough. “And that’s the last thing?”

“Well, then my ankle was hurting and you were telling me to come along,” Merlin says sulkily. “You’re rude.”

Gwaine snickers. “He’s got a point,” he says to Arthur, and turns back to Merlin. “He’s rude, you’re right. So what happened, then, to turn our Merlin into a child? Sounds like a problem with magic.”

“Magic?” Merlin squeaks, and turns to Percival. “Turn into a child? But—”

“Well done, Gwaine, really,” Arthur says, pressing a hand to his face. Perhaps he should’ve explained the situation to Percival and Gwaine first, but he’d been too anxious to get to the bottom of this matter. “We hadn’t told him any of that yet.”

“We’ll sort it all out,” Percival says decidedly, and grabs Merlin. “Why don’t you stay with Gaius for now? He’ll look at your ankle again, and he’ll find some breakfast for you. And the knights can decide how to deal with magic.”

Merlin shifts where he sits, his face pale. “Alright,” he whispers. It’s jarring to hear him agree so suddenly; the Merlin that Arthur knows wouldn’t ever let an answer slip through his fingers. He’d tilt his chin up and fold his arms together, and Arthur would know that Merlin is going to stick around to hear exactly what’s going on.

But that’s something that Merlin hasn’t learnt yet, it seems. Gaius gets up, offering an arm to Merlin. “Now,” he begins, and casts an eye towards Arthur, “I won’t be able to carry you, but you can lean on me, and hop with your right ankle. And I’ll explain everything to you, while the king decides how to best help you.”

“I don’t—” Merlin starts, biting his lower lip, glancing at Arthur. Then he shakes his head and grabs Gaius’ arm, dutifully hopping around on one leg. Arthur wishes he could carry him back to bed, at least, but Gwaine and Percival are staring at him. 

Besides, it doesn’t seem as if Merlin really wants Arthur around him.

“Very well, my boy,” he hears Gaius’ voice around the corner, and it’s only once they’ve moved far enough that Arthur turns back to his knights.

“What happened?” Gwaine demands immediately. “That’s Merlin, but twenty years younger. It’s magic, isn’t it? Who did that?”

“I don’t know what happened exactly,” Arthur clarifies, just before they can start heckling him about details. He sits down on the bed, feeling increasingly tired, and taps his feet impatiently. The morning sun casts long shadows, and Arthur watches the way they trickle into each other. He made a game of that as a child, he remembers now. He wonders if Merlin does something similarly.

Somehow, he doesn’t think he understands the child he brought home with him at all, which really leads him to think he might not understand the man either.

“But what do you know?” Percival asks gently. “I didn’t even realise he was Merlin at first. I thought he might be a son of one of the maids working in the castle, but he was so upset to be in Camelot. He thought you were going to kill him.”

“I don’t know why he thinks that,” Arthur says wearily. “We happened upon a circle of sorcerers, last night, eight of them. They were doing a spell—I interrupted them, but Merlin thought it was insane. He tried to stop me, but we slipped, and he rolled into the circle. All I know is that there was some sort of boulder, and it exploded into a thousand little pieces. All the sorcerers ran, and then there he was. The child. Merlin.”

Gwaine sniffs, imbuing the sound with a healthy dose of scepticism. “Well, he was right. You really can’t face eight sorcerers all by yourself. It’s madness.”

“So should I just leave them?” Arthur snaps.

“You should make sure that you don’t turn your manservant into a child,” Gwaine says. “Does Gaius know what to do about it? He’ll have Merlin turned back in no time, won’t he?”

“It doesn’t explain why Merlin’s so afraid of Camelot,” Percival says thoughtfully.

“It must be something he thought as a child,” Arthur offers. “It’s all I can think of to explain—anything, truth be told.” He lets out a long sigh, running a hand through his hair. Without Merlin to help him, he’s going to fall behind on a really awful number of duties, but he also doesn’t think he’s able to focus on anything but Merlin.

