Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was completely dark in the cave when Merlin woke up—so dark that he was not entirely sure if he had actually succeeded in opening his eyes or not. He spent a brief moment taking stock of his body before he dared move it, but there was no pain indicating an injury. He just felt a little…off, somehow, but that might just be because he had been lying on the cold ground for however long he had been unconscious.

Various grunts echoed through the cave, informing him that his friends were still there and also waking up.

“What happened?” Arthur’s voice said, somewhere in the darkness.

“Must have been some sort of spell,” Merlin answered, his voice coming out a tad higher in pitch than intended. “See, didn’t I—?”

“Yes, fine, you told us getting rained on was better than seeking shelter in the creepy cave that wasn’t on any of our maps. Happy now?”

“Not particularly.”

Merlin clambered to his feet, immediately tripping and almost falling over as he stepped on the hem of his…robes? Struck by the sudden fear that he had accidentally transformed himself into his Dragoon persona, his hands flew to his chin, feeling for a beard, but he found none.

“I feel…weird,” Percival said, interrupting Merlin’s attempt to figure out why he was wearing something other than his usual breeches.

“Me too,” Gwen agreed. “I— Uh. Something’s wrong with my voice?”

She sounded more or less like she always did to Merlin, and he frowned and asked, “Are you all right? Any injuries?”

“Merlin, is that you?” she asked in return. “Something’s wrong with your voice too.”

She might have a point there, actually. It was still higher than usual.

“We need light,” Leon said.

A split second later, the cave was bathed in the cold, blue light of a glowing orb floating above their heads. Merlin’s heart all but stopped in his chest as fear flooded him. He had not meant to summon the light! How could he have been so careless? He—

Wait. He had not summoned it. After two and a half decades of practising magic, he knew very well what it felt like when he cast a spell, and this was not it. But then where had it come from?

“Who did that?” Arthur exclaimed, obviously wondering the same. He was looking wildly around the cave, blinking against the harsh light.

“Perhaps it’s the cave itself?” someone suggested. “It’s magical, right?”

Merlin turned towards the unknown voice, surprised to see a child standing among them. The boy could not be more than nine winters old, and though he looked very familiar, Merlin could not remember ever seeing him before.

“Who are you?” Arthur asked warily.

The boy frowned. “What do you mean? It’s me, Gwen?”

“No, that’s Gwen,” Percival said, pointing at the girl standing beside the boy. “Or…is it?”

“What? I’m Elyan, you— What happened to you?!”

There was so much wrong with this picture that Merlin did not know where to begin.

There was Percival, whose voice and face were definitely his own but whose body was decidedly not. The mountain of a man had shrunken in stature and build, now resembling nothing so much as Merlin during his early days in Camelot—all gangly and scrawny.

The person claiming to be Elyan looked very much like Gwen, only a younger version of her. She was a little shorter than usual, her face was rounder and more youthful, and her body was not filling out the simple dress she wore the way it normally would. If Merlin had to guess, he would say that she looked to be around thirteen—if, indeed, it was her and not Elyan.

Oh. That was whom the young boy standing beside her reminded him of.

“Is that…me?” Gwen-Elyan asked weakly, staring at the boy.

“Elyan?” the boy asked, eyes widening. “Why are you in my body? And where did you get that dress from? I haven’t seen that in years.”

“What is going on?” Arthur asked exasperatedly.

“Maybe some light would help us figure it out,” Leon suggested, again. “Does anyone still have their torch?”

“Leon, we have light.”

“Oh. Then I suppose I’ve gone blind.” Only Leon could have taken this news with such equanimity.

Merlin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me get this straight; Leon is blind, Gwen and Elyan have switched bodies and turned into younger versions of themselves, and Percival is…small. Anyone else experiencing any strange changes?”

Off to the side, Gwaine waved his arms in a bid for attention. He had been uncharacteristically quiet up until now, and Merlin soon understood why as he pointed to his mouth which was moving without so much of a peep coming out of it.

“You’ve lost your voice?” he asked.

Gwaine nodded vigorously.

Arthur huffed. “At least some good has come out of this mess, then.”

Gwaine pouted.

“What about you?” Merlin asked Arthur. “Do you feel different?”

“No,” Arthur replied quickly, but there was something shifty in his eyes which belied his words. “You should worry about yourself.”

“Me?”

“Merlin, you’re a girl.”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “So you keep saying.”

“No, really. You’re obviously still you, but you’re definitely a girl.”

“What?” He looked down at himself. “Oh.”

He was not wearing robes, after all; he was wearing a dress. Beneath the blue fabric, the unmistakable curves of a modest bosom protruded from his chest and when he brought his hands to his hips it was to find that they were a bit wider than normal while his waist had narrowed some. Further examination indicated that what felt a lot like one of his neckerchiefs was tied around his head instead, and beneath it his hair was pulled back into a plait which reached down to his mid-back.

Well, that explained his voice. Her voice? Compared to Leon, he had gotten off easy.

“All right,” he— she sighed. “I’m a girl and you’re…something. I’m sure we’ll figure out what’s wrong with you sooner or later.”

“I feel fine,” Arthur lied.

Gwen—no, Elyan—cleared his throat. “How do we break this spell? I don’t want to be my sister a second longer than I have to. No offence, Gwen.”

“None taken. I don’t want to be a boy either; boys are gross!” Her eyes widened. “I’m…sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

Merlin smothered a laugh, reminding himse— herself that the situation was rather serious, despite it all. Who knew, whatever was going on with Arthur might prove to be more sinister than Percival losing his muscles or Merlin gaining a couple of novel body parts…

She took a look around the cave, searching for clues as to how this had happened and what might be done about it. She could no longer sense the undercurrent of magic that had been thrumming through the earth as they entered the cave before cresting and knocking them out. Perhaps the spell had exhausted the cave’s natural magical reserves for the time being.

She was about to give up the search when something caught her eye. Some distance away, there appeared to be etchings in the cave wall. Curious, she stepped away from the group to investigate them, but this far from the glowing orb, the light was a bit too dim to make out the writing. Luckily, the glowing orb followed the others when they noticed Merlin slipping away and went after her.

“What did you find?” Arthur asked.

She squinted in concentration, trying to make sense of the inscription. “I’m not sure. It’s written in an ancient script.”

“Can you read it?”

“I think so. Some of Gaius’ books are written in it. Give me a moment…”

It took several minutes before she was sure enough of her translation to deliver it to the rest of the group, most of whom had dejectedly sat down on the ground while they waited.

“All right,” she said at last. “As far as I can tell it says something along the lines of, ‘Whosoever enters this place shall not emerge the same as before. Only through accepting the…uh…lesson of self shall they be returned to such as they were, and they shall be better for it.’”

“‘The lesson of self?’ What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Percival.

“I’m not sure. Could be that my translation is off, but it sounds like your typical moral spell to me.”

“Moral spell?”

“Yeah, you know, the ‘learn your lesson or stay cursed forever’ kind of deal.”

“What lesson am I supposed to learn from turning into my sister?” Elyan squeaked, then looked horrified at having made such a girlish sound.

Merlin shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think you’re stuck like that until we figure it out.”

“Is there no other way?” Arthur asked, glancing uneasily between the de-aged siblings.

“Doesn’t seem like it, but we should ask Gaius for a second opinion. I don’t think there’s much more to be learned here.”

“Great. Just great.” Arthur heaved a weary sigh, then squared his shoulders resolutely. “Very well. Let’s find our way out and head for Camelot. Percival, help guide Leon.” With that, he started walking towards the mouth of the tunnel through which they had entered the cave, flinching slightly when the magical orb of light followed them as soon as they started moving.

Gwaine sidled up to Merlin as they walked, drawing her attention by laying a hand on her shoulder. He raised his eyebrows and nodded towards the glowing orb and made some sort of questioning expression.

“What?”

Gwaine mouthed something Merlin did not entirely follow.

“I have no idea what you’re saying. Sorry.”

