thought process? what thought process?
I have literally no idea why I wrote this instead of working on my sociology notes or starting my English coursework (except I know myself very well, and of course I did this instead, Jesus. Fic or work, come on!). I totally suck. And do you know, if writing had been a viable thing, this wasn't even the fic I should have been writing. SIGH. Proper update coming soon but, on a semi-related note: if I put original fic up here, er, would any of you read it?
Title: from the Poker to the Prize
Fandom: Merlin (LOL ME)
Summary: Merlin/Arthur, but not massively moreso than in the telly show. Arthur faces an impressive challenger in the inter-village tournament and Merlin has a bit of an odd day.
A/N: Massive liberties with show-canon, as well as, almost certainly, a huge lack of historical accuracy - but I don't think ~historically accurate~ is really the theme they've gone for, so there's no reason I should bother with it! Title nicked from Sufjan Stevens. This is just kind of an experiment, with Merlin's magic and writing the characters and um everything. But I haven't written anything for YONKS, so have it anyway.
It was mid-autumn when the annual inter-village tournament - something Merlin had been distantly aware of even in his old, pre-Camelot life - rolled around for the 58th time. About eighty per cent of the competitors appeared to be farmhands with little or no experience of weaponry, much less actual combat, although Merlin supposed that this could be because the really serious combatants were charged with the task of protecting their own villages from other, bigger villages. Scintillating. Nonetheless, milling about in the stands and watching the tournament seemed a better deal than doing whatever washing or cleaning he would usually be tasked with at this hour.
He had recently discovered that Camelot’s guard was largely comprised of previous years’ most impressive contendors, who, for their great effort and distances travelled and natural ability, were rewarded with a life lived inside the castle walls, complete with all the splendor and violent death one might expect. It seemed a distantly exploitative premise to Merlin, not to mention a fairly unequal trade: 'here, you fight for us and, in return, we'll let you.' Still, a surprisingly large portion of everything he’d encountered since arriving had struck him as in some way unfair, so he saw no reason for this to be any different.
As they watched, Arthur explained the contest to Merlin as being a little like the Sword-Fighting Tournament, or really very like it, "just easier, more informal and a lot less interesting to watch." He also explained that, in the contest’s final round, it was traditional for him to take on the winner (and only the winner) in defence of Camelot’s honour; it was not a job that appeared to require much work or effort, though, with Camlelot having won the last 57 years in a row, Arthur himself competing in this way since the age of thirteen. No doubt he would wearily make it a nice even 58th victory by the end of the week, Merlin thought.
While they were watching a particularly entertaining match - in which a sandy-haired youth attempted to pin a taller boy to the ground and sit on him, both of them having already lost their swords - and attempting to suppress their quite inappropriate laughter, one of the King’s knights appeared at Arthur’s shoulder and murmured something under his breath. Arthur’s brow creased.
Merlin strained to listen, gave up, and asked, "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing," said Arthur, turning to leave. "I won’t be long."
About twenty minutes passed, and Merlin was cheerfully setting to work on his second apple of the afternoon when Uther stood up to announce that the next competitor had specifically challenged Prince Arthur himself to combat; a statement which elicited several gasps from the half-full stands, and made Merlin cough a lot, due to having inhaled an unchewed mouthful in his surprise.
When Arthur followed this declaration by walked out, to great applause, so too did his challenger, who turned out to be masked, anonymous and hailing from a village Merlin didn’t recognise the name of. This was not, in and of itself, especially interesting, being as there were bags of freckly teenage boys who thought that hiding their face would make them inherently more interesting instead of just making it harder for them to see - he was actually the third masked entrant Merlin had seen that day. Still, though.
As Arthur had said, the affair was informal by nature (perhaps by necessity, with many of its participants being unable to afford armour) and, without the extra weight, Arthur appeared even faster and more impressively mercurial than ever. But for some reason, Merlin could feel that he was struggling. The calm, almost beatific clay face of the masked man lent him an air of easy disinterest, which it became difficult not to see reflected in his movement, and beside him Arthur looked confused and affected.