Gwaine sits down on one of Arthur’s chairs, leaning on the table. “That’s complicated.”

“Gaius doesn’t seem to have an idea of what spell might be affecting him,” Arthur adds. “I’m thinking that perhaps we should write to his mother, and ask her to come.”

“Or bring him to Ealdor,” Percival offers quietly. “If he doesn’t want to be in Camelot, you shouldn’t force him, Arthur. Just because our Merlin has made a home here…”

None of these options are a solution to the spell, but that’s not the only thing to keep in mind. Arthur thinks of Merlin’s pale face, the weariness in his pinched expression. Merlin had run off with a badly-injured ankle to be rid of Arthur—he’d tried the same thing this morning. If he’s really this miserable, then perhaps Camelot isn’t the best place for him.

Even if Arthur can’t picture him anywhere else.

“Gwaine, Percival, I’d like for you to update the rest of the knights,” he says. “No one else—not for now. Make up excuses for anyone else who asks; tell them Merlin’s fallen ill, and the boy is just… it doesn’t matter. I’ll talk with Gaius. And with Merlin.”

“Good luck,” Percival says, and Arthur returns the wry smile. He thinks he’ll need it.

~*~

He doesn’t get around to talking to Merlin right away, of course. Arthur is accosted by half a dozen people when he turns around the corridor, and they’re all important matters. He spends most of the day making up for all the work he didn’t do the day before, and there is no one around to lend him a hand or offer to write a particular letter for him.

It’s odd how often he relies on Merlin to turn to him with a half-quirked smile and take on some of his duties.

It’s only around dinner time that he can make his excuses and find his way to Gaius’ chambers, his mind racing with all the things he wants to say to Merlin and can’t. Merlin is eight, and Arthur is a king with a whole thirty years to his name, and all the things that come across his mind are far too adult to talk about with a boy. Even if that boy is his best friend in adulthood.

Merlin is slurping on some odd-looking soup when Arthur gets there. He looks at Arthur strangely, dropping his spoon as if he wants to leave. Another look at Gaius has him staying, though, quiet and hanging his head.

“Hello,” he says, feeling awkward. “Am I interrupting?”

“Just dinner,” Gaius says, and gestures towards the little stove in the corner of his room. “Feel free to join, Sire. I’m sure we have a lot to talk about, and I doubt you’ve eaten anything today.”

Merlin usually gets Arthur’s meals for him. Arthur smiles weakly, and just sits down next to Gaius without getting a bowl for himself. The soup doesn’t smell very appetising at all; when he gets a closer look at Merlin’s half-emptied pot, he can see tiny bits of green and bony chicken floating to the surface.

“I’d rather just talk,” he says, raising his eyebrows at Merlin. Merlin stares back unabashedly, clearly not understanding Arthur’s disdain for Gaius’ soup. Arthur straightens his shoulder, and asks him directly, “Did Gaius explain to you what happened?”

“I explained what we think has happened,” Gaius says, when Merlin doesn’t respond. “I thought it best to leave the details of the matter to you, since I wasn’t there.”

“Alright,” Arthur says, and presses a hand to his forehead. “Gaius, could we just—I think it might be easier if I just talk to Merlin.”

There is a long silence, and when Arthur looks towards Gaius, it’s to see a whole range of emotions flitting across his face. There’s something like concern and hesitation, all of that doubt aimed towards Merlin, who is looking back equally uncertain, like he can’t stand the thought of being left alone with Arthur. Then Gaius stands up slowly, and Merlin bites his lower lip.

“I will be back in half an hour,” Gaius says, more to Merlin than to Arthur. “Do finish your soup, Merlin. You’re still a growing boy.”

“Thank you,” Arthur says, and watches him until the door falls shut behind Gaius. He’s left his own soup behind, still steaming in his bowl, and Arthur puts it aside to sit opposite Merlin. He looks small, like this, his shoulders barely coming up above the table. It’s so far removed from the tall, lissom, so easy to spot from a distance man with that dark mop of hair standing out above everyone else.