While his words were not audible, his resigned sigh was, and he made a gesture which clearly meant, “Never mind.” After a moment of walking on in mutual silence, he bumped his shoulder against Merlin’s, and when she turned her head to look at him, he mouthed what looked like, “You okay?” and gestured vaguely at her general appearance.

“I’m fine,” she reassured him. “Really. Compared to everyone else, this is not so bad.”

Gwaine gave her an exaggerated once-over, his eyes raking over the changes in her figure, then sent her a cheeky wink and mouthed, “Not bad at all,” or something to that effect.

Torn between flushing red and rolling her eyes, she gave his shoulder a playful shove. “Ever the chevalier, Sir Gwaine.”

He laughed silently and bumped their shoulders together one last time before turning his attention to the path ahead of them again, allowing Merlin to fight her blush in peace.

As luck would have it, their horses were still waiting for them at the mouth of the cave, and if any of them had switched bodies with each other it did not seem to faze them in the slightest.

The ride home from the cave was not all that long, but it was still a bit of an adventure, especially for Merlin, Gwen, Elyan and Leon. Merlin and Elyan had to get used to mounting and riding their horses while wearing dresses and Leon’s reins were tied to Percival’s saddle as his blindness prevented him from guiding his horse himself.

Gwen, meanwhile, was struggling a bit with the fact that she was now a boy half the size of her former self riding on a rather large horse. Despite having shortened her stirrups, she was sliding around and looking uncomfortable to the point that Elyan eventually called the whole company to a halt.

“Come on, Gwen,” he said. “You can ride with me. We won’t be too heavy for my horse like this.”

She scowled petulantly. “I’m not a baby, Elyan! I can—” She interrupted herself, screwing her eyes shut and shaking her head lightly before looking up and smiling sheepishly. “Sorry. What I mean to say is thank you for that kind offer; that sounds great. Could someone help me get on his horse?”

“I’ll lift you,” said Percival, but then he hesitated, dejectedly looking down at his spindly arms. “Or maybe not…”

Arthur huffed and dismounted. “What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t help my wife?” He glanced at Gwen. “Or my, uh, husband…?” he amended awkwardly.

“Wife,” she said decisively.

“Wife,” he agreed with some relief.

With Arthur’s help, Gwen was quickly transferred to Elyan’s horse and as they continued on she looked a little more secure where she sat in front of her brother, bracketed by his arms as he held the reins.

“What lessons do you reckon we’re supposed to learn from all this?” Elyan asked after a while.

“Dunno,” Percival replied. “Maybe I’m supposed to learn not to rely too much on my strength? Isn’t that what you always say in training, sire?”

Arthur looked over at him, considering this. “Perhaps in the beginning, but your swordsmanship has improved significantly since then. What I’m wondering is what Merlin has done that necessitates turning into a woman to learn a lesson.”

“Why do you assume I’ve done something?” Merlin exclaimed defensively.

“You do spend an awful lot of time in the tavern. For all I know, you’re one of those men who turn into lecherous bounders when they get too deep into their drinks.”

Arthur’s smile was teasing, but Merlin’s hackles rose nonetheless. “First of all, I’m almost never at the tavern. Secondly, I very rarely drink recreationally, and thirdly, I don’t start harassing people when I do. Oh, and fourthly, I’m not even a man anymore.”

This last bit earned her a few sideways glances.

“You sort of are, though,” Elyan pointed out.

Merlin snorted and gestured at herself. “I thought Leon was the blind one. Does this look male to you?”

“But you’re still Merlin, aren’t you?” Percival asked. “Just in another body?”

“Yes? A female one, thus making me a woman?”

“Do you mean that you feel like a woman?” Leon asked, sounding curious.

Merlin narrowed her eyes, starting to feel as confused as her friends looked. “What do you mean ‘feel like a woman?’”

“Like you felt like a man in your old body,” Leon clarified.

“I…feel like Merlin? Just like I always have?”

Arthur gave him a strange look. “Are you saying that you never felt like a man?”

“I didn’t need to feel like a man; I was one, despite all your inane jokes to the contrary. And now I’m a woman.”

“Well, I still feel like a man,” Elyan said with great conviction. “Physically turning into a teenage girl doesn’t change that.”

“And I feel like a girl,” Gwen agreed. “I mean, like a woman.”

A trace of doubt started to creep into Merlin’s mind at this, but she quickly dismissed it. “But that’s different. You two aren’t in your own bodies. I’m still me, only I’m now who I would’ve been if I’d been born a woman.”

“I don’t know,” Percival mused, “I think I’d still feel like a man if that happened to me.”

Merlin snorted. “Right.”

“I’m serious.”

Merlin stared at him for a second before her gaze flitted over the bemused faces of her friends, taking in their nods of agreement with Percival. “You’re having me on,” she said.

When they all shook their heads she looked to Gwaine in a last desperate attempt to find some support, even though she knew he would not be able to give it verbally. She was mildly surprised to see a thoughtful look on his face as he studied her, quite unlike the bewilderment she was met with from the others.

Meeting her eyes, Gwaine said something inaudible which she could not make out by reading his lips, then frowned in frustration with his own muteness and simply shrugged instead.

Feeling not at all enlightened, Merlin looked back at the others, shaking her head as she said, “If you say so.”

Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well, Merlin, I always said you were a girl’s petticoat. You want to be a woman? Go ahead. At least now you’ll fit into those dresses you’re always sneaking off with.”

“I don’t—!” Merlin sputtered. “I’ve never worn a dress in my life before today, thank you very much, and I didn’t say I want to be a woman, just that I am one at the moment.”

She decided against adding, I’m not saying I particularly want to be a man either, reasoning that Arthur was acting constipated enough about the whole thing already. He would surely spin her utter indifference towards what arrangement of body parts she happened to possess into something weird.

“Fine, you’re a girl. At the moment.”

“Good,” she muttered. “That’s sorted then.”

Unfortunately, Gaius had no better advice than to ride out the curse until they all figured out what lesson they were each expected to learn from it. At least that was what he told the group while they were gathered all together. As soon as he and Merlin were alone, he pulled out an ancient tome and started going through a list of counterspells in search of something which might be able to lift the curse.

“Here, try this one,” he said, pushing the book across the table towards Merlin.

She took a look at the spell indicated, studying it for a moment. It seemed relatively straightforward, and so she took a deep breath, pulling on her magic as she spoke the words…to no effect.

Something felt wrong. Very wrong.

“Hm, perhaps not, then,” Gaius muttered, retrieving the book and going back to leafing through it.

Merlin stared in horror at her hands. It had not felt as if it had been the wrong spell, it felt like there was something wrong with her magic. Trepidation rising inside her, she reached out towards a cup on the other side of the table and tried to make it move. She felt no response from her magic whatsoever as she tried to rouse it.

“Onbregdan,” she whispered.

Still nothing.

Starting to feel desperate, she turned to the nearest candle and said, “Forbærnan!”

Not even a spark.

“What are you doing?” Gaius asked, looking up at her.

“Something’s wrong,” she choked out. “My magic… I think I’ve lost it.”

Gaius’ eyebrow rose as concern coloured his features. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I can’t reach it. It’s like it was never there.”

“That is grave news indeed.”

Merlin bit her lip, trying to stave off the despair clutching at her. Until now, she had considered herself the luckiest among the bunch—excepting Arthur, whose curse had not yet manifested itself—but losing her magic was a problem. She needed it, not just to attempt to break this curse but to protect Camelot. What use was she without it? It was only a matter of time before someone tried to kill Arthur for the millionth time, or perhaps his curse would put him in danger somehow, or—

“Merlin, calm yourself,” Gaius said kindly, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm.

“I need to get it back.” She shot up from the bench, starting to pace restlessly. “How do I get it back?”

“By breaking the curse.”

“How? I’d need my magic to do it.”

Gaius sighed and shook his head. “If the curse is powerful enough to steal magic such as yours, I fear that there may not be a counterspell that could break it. You will just have to muddle through and try to find out what lesson you must learn.”

“And that will bring my magic back?”

“That must be our hope.”

Her shoulders sagged as resignation settled over her. “Fine.” She turned and stalked towards the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to check on Arthur.”