Merlin wouldn’t have been able to explain it if he’d tried, but, more puzzling still, he saw something so familiar in the stranger’s gait and steps that it was almost as if he knew him. Merlin was busy trying to work out if that were possible when, in one swift movement, the man suddenly caught Arthur’s sword at such an angle that it simply clattered from his hand, like striking a nerve. The entire stand instantly fell silent and, for a split-second, Arthur’s face was filled with a terror that Merlin felt he had never seen there before, as if he had seen something hideous in the eyes of his opponent.
But at that moment, the masked man paused. Only briefly, almost imperceptibly, but it was a pause nonetheless, a pause when he should have been bringing his own sword back up to keep Arthur fixed in place.
In his own clothes, Arthur was impossibly quick, and used that breath of a moment to drop down and sideways in an odd sort of roll, retrieving his weapon. They began again and, after only a minute or so more, Arthur disarmed the challenger with a few well-aimed strikes, to rapturous applause from the stands - and yet, Merlin knew, clay-face had nearly had him. He had relaxed his grip at the crucial point, and slowed down in the final stages, and he had allowed Arthur to win.
As Uther stood up to applaud with the others, the masked man bowed low to his Prince, and everyone but everyone looked terribly happy to have unexpectedly seen something impressive; everyone except Arthur, who looked desperately uncomfortable. He nodded his head, attempting to smile and, meanwhile, Merlin slipped discreetly through the crowd and out of the stands. On the one hand, he wanted to speak to Arthur as soon as possible, but at the same time he thought it imperative to follow the retreating figure of the anonymous competitor, who appeared to be quietly making his exit in the direction of the encampment. Merlin’s curiosity, as ever, won out.
Merlin followed at a safe distance as his target moved through the huddle of tents and, instead of ducking inside one, as Merlin had expected him to do, continued walking until he reached the copse on the other side. He removed his gloves as he went, then rolled his sleeves up, and they had not gone more than a few feet inside the woodland when he stopped dead. Merlin started; apparently his idea of 'safe distance' was very different to the rest of the world’s. From a little way ahead, he heard the words, "Follow me, will you, boy?"
Muffled by the mask, the voice sounded deadened and unreal, deep in a way that was almost pretend. Sort of booming.
"I’m sorry," Merlin said evenly, stepping into the glade and adding, "Sir. But...do we know each other? I had to..."
He trailed off as, slowly, the body revolved on a point until they were facing each other, one pale hand rising to hover beside the mask. There was a moment of pause, in which Merlin realised he had been holding his breath, before the stranger said, "I suppose you could say that." The faux-deepness had been discarded, like the gloves before it, but Merlin had no time to analyse how deeply recognisable the voice had been before the mask was removed, replaced by a face that Merlin had begun to know better than any other.
It was Arthur.
He was perhaps a decade older, wiser, tireder - that familiar face was drawn with years of forced sobriety and responsibility - but it was him, it was unmistakeably him, lips twisted sideways in mocking amusement. He dropped the mask and sank down onto a tree stump, running a hand awkwardly through his slightly longer, slightly darker hair.
"There’s no need to look at me like that, you know," Arthur said. When Merlin didn’t answer, busy gaping, he continued, "I'm not some kind of monster. I promise you, Merlin, it’s me."
"I know," Merlin stammered, eyes wide. "I...I know, that’s why it’s terrifying. Somehow, I felt it, the entire time. But how? How can it be you, when you're-?"
"Can you not guess?"
Merlin’s unblinking silence made it fairly clear that he could not. Arthur sighed.
"Who do we know," he said, slowly, "That is a great sorcerer, with abilities beyond the realms of our countrymen’s wildest imaginations? I’ll give you a clue: he’s staring at me right now, like I just sprouted wings."
"You’re saying that I did this?" Merlin cried, incredulously. "But I can’t...I can’t..."
"Play about with time? Shunt people into the past? Not yet, perhaps. But you always did say you were a fast learner."
Merlin, who was beginning to not feel very well, whispered, "Oh." And suddenly Arthur’s face softened in a way that Merlin had seen before, but rarely - it was an expression that Arthur only really wore when he thought nobody was watching. He gestured to the space beside him.
"Sit with me," he said. Merlin did so and, after a moment, he carried on, "I’m sorry if I’ve frightened you or disturbed you in any way, Merlin. It’s really the last thing I want to do. But you have to listen. I’m not sure how much time I have left."
Merlin nodded, deciding the smartest thing would be to not attempt actual words again for a little while.