“Gaius said you were very sorry for what happened,” Merlin says eventually, picking up his spoon and using it to forcefully twirl the floating vegetables in his soup around. “The—turning into a child thing. But I don’t remember being an adult. That sounds…”

“I suppose it sounds a little odd,” Arthur says, and feels a stab of relief at correctly interpreting that emotion when Merlin quietly nods. “But it really is true. I’m sorry if I didn’t know what to do with you, or how to treat you. I only met you when you were grown up.”

“Ten years ago,” Merlin says, lost in thought. “I wasn’t even born, then. Not as I remember. Gaius didn’t tell me about my mum, though. Or Will. Are they still in Ealdor? Can I go back to them? I swear, I won’t think it’s too weird, even if she’s ancient. She’ll know what to do, won’t she?” His voice has gone childishly pleading. “She always knows how to fix things.”

“I don’t know,” Arthur tells him honestly. “Gaius didn’t mention it at all?”

“Just that my mum was alive,” Merlin says petulantly, and takes a sip from his spoon. “But he said we shouldn’t go visit.”

Arthur will have to ask him for his thoughts later. As it is, he notices the books spread around Gaius’ chambers; several of them opened as though Gaius was researching in a hurry. He might well have been, but Arthur doesn’t have the time to look over them. 

“If he said so, I’m sure he has his reasons,” Arthur says firmly. “Now, how’s your ankle?”

“A little better,” Merlin says.

“Alright. That’s good.”

Merlin scrunches his nose, and puts another spoonful of soup in his mouth. Then he presses his lips together, swallows, and asks, “Were we really friends?”

Arthur shifts in his seat. “Did Gaius tell you that?”

“Well, not in so many words,” Merlin says thoughtfully. “Gaius said that we spend most of our time together, and that I’m very fond of you, and that you don’t like other people around you sometimes, but that it’s always alright for me to go burst into your chambers. And that you would’ve protected me, if you could, so that I shouldn’t hold anything against you. So it sounded like we were friends.”

“It does sound like that,” Arthur says, and runs a hand through his hair. “Merlin, I don’t know what your mother has told you about Camelot. I’m not sure what she said about my father. But Gaius is right, in many ways, about—our friendship.” He isn’t sure if he’s ever come out and said it so directly. “I promise, I’ll only ever try to help you. There’s no need to be afraid of me, or of being here. You are safe.”

There is a moment in which Arthur feels himself stand on a threshold, having knocked on a door, waiting with bated breath whether he’ll be allowed in. Merlin’s eyes are younger, but no less sharp than usual, dark and calculating and focused entirely on him. A decision is being made; a judgement, Arthur thinks, which he passed ten years ago without knowing quite how.

He hadn’t cared about it then, that judgement of an eighteen-year-old boy who’d come to serve him. It’s a little silly how much he cares about it coming from the childhood version of that same peasant. 

It matters a lot, actually, that Merlin trusts him.

“Alright,” Merlin says, the test passed, and turns back to his soup. He slurps at it loudly, with all the manners Arthur knows he possesses. “But you have to eat the soup.”

“Why?” Arthur asks dubiously, looking at Gaius’ bowl. It is no longer steaming, making it look even less appetising. 

“Because you’re judging it very hard,” Merlin says decisively, and stands up. After rummaging for a second, he returns with a new spoon, and gives it to Arthur. “And that’s very rude, and I’m not friends with rude people. So when Gaius comes back, you’ll eat the soup, and you’ll tell him it’s very good.”

Arthur looks at the spoon, and then back at Merlin. He has his arms crossed, as if his opinion on Arthur really depends on whether or not he’ll eat a bowl of Gaius’ soup. 

“Alright,” he says, outwitted by an eight year old.