Chapter Text

“Go away, Merlin!”

These are the thanks I get for worrying about you?

“Arthur! Open the door!” she called, impatiently knocking again even though he was already alerted to her presence.

“What part of ‘go away’ do you not understand?” came the irate reply from within Arthur’s chambers. “I do not wish to be disturbed!”

“Is this about the curse?” she asked. “I won’t laugh if you’re slowly turning into an ass again. Can’t make any promises if you start braying, though.”

“I’m fine! I just want to be alone.”

“Have it your way. Just let me in so I can grab your laundry.”

“Leave it. Take the evening off.”

Merlin blinked. Those were words she very rarely heard, and though it was obvious that Arthur was hiding something—most likely something curse-related—she decided that she was not going to look a gift day off in the mouth. Given the (relatively) benign nature of the others’ afflictions, it probably would not kill Arthur to spend the night stewing in whatever misery the curse was inflicting on him. Besides, now she could spend the rest of the evening digging through the library in search of anything that might clue her in on what she was supposed to learn from losing her magic on top of being turned into a woman.

“If you insist,” she said. “Just don’t blame me if you can’t find anything clean to wear tomorrow.”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked away.

The following morning, Merlin was relieved to find the king’s door unlocked when she came to wait on him. Sneaking in silently, she set down Arthur’s breakfast on the table before going about her usual turn around the room to pick up stray articles of clothing to toss in the laundry basket. She was just about to draw away the curtains to wake him when a quiet whine drew her attention.

Turning to the bed, she found that Arthur was tossing and turning beneath the covers, his face scrunched up in what looked like agony. As she watched him, he suddenly drew a sharp breath, tensing and grinding his teeth before going limp again with a pained whimper.

She hurried to tug at the curtains, bathing the room in morning light, then she scurried up to the bed and laid a hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

“Arthur, wake up,” she said softly. “It’s just a dream.”

As she gave his shoulder a light shake, he jolted, eyes flying open. The next she knew, her wrist was caught in a vice-like grip while Arthur’s other hand fumbled under his pillow for something.

“Your dagger is in its sheath on your belt,” she said, trying not to wince, “which I found on the floor, by the way.”

Arthur blinked. “M’rlin?” he mumbled.

“Yes, it’s me.” When Arthur threw a look of sleep-addled panic around the room as if searching for something rather than ease his grip on her, she said, “You’re hurting me.”

It took a second for the meaning to sink in, but when it did Arthur immediately let go of her wrist, snatching his hand away. “Sorry. I…”

“Had a bad dream?”

She drew back her arm, rubbing at the sore spot. In her old body, it might not have been quite as painful, but her wrists were a touch more slender now and somehow…squishier. She still had the reasonably fit musculature of someone used to performing the manual labour of a servant, but things like body fat and muscles were somewhat redistributed compared to what she was used to.

Arthur fell back against the pillows, running a hand through his hair to unstick it from his sweat-dappled forehead. “Yeah. God, it felt so real…”

“Want to talk about it?”

Predictably, Arthur shook his head dismissively. “It was just a dream.”

“Maybe that’s your curse,” Merlin quipped. “Bad dreams.”

“Maybe,” Arthur grunted, but he looked vaguely guilty as he said it and did not meet Merlin’s eyes.

Making the assessment that any clues as to Arthur’s real curse were unlikely to be needled out of him before breakfast, Merlin turned away to pick out an outfit from the wardrobe (which, thankfully, still housed plenty of clean clothes despite her not having been allowed to collect the laundry yesterday).

Arthur was still lazing in bed by the time she was finished, so she said, “Come on; up and at ‘em!” and reached for his blankets, starting to pull them away, only for Arthur to startle and drag them right up to his chin again.

“What are you doing?” he squeaked—not that he would ever use that word for the noise he had just made.

Merlin shot him an impatient glare. “Trying to get you out of bed. You have training this morning.” She gave the blankets another tug, but to no avail.

“I’m shirtless.”

“So?”

“So, you’re still a girl, as you so adamantly insisted yesterday.”

She stared at him. “I’m still me, though. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Well, it’s different now.”

Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “Arthur… Are you worried that I’ll be attracted to you?” When he flushed and looked away, she snorted, then burst out laughing at the sight of Arthur’s offended expression. “Oh my God, you are! Wow, that’s a bit arrogant, don’t you think?”

“Excuse m—?”

“Setting aside the fact that nothing’s really changed about me but my looks, you’re not even close to my type.”

“And what sort of exacting standards do you have that not even I live up to them?” Arthur grumbled petulantly.

Kind, brown eyes, Merlin thought, but said, “A good personality, for a start. Now stop acting like a child and get out of bed. I promise I won’t ogle you, nor will the sight of a shirtless man offend my ‘maidenly’ sensibilities.”

With a last roll of his eyes, Arthur acquiesced, flinging the covers aside and getting out of bed. Through some miracle, Merlin did not spontaneously combust when she laid eyes on his bare chest. Imagine that.

Arthur disappeared behind the changing screen to have a quick wash, and Merlin caught his sleeping breeches with practised ease as they were thrown over the screen, stowing them away in the laundry basket.

“Where’s Gwen?” she asked as she readied Arthur tunic for him. “I take it she didn’t sleep here?”

“God, no,” Arthur huffed. “It may be my wife stuck in there, but I’ll not share my bed with a prepubescent boy. Imagine what the court gossip would say.”

“…You may have a point there. Where did she sleep, then?”

“I think they put a pallet in Elyan’s room. Guinevere said something about it being like the good old days when they were children.”

“A family sleepover? Sounds nice.”

As their conversation trailed off, Merlin waited patiently for Arthur to come out from behind the screen. Judging by the sound of it, he was done washing up by now, yet she kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

“Arthur, you haven’t drowned yourself in the washbasin, have you?” she asked after a minor eternity.

“No,” came the curt answer.

“Then come out and let me dress you. You’ll be late to training at this rate.”

“I…can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s— It’s too weird, Merlin—you being a girl. I just can’t.”

She laughed in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. Just toss the clothes over the screen and go fetch George, will you? He can take over for you until you’re back to normal.”

“I’m sorry? You’d rather be stuck with George for the foreseeable future than let someone who has dressed you a thousand times see you naked?”

Arthur stuck his head around the screen then, looking vaguely embarrassed. “It’s not ideal, I’ll give you that, but I’m the king; I can’t have a maidservant!” Upon seeing Merlin’s crestfallen expression, he added, “Don’t give me that look. I’m not sacking you; you’ll have your wages, and you can come back to work when your curse is broken.”

“But that could take ages!”

“Think of it as a vacation; you’re always badgering me about getting one of those. And I’m sure Gaius would appreciate having you around more to assist him.”

Merlin stared at him silently for a long moment as she processed this. On the one hand, it was tempting to take the offer and run before Arthur could change his mind. She could use the break. On the other hand, how was she supposed to protect him if she was being kept at a distance? Although, she had lost her magic… She was not going to be much use to him like this anyway. Perhaps it would be better to get some time to herself so she could concentrate on figuring out the solution to her curse as soon as possible.

“Fine,” she said at length. “Have it your way.” She threw Arthur’s tunic unceremoniously over the back of a chair rather than over the screen as requested. “But don’t come crawling back to me when George starts driving you mental with his pedantry. I’ll see you when I’m a man again.”

She ignored Arthur’s exasperated, “Merlin…” as she strode off towards the door.

Chapter Text

“Come in!”

Merlin opened the door to Elyan’s room to find Young Gwen sitting on the edge of the bed with Young Elyan kneeling on the mattress behind her, plaiting her hair. No, wait— Gwen was plaiting Elyan’s hair. Right. Yes.

“Hello there,” Merlin said, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. “Thought I’d check in on you. Still cursed, I see.”

“As are you,” Elyan commented, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye so as not to have to turn his head and disturb Gwen’s work.

Gwen looked over at her properly, however, smiling warmly. “You make a very pretty girl. If we put you in one of my dresses, you could pass for a princess.”