"In a week," Arthur said, visibly choosing his words very carefully, "My father will be poisoned, and the kingdom will fall to me. But, Merlin, this is of vital importance: no matter how dead he appears to be, I tell you now, he is alive. Do you understand? He won't be poisoned by some malevolent force or evil sorcerer, but merely by accident - by consuming large quantities of a plant which produces all the visible effects of death. The cook thought it tasted nice, apparently. I know, I know that all this sounds ridiculous, but it is of the utmost importance: the antidote can be made from the plant’s roots, and the plant’s roots will be found in the kitchens. Gaius can help you. I am not, at this moment - the me that’s sitting in the stands, out there, looking unhappy - I am not ready for Camelot. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Merlin, who was surprised to find that he sort of did. "Get the roots, go to Gaius, wake him up. How will I explain the fact that I knew what to do?"
Arthur waved a hand. "Oh, nobody’ll mind about that. You saved the King! There’ll be a very large party."
"Fine, okay, fine. But why do I need to wait for him to get ill before I save him? Can’t I just...find the plant now and stop it ever happening?"
"Messy to play with time," Arthur murmured, shaking his head.
"You’re doing it!"
"No, we’re not. I know what to say to you now because you have already described to me what I will say; I know what must and will happen because it has already happened. We aren’t changing time, you and I, that can’t be done - we’re just protecting it. Filling in the gaps." He paused. "Don’t look so surprised that I said something clever. For all you know, in the future, I say clever things all the time."
Merlin laughed, but put his face in his hands and pressed hard upon his eyes, until sparks appeared behind his eyelids like magic leaping underneath his skin. Somewhere to his right, Arthur’s older voice continued, "To be honest, I’m repeating what you told me yesterday. Future-you. But then, I suppose, technically you were just copying me, weren’t you?"
"My head hurts," said Merlin.
"Mine too," said Arthur. "What a lot of nonsense."
They sat there like that for a couple of minutes, in silence. A few hundred metres away, mindless crowds were cheering young boys on to fight each other for some small amount of glory, and somewhere, Arthur (the young, headstrong, uncertain Arthur, Merlin’s Arthur) was probably sulking, and in the trees above their heads the birds were singing.
When Merlin finally took his hands away from his eyes, the sunlight felt too bright, and the sight of this Arthur, so similar and yet so different to his, was almost painful. He murmured, "So there will come a time, honestly, when...when I will be able to tell you all about what I can do?"
Arthur’s mouth tipped into that smile again. "There’ll come a time," he said, "When you will tell me everything."
"And were you angry?"
There was a slight hissing noise as Arthur exhaled through his teeth, looking guilty. "I really can’t talk to you about the future, Merlin," he shrugged. "Your rules."
"Yeah, but from you!"
Arthur laughed. "God, you haven’t changed a bit. Here," placing a hand on Merlin’s cheek, "Let me look at you."
He studied Merlin’s face with an intensity and an intimacy that made Merlin feel oddly light-headed; the casual but gentle brush of Arthur’s fingertips, his warm breath on Merlin’s skin. And the strange look Merlin had seen in his eye, and that oddly private smile, a smile that felt like secrets kept.
"Are you King now, where you’re from?"
Arthur blithely ignored the question, bottom lip caught between his teeth, deep in thought.
"And who’s your Queen?"
There was a crackle of tension in the air, as the gentle trace of fingertips stiffened and dropped away. "Yes, well," said Arthur, more to himself than to anybody, and the thousands of questions at the back of Merlin’s mind grew ever louder, buzzing like angry bees, insistent and unignorable. He tingled with them.
"It isn’t easy to be with you like this, you know," muttered Arthur, staring determinedly off into the distance with an unreadable expression. "When I know you so well, and you know me so little."
The statement sat between them in the air, feeling like perhaps the first sincere and unrehearsed thing that this familiar stranger had said since their meeting. Merlin knew that however he replied would be important. Whatever he said next would have to count.
"Tell me the truth," he near-whispered. "Where you come from-"
The bizarre air-sucking noise and burst of light propelled Merlin from the tree stump, and he landed quite unceremoniously on his face. He knew what had happened before he'd even hit the ground, but looked up anyway, to confirm it - sure enough, Arthur was gone.
He felt a coil of frustration flex somewhere deep in his chest.