~*~

Children go to bed very early. Arthur had nearly forgotten so, caught up with adult life as he has been for at least fifteen years or so. Being a child feels like a distant dream after waking up—his memories are hazy and near-forgotten, with only certain pinpricks of light catching past the mist. 

But seeing Merlin dither on his way to his bedroom brings back altogether far too many memories of Arthur doing the same, and driving his father and all sorts of servants mad in the process.

It takes nearly an hour for Merlin to actually settle, and for Gaius to come back down, the lines in his face increased tenfold. Arthur wordlessly hands him a mug of watered-down wine.

“I forgot how energetic children can be,” Gaius sighs to himself. “And Merlin’s never been the quietest, has he? Well, he should be awake early in the morning, but for now, he’s sound asleep, the poor lad.”

“He said you wouldn’t let him go to his mother,” Arthur says. 

Gaius rolls his shoulders, and the bones crack for a second. Then he reaches for one of the books on his desk; an older tome, judging by the frayed, yellowed parchment, carefully leafing through the pages. It’s a magic book, Arthur realises, and swallows the sour taste on his tongue before he says something he shouldn’t.

He knows Gaius has books of magic; he’s seen them before. But he can’t forget those thousands of little bits of stone raining down on him, and Merlin caught in the middle of that circle. 

He wonders when magic will stop destroying the lives of everyone around him.

“Ah, here it is,” Gaius says, and peers down at one of the pages. “Yes. I told you before, Sire, that I am not sure what kind of magic is affecting Merlin. There are spells for turning someone into a child, but either they don’t match with the description you gave me, or they are far too powerful for the ritual you described. None of them match, as far as I am aware. There are a few things that most of these spells have in common, however.”

“Which is?”

“I am hoping it is a spell which will run out in due time,” Gaius explains, and turns to the next page. “You did say you interrupted in the middle of the ritual, in which case Merlin’s—age regression might simply be an unexpected consequence of an entirely different sort of spell. If that is the case, I won’t be able to help at all. However, maybe the spell will run out in time, simply once the magic ceases to take hold of him.”

“I see,” Arthur says slowly, not seeing at all. “And if not?”

“Then we’ll have our Merlin back in twenty years,” Gaius says quietly. “At least, a grown up version of the Merlin in our midst.”

Arthur takes a deep breath, rattling his lungs. Even so, they feel as if they’re on fire, the concern burning all ability to inhale. With some effort, he asks, “Is there anything we can do?”

“One issue that the book touches upon is that, if the spell does need to revert on its own, it is better for the subject in question to not be overly reminded of the time he’s stuck in.” Gaius frowns deeply to himself, slowly tapping the words on the page. “It means that we should not send him back to Ealdor, or to his mother. If the world around him is very different from when he was truly eight years old, the magic inside him might sense that the natural order of time is off, and revert itself.”

“But this is not a guarantee?” Arthur tries.

Gaius shakes his head. “Unfortunately, there is no guarantee I can give you. Merlin will return to us in due time, or he will not at all. But the best thing for him is to stay here.”

“What are the odds?” Arthur asks, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Gaius is still looking at this tome instead of at Arthur, and it fills him with an awful, quiet sort of dread. It’s the way that knights refuse to look at him when they’ve lost men on their quests. “Gaius. Tell me the truth.”

“I can’t say, Sire,” Gaius murmurs. “Unless we know what spell Merlin fell into, and we have an idea about how to undo it, which might require magic of its own… I would say the odds aren’t in our favour. But more unlikely things have happened.”

More unlikely things have happened. Arthur leans back, looking at the closed door to Merlin’s bedroom. More unlikely things have happened—that is true.

But Arthur is also not in the habit of getting those things he wants most.

~*~

It’s an odd couple of days.

Arthur keeps looking over his shoulder to find someone who’s not there. The person he is looking for—or, more accurately, the boy who will grow up to be the person he’s looking for—sits at Gaius’ desk, his ankle wrapped up and lifted on a stool. Gaius has put him on herb-grinding duty, which Merlin likes for all of an hour before he announces it’s the most tedious thing he’s ever done.