“I’m just glad getting cursed came with a dress, free of charge,” Merlin laughed. “It was a very thoughtful curse in that regard. My old clothes wouldn’t have fit anymore, and this is much more practical than if I’d had to borrow yours. I don’t know how you stand it, walking around in all that silk all the time. I’d be too worried about spilling something and ruining it to enjoy it.”

“Believe me, I’m not used to it either. I still get nervous every time I eat soup.” She gave Merlin’s dress another once-over and said, “If you stay cursed much longer, I’ll see if I can’t find some of my old dresses to lend you so you at least have a few spares. I haven’t gotten around to giving them away yet. They should fit you well enough, even if you are still a bit taller than I am— Well, than I was. You’re a lot taller than I am right now.”

Merlin nodded gratefully. If she had still had her magic, she could simply have made sure that her only set of feminine clothes stayed clean, but, as it was, she would soon need at least another shift to change into while hers was being laundered.

Other than there being just one of it, she had no real complaints about her new dress. It really did seem like the curse had transformed her into what she would have been like had she been a woman all along, right down to her clothes. The dress was of a simple cut and was made from the same blue wool as the tunic she had worn on their excursion. It even had a little patch on the right sleeve in the exact same spot where she had mended her tunic after catching it on a branch a while back. It felt familiar, even though she was still getting used to the skirts.

“How are you two coping with the changes?” she asked, taking a seat on the bed beside the two siblings.

“It’s awful being Gwen!” Elyan exclaimed. “Ow!” he added when Gwen tugged on a lock of his hair in revenge. “I only meant that if I had to turn into a girl, I’d much rather be myself as a girl than my teenage sister. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to change clothes while keeping your eyes shut? I don’t want to see any of that!”

“He has a point there,” Gwen chuckled, tying off the plait with a ribbon. “It would’ve been easier if we had our own bodies, even if I had still turned into a boy and Elyan a girl.”

“But you still feel like yourselves?” Merlin asked.

“Yeah,” said Elyan. “But… I don’t know. I feel younger, but also the same, but also not?”

Gwen nodded her agreement and fell back onto the mattress, sprawled out on her back. “I know what you mean. I feel like myself, but I also have this urge to jump on the bed. I keep having to remind myself that I’m an adult woman, not a child. I just want to run and play, you know?”

“Then why don’t you?” Merlin asked. “Why not make the most of it and have some fun?”

She shook her head, sighing as she stared up at the ceiling. “I’m the queen. Word of the curse will soon spread through the court, if it hasn’t already. I still have to uphold decorum, even if I look like a little boy.”

There was some sense in what she said, but Merlin could practically see the youthful restlessness simmering within her friend, and she feared that without a nudge out the door, Gwen might decide to stay isolated in this room indefinitely in an attempt to wait out the curse, and that seemed a crying shame.

“Why don’t you come with me to the forest this afternoon?” she asked. “Gaius wants me to pick some herbs for him. You could help me out, and maybe even climb a tree or two with no one around to judge you for letting loose a bit.”

She perked up at this, bounding up to her knees again with sudden vigour. “Oh, we could make it a picnic, and Elyan could come too! Please, Elyan, come with us, it’ll be so much fun! Please, please, plea—” She shut up abruptly, clasping a hand over her mouth in horror. Composing herself, she sat back on her heels and folded her hands neatly in her lap. “I mean, thank you, Merlin, that sounds wonderful. Elyan, would you like to join us?”

Merlin could not help laughing at the display. The studious dignity looked hilariously out of place on a young boy.

Elyan joined in on the laughter too, affectionately tousling Gwen’s short-cropped curls. “Sure, I’ll come too. I think I had better keep an eye on you so you don’t get yourself into trouble, you little scamp. Besides, I don’t have anything better to do, seeing as I’m excused from training until this blows over.”

“Great!” Merlin said, beaming. “This is going to be fun! I’ll pick you up when it’s time to go.”

“I need a volunteer,” Merlin announced as she entered the armoury.

She was pleased to find that the very people she had been looking for—namely Gwaine, Percival and Leon—had lingered there after the morning’s training session had concluded.

Gwaine looked up from the sword he was polishing with a bright smile, mouthing something at her which she did not catch, but which looked cheerful. She just smiled in return.

“What’s the job?” Percival asked, groaning as Leon’s fingers dug into a muscle in his scrawny back. Judging by the smell, Leon was massaging one of Gaius’ salves for sore muscles into Percival’s skin, presumably getting by on touch alone, as he seemed to be blind still.

“I’m taking Gwen and Elyan out to gather herbs. Gwen thinks we need an escort if we’re going into the woods.”

Merlin had shot down the idea at first, reminding them that she often went out for herbs by herself and almost never had any trouble—except when she did—but Gwen had insisted that their odd circumstances left them a bit vulnerable. That had reminded Merlin that she no longer had access to her magic, should she need to defend herself, and suddenly the idea of some additional security had not seemed as superfluous.

“Well, if Elyan is with you…?” Leon said, looking unseeingly in Merlin’s general direction with a slight frown of confusion.

“Elyan currently has the body of a thirteen-year-old girl. His sword is way too heavy for him, and he certainly doesn’t look very intimidating.”

“Right. I almost forgot.”

“I would go with you, but I’m not very intimidating at the moment either,” said Percival, looking forlornly down at his skinny body. “Also, I can barely lift my arms after the drills Arthur put me through this morning. Everything hurts.”

“And I’m not much use to anybody like this,” Leon sighed. “I couldn’t even join training.”

“I think someone wants to volunteer, though,” Percival snorted, looking over at Gwaine.

Gwaine was, indeed, raising his hand rather enthusiastically. Whatever it was he was trying to say was lost on Merlin, however.

“You want to come with?” she asked, lips twitching in amusement when Gwaine nodded eagerly. She tried her best to read his lips as he mouthed something in response, but with little success. “Sorry, come again?”

Huffing in frustration, Gwaine looked around as if searching for something, then put the sword aside and rose to fetch an object from across the room. It proved to be a double-slated, hinged wax tablet of the sort Gaius often used to make notes too unimportant to waste parchment on. After some furious scribbling with the stylus, Gwaine walked up to her and held out the tablet for inspection.

“It would be my honour, my lady.”

“I may be a woman now, but I’m hardly a lady,” Merlin protested, an unladylike snort of amusement supporting her point.

Gwaine grinned and retrieved the tablet to write something else. “Pretty enough,” it read when he held it up for her again.

It was not so different to Gwen’s compliment earlier, yet it brought a light flush to Merlin’s cheeks simply by virtue of coming from Gwaine. She tried to push away any thoughts about how she wished she did not have to turn into a woman in order for Gwaine to pay her that sort of compliment, but it proved futile.

In an effort to deflect attention from the all-too-real effect the words had on her, she put on an exasperated expression and jokingly said, “I should’ve known losing your voice wouldn’t stop your one-liners. Come on, then. You don’t need to be able to speak to protect us from bandits.”

Gwaine chuckled silently and wrote, “Let me wash up.”

“All right. I’ll head down to the kitchens to grab us a picnic basket. Meet us at Elyan’s room when you’re ready?”

“It’s a date!”

Merlin was sure that her blush must have been noticeable as she made her excuses and fled the room—a single thought filling her mind as she hurried down the corridors towards the kitchens.

If only it were…

Gwen’s idea to combine the herb gathering with a picnic was a brilliant one. It was a lovely day for it, and, as Arthur had so kindly made sure that Merlin had an unprecedented amount of free time on her hands, she felt no need to rush through their lunch. She had all afternoon to find the herbs, and there was nowhere she needed to be that evening either, come to think of it. She could get used to this.

Full and sated, she brushed the last crumbs of food off her hands and arranged herself on the picnic blanket to sit with her legs stretched out in front of her, using her arms as support as she leaned back against them to bask in the sun.

She felt utterly at peace as she watched Gwen and Elyan play-fight using sticks as swords a little distance away, looking like they were having the time of their lives. It had taken some doing to convince Gwen to let loose and give in to her childish impulses, and Merlin was very grateful that they had succeeded, for she had not seen Gwen this happy and carefree in ages.