*
tell me the truth
where you come from
*
When Merlin got back to the tournament, nobody seemed to know where the Prince had disappeared to, and a tall, dark-haired man was attempting to smack a readheaded boy in the face with his wooden shield. There was a toothless woman stood in Arthur and Merlin’s old spot, shouting, "Yes! Yes!"
Merlin wandered back into the mostly-empty castle, his head in a whirl, and for all of half a minute he debated going to see the Dragon; but it seemed ultimately pointless if he wanted a straight answer, which it was, so he dismissed the idea. Eventually, he headed up to the structure’s highest point, working purely on impulse, and - as he’d suspected - found Arthur brooding there. He was frowning at one of the very beautiful views, and he didn’t notice that Merlin was standing behind him.
"Everything alright?"
Arthur jumped, surprised, but his voice was even and calm when he said, "Yes, fine."
All the same, Merlin could tell he was lying. He wished he’d had the presence of mind to ask the other Arthur why it had been necessary to get his attention like that, as part of a tournament with no real element of competition, and embarrass his Arthur - the thought that the two of them would grow up to be so unfeeling was faintly abhorrent. But then he remembered that older, wiser face saying I am not ready for Camelot and thought, well, we probably know what’s best; after all, if anyone was entitled to take Arthur down a peg or two, it was undoubtedly Arthur himself.
Merlin came to stand next to him, leaning on the parapets, and considered his options. He settled for doing what felt right. Steeling himself for a punch to the face, Merlin said quickly, "That masked man, you know, it was just a fluke. When he knocked your sword away. You’re really very good and, well....you’re only going to get better. I assume. I mean. Anyway, don’t dwell on it. Not that you are. You’re probably not. You just. Well."
Arthur was looking at him sideways and had his mouth open as if he were about to say something, something like Merlin you idiot, but he didn’t look violent, so Merlin thought, to hell with it, and added, "I mean, you’re stood on a roof looking very serious, so I thought it was a safe bet that you were dwelling. And you shouldn’t."
Unexpectedly, Arthur ducked his head and laughed, and, simple as that, the whole situation felt defused. Manageable. "I’m bored of the tournament," he said, after a pause. "I think I might go for a walk."
Merlin nodded. Then, since it seemed to be a day for pushing his luck, he asked, "Alone?"
And Arthur considered it for a moment. And then he said, “No.”
*
where you come from
what am i to you?
.
Title: from the Poker to the Prize
Fandom: Merlin (LOL ME)
Summary: Merlin/Arthur, but not massively moreso than in the telly show. Arthur faces an impressive challenger in the inter-village tournament and Merlin has a bit of an odd day.
A/N: Massive liberties with show-canon, as well as, almost certainly, a huge lack of historical accuracy - but I don't think ~historically accurate~ is really the theme they've gone for, so there's no reason I should bother with it! Title nicked from Sufjan Stevens. This is just kind of an experiment, with Merlin's magic and writing the characters and um everything. But I haven't written anything for YONKS, so have it anyway.
It was mid-autumn when the annual inter-village tournament - something Merlin had been distantly aware of even in his old, pre-Camelot life - rolled around for the 58th time. About eighty per cent of the competitors appeared to be farmhands with little or no experience of weaponry, much less actual combat, although Merlin supposed that this could be because the really serious combatants were charged with the task of protecting their own villages from other, bigger villages. Scintillating. Nonetheless, milling about in the stands and watching the tournament seemed a better deal than doing whatever washing or cleaning he would usually be tasked with at this hour.
He had recently discovered that Camelot’s guard was largely comprised of previous years’ most impressive contendors, who, for their great effort and distances travelled and natural ability, were rewarded with a life lived inside the castle walls, complete with all the splendor and violent death one might expect. It seemed a distantly exploitative premise to Merlin, not to mention a fairly unequal trade: 'here, you fight for us and, in return, we'll let you.' Still, a surprisingly large portion of everything he’d encountered since arriving had struck him as in some way unfair, so he saw no reason for this to be any different.
As they watched, Arthur explained the contest to Merlin as being a little like the Sword-Fighting Tournament, or really very like it, "just easier, more informal and a lot less interesting to watch." He also explained that, in the contest’s final round, it was traditional for him to take on the winner (and only the winner) in defence of Camelot’s honour; it was not a job that appeared to require much work or effort, though, with Camlelot having won the last 57 years in a row, Arthur himself competing in this way since the age of thirteen. No doubt he would wearily make it a nice even 58th victory by the end of the week, Merlin thought.