Arthur doesn’t see this for himself; rather, he is told mostly of Merlin’s tendencies to get into trouble by all the people who go to see him. Gwaine and Percival are first, and one by one, all of his knights trickle towards Gaius’ chambers to visit Merlin. Even Gwen is in on the secret, Arthur learns, when she comes by just to ask how Arthur’s doing in the light of Merlin’s regression to childhood.

He’s pretty sure all of the castle knows, actually.

Arthur visits Merlin every other day, in between his increasingly busy days. There are servants flitting in and out of his chambers to help him with his duties, but none of them are as attuned to him as Merlin, and none of them know what he needs. Arthur gets progressively shorter in temper with all of them, and gets very quiet instead when he sees Merlin, antsy and unruly and ill at ease in the castle, missing his mother and his friend and his home.

Arthur isn’t Merlin’s favourite visitor, he knows. That would be Percival, who is gentle with Merlin in a way Arthur doesn’t know how to be, and he tries to curb the jealousy whenever he sees his largest knight with the small boy, whispering to each other as if they’re sharing secrets.

This is why it is a surprise when, five days after Merlin’s regression into a child, he runs into Arthur’s chambers right when he’s having breakfast, and slams the door behind him so hard that the handles tremble with the force of it. Arthur stares at Merlin—Merlin stares right back, oddly defiant.

“I am not,” he says, very dramatically, “giving her back!”

“Well, at least I’m certain you can outrun Gaius,” Arthur says dryly. Only now he’s noticing that there’s a bundle under Merlin’s left arm, swaddled in one of his blue neckerchiefs. Merlin holds onto it very tightly. “And you are not giving back who?”

Merlin reluctantly walks over to the table, and frees his little bundle. A tiny little kitten stares up at Arthur, black-furred and pink-nosed, looking at him with the same sort of audacity he sees in Merlin’s eyes so often. She takes a single step, and then falls back down again as if walking is a very difficult thing to do.

She meows pathetically.

“I found her in the kitchen last night,” Merlin says defensively. “An’ she’s only so tiny, and I couldn’t see her mum anywhere, and everyone knows you can’t leave a baby without her mum.” Arthur presses his lips together at that sentiment, but Merlin doesn’t seem to notice as he rambles on, “I gave her some milk, but I’m not really sure what she’s supposed to eat otherwise, and Gaius found her this morning and said we really couldn’t keep her, but she doesn’t have anyone else, Arthur! And you’re the king, so if you tell him that we have to take care of her, then he’ll listen, won’t he?”

“I’m not actually supposed to tell people whether or not they should keep cats,” Arthur says, and gingerly puts a finger on the kitten’s head. It purrs and tries to give him a head butt, falling over in the process. Merlin scratches her behind her ears, instead, and the purring grows twice as loud.

“She’s just a baby,” Merlin murmurs, and looks at Arthur. His eyes are large, and bluer than Arthur has seen them before in their innocence. Trust Merlin to grow attached to a kitten in just a night, no matter how anyone else feels about it—Arthur doesn’t hesitate that Merlin, as an adult, would’ve done the exact same thing.

“You are right,” Arthur declares. “She shouldn’t be left alone. We’ll take care of her, won’t we, Merlin? Did you have a name in mind for her?”

Merlin shuffles on his seat, which means yes, but he doesn’t want to tell Arthur. “It’s silly.”

“Don’t tell me you want to call her Cat.”

“No,” Merlin protests, but his cheeks are tinged a little pink anyway, which makes Arthur think he did consider the name, at least. “I’ve been calling her Will. Like my friend Will, in Ealdor. Because he’s got dark hair too, and he’s my only friend. An’ I miss him.”