“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” she murmured.

Beside her, Gwaine nodded. His lips were curled into a soft smile and it widened into a silent laugh as Elyan caught the tip of Gwen’s “sword” under his armpit and trapped it there, groaning theatrically as he feigned having received a mortal wound, dramatically falling to his knees without any care of potentially staining his dress.

“It must be weird, suddenly being so young again,” Merlin mused, grinning at Gwen’s jubilant victory pose. “Having all your memories of your adult life, but the body and urges of a child… I’m glad they’re having fun with it, but I wouldn’t want to change my curse for theirs for love nor money.”

Gwaine picked up his wax tablet and jotted something down on it. “And you? Any feminine urges?” it read.

She shrugged. “I told you, I feel much the same as always. The only thing that’s different is my body. And the clothes. I don’t suddenly feel a burning need to take up needlepoint, or whatever it is you imagine girls live for.”

Though she kept her gaze fixed on the playing siblings, she was aware of Gwaine studying her for a moment before writing on the tablet and holding it up in her line of sight.

“You really don’t mind?”

“Why should I?” she replied honestly. “I mean, ask me again if I get stuck like this long enough to get my, um, monthly courses, but so far the biggest annoyance has been dealing with long hair.”

A strand of said hair that had escaped her poor attempt at plaiting blew into her face as if to drive her point home, and she tucked it away behind her ear, making a mental note of readjusting the kerchief she had tied around her head in an attempt to keep it under control—just as soon as she could be arsed to.

“The only real downside is that Arthur is being weird about it, but even that just means that I get a break for the first time in forever.”

Well, there was also the separate issue of her magic being gone, but with Arthur acting even more prattish than usual, it was hard to feel that upset about not being able to protect him at the moment.

“Weird how?” Gwaine wrote.

“He seems convinced that it’s suddenly inappropriate for me to serve him,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not sure if it’s just that he’s too much of a baby to deal with the thought of a pair of breasts being in the same room as him while he takes a bath or if he thinks the court will make assumptions of indecency if he keeps a maidservant—as if I would let Arthur of all people seduce me even if he’d been inclined to try. He seemed a bit worried that I would suddenly start fancying him, actually. You should have seen his face when I told him he isn’t my type.”

If Gwaine’s wide grin and shaking shoulders were anything to go by, he could not only imagine it but found the image extremely amusing. When his hands were steady enough to write legibly, he asked, “What IS your type?”

Merlin could not prevent her eyes from flitting from the tablet and up along the arm that held it, lingering on the outline of firm muscles which the fine linen of Gwaine’s tunic could not entirely obscure, especially not where the slit in the neckline gaped wide open.

As heat bloomed in her cheeks—not for the first time that day—she cursed the fact that the man had chosen to forego his gambeson and mail for this excursion, apparently confident that his sword was all the protection they needed.

She really needed to get this blushing issue under control. Surely she had not blushed this much as a man? Was her new body more prone to it, she wondered, or was it just because she imagined that Gwaine was paying more attention to her in this body?

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she quipped after a pause that lasted just a second too long.

“Maybe I would,” came the answer, accompanied by a cheeky wink.

She turned her gaze back to Gwen and Elyan, who were still playing in the distance. This is temporary, she reminded herself, biting at the inside of her cheek to keep her emotions in check. Even if he means what I’d like him to mean, he’s only flirting because I look different now. If he’s actually interested, then it’s in this body, not in me, and even if it could eventually grow into something deeper, there’s no point when I could turn back at any moment.

She felt a pang of disappointment at the thought of eventually turning back into her old self, and she realised with a start that when she had been asked the previous day if she had secretly wanted to be a woman all along it had not been entirely truthful to say no. She had thought about it before all this, if only once or twice in passing as she wondered if, perhaps, she would have had a chance with Gwaine if she had been born a girl.

Well, now she was one, and Gwaine was flirting with her. Probably. She was sorely tempted to play along to find out for sure, but the thought of what it would mean for them if it actually went anywhere only for the curse to break gave her pause.

Come to think of it, did it have to break…? But no, she needed her magic back. Unless she could break just half of the curse? No, it was ridiculous to think like this. She had a destiny to think about—that needed to be her main focus. Besides, Gwaine had never given her the impression of being the type to settle, and she did not want to be just another conquest. Although, he had quit his roaming life to settle down in Camelot and had given no indication of regretting that decision so far…

Forcing herself to stop thinking too closely about all these confusing desires and what-ifs, she returned to the question posed to her, wetting her lips before saying, “I want what anyone wants in a partner: kindness and respect. Suppose it doesn’t hurt if they’re pleasing to look at, though.”

She observed Gwaine closely out of the corner of her eye, keeping a special lookout for any reaction to her intentional vagueness in regards to the gender of her hypothetical suitor. Admitting to an interest in men might seem safe while in the guise of a woman, but she had made a point of the fact that she did not feel any differently from her old self, so it would be just as much an admission of having liked men while she had been one, and while that sort of thing was not, strictly speaking, prohibited, it was not commonly flaunted either.

Gwaine just nodded sagely, a warm smile on his face. Then a thought seemed to strike him, and he chuckled quietly and wrote, “So the OPPOSITE of Arthur.”

She burst out laughing, relaxing a little. “Exactly.”

They settled into a comfortable silence for a while after that, content to watch Gwen climb a tree while Elyan shouted encouragements at her from the ground. Gwaine busied his hands with erasing his side of their conversation with the flat end of the stylus, scraping at the wax on the tablet until it was smooth enough to carry new words.

“What about your curse?” Merlin asked eventually. “Any ideas as to what you’re supposed to learn?”

A sheepish grimace twisted Gwaine’s features at that, and he nodded even as he shrugged haplessly. “Shut up,” he wrote. When she raised an eyebrow, he hurried to point to himself and mouth, “Me, not you.”

“You think you need to shut up more?” she asked.

“I’m annoying,” he wrote.

Frowning, she sat up a little straighter and turned to face him better. “You’re not.”

“I am. Told you people get sick of me.”

“And I told you I didn’t. Still haven’t.” When Gwaine seemed unconvinced by this, she reached out and laid a hand on his knee, fixing him with an earnest look. “I enjoy talking to you. Often it’s the highlight of my day, running into you in the corridors, and patrols are always so boring if you’re not there to help while away the time with your stories.”

Gwaine ducked his head, glancing up at her almost shyly. It was not hard to read the word, “Really?” on his lips.

“Really. And today has been very nice too. You’re good company whether or not you talk, so if I were you I would get back to the drawing board when it comes to breaking your curse, because just shutting up more sure doesn’t sound like the right lesson to me.”

There was a hint of vulnerability in the small smile Gwaine gave her at this reassurance, and she privately vowed that the next time she heard any of their friends make a joke about him talking too much she would hex them into next week. That alone was cause to regain her magic as soon as possible.

“Thank you,” Gwaine mouthed.

Almost hesitantly, he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She had barely noticed it tickling her face, but the light brush of Gwaine’s fingers against her cheek and ear felt like a brand upon her skin for several seconds after he had retrieved his hand again. Dazed as she was by the tender gesture, she did not quite follow what Gwaine tried to say next.

“‘Deed…kelp with sack?’” was her best guess.

Gwaine dissolved into quiet laughter at her vain efforts at lip reading and reached for the wax tablet again. “Need help with that?” he clarified, pointing to her hair.

Her hand flew to the back of her neck where a cursory touch was enough to tell her that her plait was a loose mess by now with half the hair sticking out of it, and the kerchief was well on its way to sliding off completely.

“Damn,” she groaned. “I thought I knew how to plait after all those years of helping my mother do it, but it’s so much harder when it’s behind your own head.”

“Let me.”

“You know how to plait hair?” she asked, visualising Gwaine putting plaits into his own hair. It was not a displeasing image.

“Helped my sister.”

“Oh. All right, go on then. It’ll drive me crazy when we’re picking herbs otherwise.”