While they were watching a particularly entertaining match - in which a sandy-haired youth attempted to pin a taller boy to the ground and sit on him, both of them having already lost their swords - and attempting to suppress their quite inappropriate laughter, one of the King’s knights appeared at Arthur’s shoulder and murmured something under his breath. Arthur’s brow creased.
Merlin strained to listen, gave up, and asked, "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing," said Arthur, turning to leave. "I won’t be long."
About twenty minutes passed, and Merlin was cheerfully setting to work on his second apple of the afternoon when Uther stood up to announce that the next competitor had specifically challenged Prince Arthur himself to combat; a statement which elicited several gasps from the half-full stands, and made Merlin cough a lot, due to having inhaled an unchewed mouthful in his surprise.
When Arthur followed this declaration by walked out, to great applause, so too did his challenger, who turned out to be masked, anonymous and hailing from a village Merlin didn’t recognise the name of. This was not, in and of itself, especially interesting, being as there were bags of freckly teenage boys who thought that hiding their face would make them inherently more interesting instead of just making it harder for them to see - he was actually the third masked entrant Merlin had seen that day. Still, though.
As Arthur had said, the affair was informal by nature (perhaps by necessity, with many of its participants being unable to afford armour) and, without the extra weight, Arthur appeared even faster and more impressively mercurial than ever. But for some reason, Merlin could feel that he was struggling. The calm, almost beatific clay face of the masked man lent him an air of easy disinterest, which it became difficult not to see reflected in his movement, and beside him Arthur looked confused and affected.
Merlin wouldn’t have been able to explain it if he’d tried, but, more puzzling still, he saw something so familiar in the stranger’s gait and steps that it was almost as if he knew him. Merlin was busy trying to work out if that were possible when, in one swift movement, the man suddenly caught Arthur’s sword at such an angle that it simply clattered from his hand, like striking a nerve. The entire stand instantly fell silent and, for a split-second, Arthur’s face was filled with a terror that Merlin felt he had never seen there before, as if he had seen something hideous in the eyes of his opponent.
But at that moment, the masked man paused. Only briefly, almost imperceptibly, but it was a pause nonetheless, a pause when he should have been bringing his own sword back up to keep Arthur fixed in place.
In his own clothes, Arthur was impossibly quick, and used that breath of a moment to drop down and sideways in an odd sort of roll, retrieving his weapon. They began again and, after only a minute or so more, Arthur disarmed the challenger with a few well-aimed strikes, to rapturous applause from the stands - and yet, Merlin knew, clay-face had nearly had him. He had relaxed his grip at the crucial point, and slowed down in the final stages, and he had allowed Arthur to win.
As Uther stood up to applaud with the others, the masked man bowed low to his Prince, and everyone but everyone looked terribly happy to have unexpectedly seen something impressive; everyone except Arthur, who looked desperately uncomfortable. He nodded his head, attempting to smile and, meanwhile, Merlin slipped discreetly through the crowd and out of the stands. On the one hand, he wanted to speak to Arthur as soon as possible, but at the same time he thought it imperative to follow the retreating figure of the anonymous competitor, who appeared to be quietly making his exit in the direction of the encampment. Merlin’s curiosity, as ever, won out.
Merlin followed at a safe distance as his target moved through the huddle of tents and, instead of ducking inside one, as Merlin had expected him to do, continued walking until he reached the copse on the other side. He removed his gloves as he went, then rolled his sleeves up, and they had not gone more than a few feet inside the woodland when he stopped dead. Merlin started; apparently his idea of 'safe distance' was very different to the rest of the world’s. From a little way ahead, he heard the words, "Follow me, will you, boy?"
Muffled by the mask, the voice sounded deadened and unreal, deep in a way that was almost pretend. Sort of booming.
"I’m sorry," Merlin said evenly, stepping into the glade and adding, "Sir. But...do we know each other? I had to..."
He trailed off as, slowly, the body revolved on a point until they were facing each other, one pale hand rising to hover beside the mask. There was a moment of pause, in which Merlin realised he had been holding his breath, before the stranger said, "I suppose you could say that." The faux-deepness had been discarded, like the gloves before it, but Merlin had no time to analyse how deeply recognisable the voice had been before the mask was removed, replaced by a face that Merlin had begun to know better than any other.