Arthur’s heart hasn’t really stopped aching, for reasons he doesn’t dare name, but this is a new kind of piercing pain. Loneliness is a confliction he’s been on the receiving end of for most of his life, even if he hadn’t known what it was for the longest time. Uther had taught Arthur that to be a king means to be alone—Merlin had shown him it didn’t need to be that way. That Arthur could be known, and that a crown doesn’t set apart a man unless he allows it to.

And Merlin is lonely. He recognises it at once, the grief flickering over Merlin’s face, the way his fingers keep reaching for the kitten that recognises him as a friend. There are knights visiting him every day, but none of them know the boy that has appeared before them; none of them had taken the time to, save for perhaps Percival. 

His Merlin, in as far as Arthur has a right to call him that, might never come back. But Merlin still sits here, right in front of him, having lost everything and still not himself. He’s still rescuing kittens and defying Arthur and running off into trouble whenever he can, and he’s heartbreakingly alone.

“I think that’s a good name,” Arthur murmurs, making sure his voice is steady. “And I’m sure your Will would appreciate it, too.”

The Will who has been dead for nine years; who had sacrificed himself for Arthur in Ealdor. But Merlin doesn’t know any of this, and to him, Will is just a friend in a faraway place. He doesn’t even seem to have realised that Will would be— should be—an adult, and not waiting for Merlin to play a game of poke-the-fish by the river.

Arthur isn’t going to enlighten him.

“Little Will,” Merlin decides, and the kitten purrs. 

~*~

Letting Merlin keep his cat changes things, apparently. 

Arthur didn’t think he had anything left to prove to Merlin, but in this, as in so many things, it turns out he was wrong. Arthur is the one who lets him get away with things—or so Gaius lectures him—and Merlin searches him out with an increasing frequency, especially now his ankle is all better. He cheers on Arthur and Percival with the most fervour during their practices, and he takes his dinner with Arthur.

Maybe it’s good that Arthur isn’t a father, he reflects, the way that he can’t seem to say no to Merlin. And Merlin is only his friend; Arthur would make the sort of father that Uther would scoff at. Too soft-hearted, too lenient. Except Merlin isn’t a prince, and he won’t have the sort of responsibilities that Arthur needs to drill into him. 

And so Merlin dozes in Arthur’s most comfortable chair, little Will curled on his chest, while Arthur works on his letters with an aching backside. It’s early morning outside, and Arthur had woken up to find Merlin in that chair. How he’d snuck past the guards and into his chambers without anyone alerting Arthur, he doesn’t know, but it’s a sight he won’t be quick to forget.

Arthur makes a decision, putting down his quill.

“Merlin,” he says quietly, and stands up to shake him awake. “Merlin. What are you doing here?”

Merlin flays a little bit, and only barely manages to hold onto Will before the kitten falls off his lap. “Wha’?”

“Come on,” Arthur says, and tugs at Merlin’s arm. Merlin quickly snaps up Will under his arm, getting upright. It’s still odd to have to look down at Merlin, when he’s so used to him being the same height. “We’re going to have a day out, what do you think? You keep running away from Gaius, and I’ve been told that boys your age need to let out their energy.”

“Oh no,” Merlin says in growing dread. “You’re not making me hunt, are you?”

Arthur blinks. “What? No. You can’t even hold a bow.”

“Well, that squire you were teaching yesterday didn’t know how to hold a sword, but that didn’t stop you from making him,” Merlin complains loudly. 

“I thought you’d want to go out of the castle.”

“I s’pose,” Merlin mutters, and shrugs meaninglessly. “But not on a horse. Or to hurt any animals. Or—”

“A walk around the citadel,” Arthur decides. “Will can come along, too, as long as you keep hold of her. If she gets away, you might never find her again.”

Merlin holds onto Will tightly, pressing his nose in the soft fur. Arthur feels bad for making him worry about it, for a second, but then Merlin twists his nose and smugly exclaims, “She won’t get lost. She’ll look for me.”

“She’s a cat, Merlin, not a guard dog.”