Gwaine grinned so excitedly that one would have been forgiven for thinking that she was doing him a favour by allowing him to help her out. He reached for a pouch on his belt and drew a comb out of it.

“You just carry that around with you wherever you go?” she laughed, pulling the kerchief off her head.

Gwaine shrugged and ran the comb through his own hair a couple of times, half in demonstration of its purpose and half to undo any damage the light breeze had done to his perfect coiffure over the course of the picnic.

“Fair enough,” Merlin conceded and turned around to present the back of her head to Gwaine, gathering her skirts around her to sit cross-legged.

He wasted no time in kneeling behind her to undo the blue ribbon (which was fighting for its life not to slip off the ends of her hair) before separating the mussed-up strands of her plait. It was immediately clear that he had been telling the truth about having done this before, for he was incredibly gentle as he started combing through her hair—far gentler than she herself had been when rushing through the unfamiliar chore that morning. There was nary a tug, even when he worked out the tangles that Merlin had simply given up on as she had been in a hurry to pick up Arthur’s breakfast.

It felt oddly intimate to have someone do this for her, especially with that someone being Gwaine. She caught herself holding her breath a few times without a clear idea why, and this problem only grew worse when he moved on to partitioning her hair into sections for the plait. He seemed to be going for something more complicated than what Merlin had settled for, and the feeling of his fingertips dragging across her scalp sent a thrill down her spine which made her breath stutter in her chest.

It was torture to have to sit there and try to hide how much she enjoyed the feeling of strong hands running through her hair with such uncharacteristic gentleness, yet she would have killed anyone who dared interrupt them. Every so often, Gwaine’s hands would brush against the skin of her brow or temple as he worked a complex plait into her hairline on the left side of her head, and every time it happened she had to subdue a shiver.

She did not realise that her eyes had fluttered closed somewhere along the process until the sensation of Gwaine touching her left hand startled her out of her trance. She looked down to see his hand curl gently around hers where it rested in her lap before lifting it up to the back of her head to press against the plait there, just beside the spot where he was pinching her hair to keep the plait from unravelling. She almost withdrew her hand before she recovered from the surprise and realised what was being requested of her.

“Hold here?” she asked.

Gwaine, naturally, had no easy way of confirming this without reaching for his tablet again, but his free hand fell to her shoulder, squeezing it once, which Merlin interpreted as a yes.

“All right.”

Satisfied that she had a good grip on the section of hair, Gwaine’s hands moved on to the other side of her head to repeat the procedure with just as much focus and care as the first time around.

Having a task to keep at least one of her hands busy helped her relax somewhat, and her breathing came a little easier than before despite the experience being no less thrilling. She absentmindedly watched Gwen’s tree-climbing escapades with half-seeing eyes, focusing on keeping her grip on the plait while revelling in the feeling of deft fingers working along her right temple.

Before too long, she was relieved of her hair-holding duty as Gwaine was ready to join the two plaits into one at the back of her head, and she returned her hand to her lap, resisting the urge to clench it in the fabric of her skirts. She failed in this endeavour when she felt the light brush of Gwaine’s knuckles against the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck, and she could only bite her lip and pray that he did not notice the shiver running through her at the contact.

And then—after an eternity and all too soon—it was over. The plait was tied off at her mid-back and Gwaine ran his fingers along it a few times to make sure everything was secure.

As Merlin noted him sitting back to admire his handiwork, she shot him a grateful smile over her shoulder and raised her hand to gingerly pat at her hair, trying to explore the results without disturbing the careful array. If only she had had a mirror to be able to fully appreciate the fruits of Gwaine’s labour.

“Thank you,” she said, shuffling around a bit on the blanket to face her friend again. “It feels…good. Um. Very secure. Well done.”

Gwaine was already writing on his tablet. When he turned it around, it was to show a single word pressed into the wax.

“Beautiful.”

“I’m sure it is.”

Something like fond exasperation crossed over Gwaine’s face, and he chuckled silently, lightly shaking his head as he parted his lips to mouth something at her.

He was interrupted by the sound of cracking wood from across the glade, followed by a high-pitched yelp and a pained grunt.

“Gwen! Are you okay?”

They both turned their heads to look over at the siblings, only to find that Gwen was no longer climbing the tree but lying in the grass beneath it, a frantic Elyan kneeling by her side. Sharing a look of concern, they jumped to their feet and rushed over in time to see Gwen sit up, ashamedly wiping at her eyes.

“I’m fine, Ely,” she said obstinately, but then her eyes caught on a rip in her sleeve where it must have caught on a branch during her fall and her bottom lip started wobbling. “Oh no! Dad will be so cross!”

“It’s all right,” Elyan hurried to reassure her. “It’s a clean tear; I’ll have that mended in no time! He won’t even be able to tell it was ever there.”

Gwen smiled shakily as she looked up at her brother who was wearing her face, making to speak before her eyes widened and something shifted behind her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “Dad’s no longer with us, is he?”

Elyan blinked. “And I can’t mend clothes to save my life.”

As years of briefly-forgotten memories settled over them again, the siblings exchanged a look laden with emotion, and Merlin realised that she had just gotten a brief glimpse into their childhood, only with the roles reversed.

Gwen had once told her that she had practically raised her little brother after their mother died, looking after him while their father worked and cooking for the whole family as soon as she was old enough to be trusted with fire. How many scraped knees and torn clothes must she not have patched up over the years? How many times had she abandoned her work to come to Elyan’s aid after he had played a little too roughly, while having no time to play herself, a child though she was?

Elyan sighed, standing up and reaching out a hand to his sister. “Come on, up you go.”

She took it gratefully, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

“Are you injured?” Merlin asked, finally remembering her training as a physician.

“Just a couple of bruises, I think,” Gwen replied, dusting herself off. “I wasn’t that high off the ground and children’s bodies are surprisingly hardy.”

“Do you want to go home?” asked Elyan.

“No, I’m fine. I’m all played out for today, though. Let’s pick some herbs.”

Merlin nodded, and they started walking back towards the blanket. Looking down at Gwen, she smiled and said, “It looked like you were having fun—until the fall, that is.”

She chuckled and rubbed at her neck, looking a little embarrassed of her childish conduct now that her adult self was back in control. “It was,” she confessed. “Did you know that I’ve never climbed a tree before?”

“What, never?” Elyan exclaimed.

“Not that I can recall. I was always so busy…”

He stared at her in mute shock as she knelt on the blanket and started gathering up the remains of their picnic. A moment later, he shook himself out of it and fell to his knees beside her. “Here, let me help you with that.”

Over their heads, Merlin and Gwaine briefly caught one another’s eye, exchanging a smile before fondly looking back down at their young friends.

The rest of the afternoon was spent picking herbs. Merlin could not remember ever having enjoyed the chore so much, and she could stow away her kerchief in her basket as her new plaits kept the hair out of her face admirably.

Not until she was preparing herself for bed that night did she notice the flower stuck into the end of the plait, and she was struck by the realisation that the green ribbon in her hair was not the same one that she had put in it that morning. Where her blue ribbon had ended up, she had no idea.

Chapter Text

Merlin was no stranger to complaining about her workload, but it was not until she was relieved of it that she was hit by the full extent of just how much of her time it ate up. Sure, Gaius took advantage of her newfound availability by making her run errands for him and assist him with patients and potion-making, but even that still left her with loads of free time when compared to the never-ending work of a servant.

To be fair, she suspected that Gaius was giving her quite a bit less to do than if she had truly been his apprentice full and proper—not just to give her space to work on breaking the curse but likely because he knew this was her first real break in years. It had been sorely needed, she realised.

In between assisting Gaius and researching morality curses, she often found herself drifting around the citadel, deep in thought. She often did some of her best thinking on her feet, albeit because she had rarely had time to sit down much before this.

On one of her aimless walks, she ended up by the training grounds and decided that she might as well watch the knights train while she ate the apple she had meant to have for lunch but had ended up absent-mindedly toting around half the castle instead, all but forgotten.