It was Arthur.
He was perhaps a decade older, wiser, tireder - that familiar face was drawn with years of forced sobriety and responsibility - but it was him, it was unmistakeably him, lips twisted sideways in mocking amusement. He dropped the mask and sank down onto a tree stump, running a hand awkwardly through his slightly longer, slightly darker hair.
"There’s no need to look at me like that, you know," Arthur said. When Merlin didn’t answer, busy gaping, he continued, "I'm not some kind of monster. I promise you, Merlin, it’s me."
"I know," Merlin stammered, eyes wide. "I...I know, that’s why it’s terrifying. Somehow, I felt it, the entire time. But how? How can it be you, when you're-?"
"Can you not guess?"
Merlin’s unblinking silence made it fairly clear that he could not. Arthur sighed.
"Who do we know," he said, slowly, "That is a great sorcerer, with abilities beyond the realms of our countrymen’s wildest imaginations? I’ll give you a clue: he’s staring at me right now, like I just sprouted wings."
"You’re saying that I did this?" Merlin cried, incredulously. "But I can’t...I can’t..."
"Play about with time? Shunt people into the past? Not yet, perhaps. But you always did say you were a fast learner."
Merlin, who was beginning to not feel very well, whispered, "Oh." And suddenly Arthur’s face softened in a way that Merlin had seen before, but rarely - it was an expression that Arthur only really wore when he thought nobody was watching. He gestured to the space beside him.
"Sit with me," he said. Merlin did so and, after a moment, he carried on, "I’m sorry if I’ve frightened you or disturbed you in any way, Merlin. It’s really the last thing I want to do. But you have to listen. I’m not sure how much time I have left."
Merlin nodded, deciding the smartest thing would be to not attempt actual words again for a little while.
"In a week," Arthur said, visibly choosing his words very carefully, "My father will be poisoned, and the kingdom will fall to me. But, Merlin, this is of vital importance: no matter how dead he appears to be, I tell you now, he is alive. Do you understand? He won't be poisoned by some malevolent force or evil sorcerer, but merely by accident - by consuming large quantities of a plant which produces all the visible effects of death. The cook thought it tasted nice, apparently. I know, I know that all this sounds ridiculous, but it is of the utmost importance: the antidote can be made from the plant’s roots, and the plant’s roots will be found in the kitchens. Gaius can help you. I am not, at this moment - the me that’s sitting in the stands, out there, looking unhappy - I am not ready for Camelot. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Merlin, who was surprised to find that he sort of did. "Get the roots, go to Gaius, wake him up. How will I explain the fact that I knew what to do?"
Arthur waved a hand. "Oh, nobody’ll mind about that. You saved the King! There’ll be a very large party."
"Fine, okay, fine. But why do I need to wait for him to get ill before I save him? Can’t I just...find the plant now and stop it ever happening?"
"Messy to play with time," Arthur murmured, shaking his head.
"You’re doing it!"
"No, we’re not. I know what to say to you now because you have already described to me what I will say; I know what must and will happen because it has already happened. We aren’t changing time, you and I, that can’t be done - we’re just protecting it. Filling in the gaps." He paused. "Don’t look so surprised that I said something clever. For all you know, in the future, I say clever things all the time."
Merlin laughed, but put his face in his hands and pressed hard upon his eyes, until sparks appeared behind his eyelids like magic leaping underneath his skin. Somewhere to his right, Arthur’s older voice continued, "To be honest, I’m repeating what you told me yesterday. Future-you. But then, I suppose, technically you were just copying me, weren’t you?"
"My head hurts," said Merlin.
"Mine too," said Arthur. "What a lot of nonsense."
They sat there like that for a couple of minutes, in silence. A few hundred metres away, mindless crowds were cheering young boys on to fight each other for some small amount of glory, and somewhere, Arthur (the young, headstrong, uncertain Arthur, Merlin’s Arthur) was probably sulking, and in the trees above their heads the birds were singing.
When Merlin finally took his hands away from his eyes, the sunlight felt too bright, and the sight of this Arthur, so similar and yet so different to his, was almost painful. He murmured, "So there will come a time, honestly, when...when I will be able to tell you all about what I can do?"