“She’s smart,” Merlin fires back, and Arthur isn’t in the mood to argue with a child, so he just steers them both outside. The morning sun is cold and refreshing, and most people are still waking up, so the streets aren’t yet busy. Arthur leads them to a market stall full of buns of bread, first, buying Merlin his breakfast.

While he’s chewing on his bread, Arthur tells him about Camelot. About its people, and its changes over the years. He tells Merlin about the market and the shops and the places of learning, and where Gaius buys his salves and where women can buy their silverware. He shows him the smithy, explaining what he knows of how swords are made and how much trust he has to put in his people to make sure the kingdom runs as it ought to run.

“When you’re king, people think you make all the decisions,” Arthur says. “But it’s not me who is the life of Camelot. I think there are many kings who could lead a kingdom such as her—she’s full of people who love her.”

Merlin stares at him, pressing Will to his throat. The cat doesn’t seem to mind. “My mother,” he starts, his tone quiet. “She didn’t want me to come to Camelot because she said the king didn’t like all of his people. She said it was dangerous. But you’re not dangerous. You’re kind.”

Arthur takes a breath. “I know my father was rather feared than loved,” he says. “But he built a kingdom that thrives, Merlin. He wouldn’t have hurt you, I promise. He only—”

“He hated magic, didn’t he?” Merlin asks, and Arthur frowns at him.

“Magic had taken much from him,” he allows. “It’s taken a lot from all of us, these days. You were taken by magic, as well, even if you don’t…”

“Gaius said, maybe, if you knew what spell it was,” Merlin starts, straightening his narrow shoulders, “that maybe he could figure out how to turn it back. If you had a sorcerer who could help. And you miss him, don’t you? They all miss him, who I was before.”

Arthur runs a hand over his face. “Merlin, the chances of finding those sorcerers is so low, and even if we did, there wouldn’t be a sorcerer to help us. Gaius said the spell might run out on its own, and if it doesn’t…” He crouches down, putting a hand on Merlin’s head. “If it doesn’t, then you’ll still have a home here. Then we’ll still be your friend, if you’ll be ours.”

“I think I need to tell you something,” Merlin says, frowning hard. “Gaius told me I shouldn’t, but I think it might help you. And… you won’t hate me, will you?”

“I can promise I won’t,” Arthur says slowly.

Merlin looks down. “Alright. It’s about magic. There’s something—Will, no!”

The kitten has jumped out of his arms for the first time, snarling in its tiny little voice at something on the cobblestones. Merlin runs after her immediately, turning the corner before Arthur has a chance to hold him back. He follows, but Merlin is surprisingly fast now that his ankle is all healed, and driven forward by the desperation of losing Will. 

It’s so odd, he thinks absentmindedly, that a docile kitten would leave her doting owner’s arms so suddenly, right near a busy street. 

“Will!” he can hear Merlin’s cry, and Arthur pushes past a few people to see his dark head of hair right in front of him. Arthur breathes in relief, because he hasn’t gone far, and he can see the kitten right in front of them as well—

A cloaked figure snatches up Merlin, grabbing him by the middle and hoisting him up. “Merlin!” Arthur calls out, speeding up. 

“Arthur!” Merlin yells back, and lifts his head. His eyes are large, his hand outstretched to Arthur. Arthur has only a second to look at the cloaked man, and familiarity tickles at his mind. One of the sorcerers.

Arthur opens his mouth again—he isn’t sure whether he is going to call out to Merlin or force someone to stop the sorcerer where he stands, but it doesn’t matter. The sorcerer makes a flourish movement with his free hand, and he disappears in smoke. Arthur comes to a halt, chest heaving, and not entirely believing his own eyes.

Will meows at him, coming to headbutt his ankle. Arthur picks her up, pressing the warm body to his chest. A spell, he thinks. They’d used a spell on the cat, and lured Merlin towards them. They must’ve been waiting.

And there’s no saying what they will do.