She took a seat on a bench on the outskirts of the field, biting into the apple as she observed the goings-on. The heat of the day had driven most of the knights to forego their mail, and even in their shirtsleeves it looked like sweaty work. Arthur was nowhere in sight and instead Leon seemed to be in charge of training, shouting instructions at the men as he ran them through their standard drills. Percival stood by the sidelines as well rather than participating, saying something to the still blind Leon every now and then, prompting him to call out for a particular knight or other to improve his stance or mind his footwork.

Gwaine broke formation the second he spotted Merlin, waving cheerfully to her. She waved back, then laughed when Leon shouted for him to focus up. Even at this distance, Merlin could tell that the silent word Gwaine directed at Percival before complying was, “Traitor.”

A minute later—perhaps as an apology to Gwaine—Percival whispered something else to Leon, whereupon he nodded and called out, “All right, good work, men! Take five minutes of rest, then get back at it!”

Gwaine wasted no time in jogging up to Merlin while Percival followed at a slower pace, guiding Leon with a light hand at his elbow. In her inexpert opinion, the greeting Gwaine mouthed at her as he reached her looked to be something along the lines of, “Hello, you.”

“Hello to you too,” she said after swallowing a mouthful of apple, looking up at Gwaine with a smile. “Good session?”

He started saying something, but when he saw the incomprehension in her eyes he faltered, looking back towards the citadel before sighing and miming writing something on the palm of his hand while he shook his head.

“Don’t have your tablet with you? Well, I should probably practise my lip-reading skills anyway. We’ll make do.”

Gwaine smiled brilliantly at her before saying something inaudible, his mouth curling around the syllables with exaggerated care.

With some concentration, she managed to decipher it to mean, “‘Grand so?’”

He nodded proudly, taking a seat beside her on the bench.

Their friends caught up with them then, and Merlin said, “I’m surprised to see you leading the training, Leon. How come?”

“Apparently Arthur is indisposed. He hasn’t joined us for training since that first day after getting cursed.”

“But it’s been four days. That’s not like him.”

“He hasn’t been to council either. I was hoping you would know why?”

“No, I haven’t talked to him since having my vacation forced upon me…” A frown etched itself into her brow as she realised that she had not even seen Arthur in days—not even a brief glimpse around the castle. Gwen had bemoaned the fact that he was avoiding her as well, come to think of it, though she had blamed that fact on her curse making things awkward between them. “Has anyone seen him outside his chambers at all?”

They all answered in the negative.

“Think he’s sick?” Percival asked.

“I doubt it. George is too much of a stickler for procedure not to tattle to Gaius if that were the case. My guess would be that he’s too embarrassed by his curse—whatever it is. It must be something he doesn’t want the court to see.”

“Perhaps you could speak to George about it?” Leon suggested. “Maybe he can give us some clue as to what the curse is, at least.”

She sighed and took another bite from the apple, speaking around it as she muttered, “Yeah, I’ll do that… Can’t promise I can get the prat to let us help with the curse, though. He can be worse than a cat that got its claws stuck in a barley sack when it comes to accepting assistance.”

She could feel Gwaine’s silent laughter shaking the bench they sat on, and even Leon smiled at the joke.

“Do what you can,” he said. “The sooner he resumes his duties, the better for the kingdom. And without my eyesight, I can only do so much when it comes to training the men.”

“Looks like you’re doing a great job, all things considered. You and Percival work well together.”

Percival ducked his head. “I’m just his eyes, is all.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she protested. “You have a keen eye, and from what I’ve caught from over here, you seem to have many insightful observations on the men’s performance.”

Blinking in surprise, Percival asked, “Really?”

“Really.”

“I agree,” Leon said. “I couldn’t do this without your help. Now, I think it’s time to get back to work. Keep an eye on Sir Brennis’ form for me, will you? He’s been sloppy since coming back from his injury.”

Smiling excitedly, Percival started guiding Leon back to the centre of the training grounds, shouting, “Break’s over!” at the men lounging in a shaded spot at the other side of the field.

Merlin turned her head to look at Gwaine, who was making no move to get up from his comfortable spot on the bench. “You heard him; no more lazing about,” she teased, bumping her shoulder against his.

He grinned conspiratorially and pointed to Leon before covering his eyes with his hand, saying something which the gestures helped her interpret as, “Leon won’t notice.” He finished it off by holding a finger in front of his lips as if asking for her discretion in the matter.

She chuckled and whispered, “My lips are sealed. It’s Percival you have to worry about.”

As if on cue, Percival chose that moment to look back at them and yell, “That includes you, Gwaine!”

Groaning inaudibly, Gwaine shook his head in resignation. Instead of immediately getting up, however, he reached out and wrapped his hand gently around Merlin’s wrist, his thumb rubbing lightly over the pulse point. As she froze, he took advantage of her surprise by ducking in to steal a bite right out of the apple in her hand before bounding to his feet with a triumphant smile, chewing smugly on the ill-gotten spoils of his trickery.

“Oi!” She levelled an affronted glare at him, the effect of which was probably undercut by the fact that she could not keep the laughter out of her voice as she cried, “You owe me for that!”

He just laughed silently, shooting her an unrepentant wink over his shoulder. As he made his way towards the other knights who were reluctantly stepping back into the summer sun, Merlin noticed him removing something that had been tied around his wrist. He raised his arms and brushed his hair back, gathering it into a small ponytail and tying it up as well as the length allowed with…a blue ribbon.

It took a second for the implication to register with Merlin, but when it did she hurried to reach back to pull her plait around to her front to inspect it. Her eyes widened as she belatedly realised that the green ribbon tying it together (perfectly securely, courtesy of Gwen’s assistance that morning) was actually suspiciously reminiscent of the one Gwaine usually used to tie his hair up during training, meaning that the blue one he was now using was almost definitely hers.

Perhaps he had mixed them up while plaiting her hair on the day of their picnic, accidentally using his own out of habit? But would he not then have noticed the mistake when he pocketed the wrong one? Unless he had switched them on purpose?

Her stomach made a somersault at the idea of Gwaine putting his own ribbon in her hair as a…a token while openly wearing hers around his wrist—perhaps out of convenience should he need it, like now, or perhaps just waiting for her to notice…

She swallowed and looked up, searching out Gwaine among the knights who had resumed their training under Leon’s instructions and Percival’s watchful eye. Already, some of Gwaine’s hair had escaped the confines of the ribbon and fallen forward to frame his face. Tying it up only really served to keep it off his neck, helping him stay a little cooler, for not all of it was long enough to reach the ribbon at the back of his head or to stay put in it for long.

Turning back to the ribbon in her own hair, she ran the ends of it between her fingers, pondering its meaning. Assuming that it had been intentional, was this gesture just a device pulled from Gwaine’s extensive seduction kit, or was it meant to signify something deeper? Given his status as a knight, wearing a token of hers was almost like wearing her favour—albeit one given unknowingly—and that steered the whole situation dangerously close to proper courting.

But surely Gwaine did not want to actually court her? Sure, his flirting had grown more and more blatant during the past couple of days, but he knew as well as she did that this was temporary—that she would turn back into her regular old self at some point. What did he plan to do then? And even in the extremely unlikely event that he would want to court Merlin as a man—if he was actually capable of attraction to her male form, which he had never given any indication of—it was just not done. Not openly, at least…

No, it was much more likely that he simply wanted sex, maybe not for just a single night, but not beyond the duration of the curse either. Perhaps that ought to insult her, but she was not so blind as to doubt that Gwaine cared deeply for her as a friend—be she male or female. If he was prepared to actively pursue her, then he must believe that their friendship was strong enough to survive the physical aspect of their relationship inevitably coming to an end. She knew him too well to think that he would ever use her and forget her as soon as the fun was over. Their friendship was much too important to him for that.

But even if Gwaine was confident that they could remain friends afterwards, she did not know if her heart could take it. Obviously, she knew that people were often intimate with their friends (or total strangers) with no expectations of permanence; the servants in the citadel loved nothing more than to gossip about it. She had even had a couple of hurried trysts with a stable boy or two herself—well, himself, at the time—and, on one memorable occasion, a scullery maid, but she had been nowhere near as closely acquainted with them as she was with Gwaine, and she had not had feelings for them.