Arthur’s mouth tipped into that smile again. "There’ll come a time," he said, "When you will tell me everything."
"And were you angry?"
There was a slight hissing noise as Arthur exhaled through his teeth, looking guilty. "I really can’t talk to you about the future, Merlin," he shrugged. "Your rules."
"Yeah, but from you!"
Arthur laughed. "God, you haven’t changed a bit. Here," placing a hand on Merlin’s cheek, "Let me look at you."
He studied Merlin’s face with an intensity and an intimacy that made Merlin feel oddly light-headed; the casual but gentle brush of Arthur’s fingertips, his warm breath on Merlin’s skin. And the strange look Merlin had seen in his eye, and that oddly private smile, a smile that felt like secrets kept.
"Are you King now, where you’re from?"
Arthur blithely ignored the question, bottom lip caught between his teeth, deep in thought.
"And who’s your Queen?"
There was a crackle of tension in the air, as the gentle trace of fingertips stiffened and dropped away. "Yes, well," said Arthur, more to himself than to anybody, and the thousands of questions at the back of Merlin’s mind grew ever louder, buzzing like angry bees, insistent and unignorable. He tingled with them.
"It isn’t easy to be with you like this, you know," muttered Arthur, staring determinedly off into the distance with an unreadable expression. "When I know you so well, and you know me so little."
The statement sat between them in the air, feeling like perhaps the first sincere and unrehearsed thing that this familiar stranger had said since their meeting. Merlin knew that however he replied would be important. Whatever he said next would have to count.
"Tell me the truth," he near-whispered. "Where you come from-"
The bizarre air-sucking noise and burst of light propelled Merlin from the tree stump, and he landed quite unceremoniously on his face. He knew what had happened before he'd even hit the ground, but looked up anyway, to confirm it - sure enough, Arthur was gone.
He felt a coil of frustration flex somewhere deep in his chest.
*
tell me the truth
where you come from
*
When Merlin got back to the tournament, nobody seemed to know where the Prince had disappeared to, and a tall, dark-haired man was attempting to smack a readheaded boy in the face with his wooden shield. There was a toothless woman stood in Arthur and Merlin’s old spot, shouting, "Yes! Yes!"
Merlin wandered back into the mostly-empty castle, his head in a whirl, and for all of half a minute he debated going to see the Dragon; but it seemed ultimately pointless if he wanted a straight answer, which it was, so he dismissed the idea. Eventually, he headed up to the structure’s highest point, working purely on impulse, and - as he’d suspected - found Arthur brooding there. He was frowning at one of the very beautiful views, and he didn’t notice that Merlin was standing behind him.
"Everything alright?"
Arthur jumped, surprised, but his voice was even and calm when he said, "Yes, fine."
All the same, Merlin could tell he was lying. He wished he’d had the presence of mind to ask the other Arthur why it had been necessary to get his attention like that, as part of a tournament with no real element of competition, and embarrass his Arthur - the thought that the two of them would grow up to be so unfeeling was faintly abhorrent. But then he remembered that older, wiser face saying I am not ready for Camelot and thought, well, we probably know what’s best; after all, if anyone was entitled to take Arthur down a peg or two, it was undoubtedly Arthur himself.
Merlin came to stand next to him, leaning on the parapets, and considered his options. He settled for doing what felt right. Steeling himself for a punch to the face, Merlin said quickly, "That masked man, you know, it was just a fluke. When he knocked your sword away. You’re really very good and, well....you’re only going to get better. I assume. I mean. Anyway, don’t dwell on it. Not that you are. You’re probably not. You just. Well."
Arthur was looking at him sideways and had his mouth open as if he were about to say something, something like Merlin you idiot, but he didn’t look violent, so Merlin thought, to hell with it, and added, "I mean, you’re stood on a roof looking very serious, so I thought it was a safe bet that you were dwelling. And you shouldn’t."
Unexpectedly, Arthur ducked his head and laughed, and, simple as that, the whole situation felt defused. Manageable. "I’m bored of the tournament," he said, after a pause. "I think I might go for a walk."
Merlin nodded. Then, since it seemed to be a day for pushing his luck, he asked, "Alone?"
And Arthur considered it for a moment. And then he said, “No.”
*
where you come from
what am i to you?
.