It seemed to her that getting a taste of the forbidden fruit only to have to go back to watching it dangle just out of reach again would be torture. And yet…it seemed just as torturous to keep denying herself when she knew—or was reasonably sure, at least—that the sweetness she so craved was finally within her reach, if only for a limited time.

Seized by the irresistible urge to lay eyes on Gwaine in the vain hope that it would help her make sense of the situation, she refocused her glassy gaze and turned it to the training field once more, only to see—

Oh, you shameless rake!

Perhaps she should have expected to find that Gwaine had discarded his sweaty tunic in favour of training bare-chested—he did it all the time, after all, much to Arthur’s annoyance—but this time he knew that she was watching as a spectator, not just hovering by the sidelines to pass Arthur his weapons like she normally did. This time, it felt like he was putting on a show for her benefit.

And what a show it was. Though torn between amusement and exasperation at his brazen peacocking, she could not deny that it had the intended effect on her. What, was she not supposed to enjoy the sight of rippling muscles beneath sweat-glistening skin? Come on. She had been sneaking peeks for years while pretending to sort through the weapon racks or polishing armour; the only difference now was that she was encouraged to look.

Perhaps it would have been better for her resolve and sanity if she did not, but the temptation was too strong, and she was driven not only by lust but curiosity as she felt the stirrings of arousal in her loins. It was a somewhat different experience in this body, and the small portion of her brain that was not busy admiring the swell of Gwaine’s biceps as he swung his sword was observing her body’s reaction to the display of strength and skill with almost clinical fascination.

The heat pooling in her groin was familiar to her, but of course the results were not as visually extreme as in her old body. A thrill ran through her at the realisation that an onlooker would have no clue as to her arousal apart from the flush in her cheeks, which could easily be blamed on the sun. There was no cock to tent her clothes and give the game away if she let herself get carried away by desire—no erection that needed to be obscured or willed away lest it make anyone around her uncomfortable.

As long as she kept her outward demeanour impassive, she could drink her fill of the enticing sight before her, and no one would be any the wiser unless they stuck a hand up her skirt and felt how slick she was growing between her legs as she let herself indulge in the fantasies she usually had to keep at bay.

She felt a dull throb of excitement in her groin at the thought of Gwaine’s hand doing just that, smoothing up along the soft inside of her thigh until he reached the dark curls covering her sex, slipping his fingers between her folds before plunging into the wet heat of her cun—

Gwaine’s eyes met hers from across the field and she almost jumped out of her skin. Instantly filled with the fear that her every dirty thought was writ plain in her expression after all, she immediately averted her eyes, her face burning as she snatched her hand away from the green ribbon which she had absent-mindedly been toying with all the while.

Suddenly self-conscious, she crossed her legs out of some old instinct to hide her arousal, which proved a mistake because oh, that actually felt quite good, especially if she clenched—

Nope!

Her legs fell open again as she bit at her lip and reminded herself that some (more or less) innocent ogling was one thing, but actively chasing pleasure in public was quite another, especially if Gwaine was watching her.

Painstakingly hauling her mind out of the gutter, she sprang up from the bench, awkwardly smoothing down her skirts. Only then did she realise that she had dropped her half-eaten, wholly forgotten apple when she had startled. If her expression had not given her away to Gwaine, that had surely done the trick.

Cursing her traitorous libido, she bent down to retrieve the apple before turning on her heel and hurrying away towards the citadel without daring to look back at the knights even once. She had better things to be doing, such as giving the apple a rinse before finishing it so as not to waste food and finding George to start untangling Arthur’s curse, for example—the latter of which she probably ought to have been giving a little more precedence these past couple of days.

Chapter Text

Speaking with George had cleared up exactly nothing about Arthur’s curse. All he had been able to tell Merlin was that the king had let him dress him only that first day, and that all subsequent interactions between servant and master had consisted solely of food and chamberpots and the like being passed through a barely-ajar door when absolutely necessary. The brief glimpses George had caught of him through the crack in the door had not given him cause to fear that the king’s ailment was physical as he had looked healthy enough, if, perhaps, a bit tired. The only thing of note that he could report was a faint smell of smoke wafting through the door at one point.

More concerned than ever, Merlin had marched straight to Arthur’s chambers to confront him. If he was dressing himself, then something was really wrong. The absolute prick had refused to let her through the door, though, just telling her that he was fine and to go away at increasing volumes until he had finally threatened to have her banished if she did not piss off that instant.

She was pissed off, all right, and as blasting the door to smithereens with her (currently missing) magic was not an option, she left in a right huff, pettily leaving him to stew in the pigsty that his chambers must surely resemble after four days of neglect. Perhaps the wisest course of action was to retreat and try again the next day with a cool head and a new and improved plan instead of standing in front of a locked door, hurling insults that probably would have gotten any other servant banished, in all honesty.

The only thing saving her from going to bed with a frown on her face that night was what awaited her when she got back to her room. On her bedside table sat an apple atop a note reading, “Sorry for making you drop yours. —G.”

Of course, this still resulted in her lying awake far too long, studying the charming gesture from every possible angle and dissecting the way it made her feel—emotionally and physically.

The next morning saw her wake with a renewed determination to get to the bottom of the Arthur mystery once and for all. Realising that she would need to be strategic in her approach, she set course for the knights’ quarters first rather than heading straight to Arthur’s chambers.

Gwen’s voice called, “Come in!” when she knocked on Elyan’s door.

She let herself in, and to her pleased surprise she was met with the sight of the decidedly grown-up siblings separating from a hug, smiling and wiping at their glistening eyes as they turned to her.

“You’re adults again!” she exclaimed. “Are you yourselves too?”

Gwen nodded happily. “Our own bodies and everything.”

“You figured out your lessons, then?”

Elyan looked to his sister with wistful affection. “I think I needed the reminder of just how much Gwen has given up for me. Because of her, I got to have a childhood, but it came at the cost of her own, and how did I repay her? By abandoning her and letting her grieve our father alone. I never thanked her enough for everything she’s done for me, and for welcoming me back, despite it all.”

“Of course I did,” she said, reaching out to take his hand. “You’re my brother, Elyan! I love you.”

“And I love you, my sister. I’ll do better to show it in future, and to take care of you, for a change.”

Merlin beamed at the touching scene. “Was that the whole of it, or was there something you needed to learn too, Gwen?”

Her smile turned a little sheepish and she bit her lip before confessing, “I think I just needed to let loose a little. I never had much time to play as a child, and now that I’m queen I’ve been so preoccupied playing that role to perfection to make the court forget their reservations about my common background. I had such a great time with Elyan these past days that it reminded me of just how long it has been since I did something just for the fun of it.”

“Let’s have more of that in the future, yeah?”

“Definitely.”

“What about you?” Elyan asked. “Any ideas about your lesson?”

Merlin blinked, realising with a trace of shame that lately she had been thinking more about what it would mean for her and Gwaine—not that there was a them—if the curse was broken than about how to break it. In fact, she was becoming increasingly hard-pressed to remember the arguments for ever breaking it.

“Ah, no, not really…” she said, chuckling uneasily. “Most of the stories I’ve come across in my research tell of men being cursed to take the form of a woman because they wronged one or disrespected the entire sex as a whole. And, well… I, uh, hope I wasn’t the kind of guy who would do that and not even notice…?”

Gwen shook her head and reached out to give Merlin a reassuring pat on the arm. “Don’t worry, you never gave me cause to think of you as anything other than a perfect gentleman. I’m sure it’s not that.”

Merlin nodded gratefully. A small voice in the back of her head piped up with the reminder that there was one woman she had wronged, but her failings with regard to Morgana had nothing to do with her gender, so she doubted that was it. If anything, it was more likely that losing her magic was punishment for pretending that she had none when Morgana most needed a peer to confide in…

Shaking herself out of this maudlin line of thought, she said, “The search goes on, then, but it’s not my curse that worries me at the moment. It’s Arthur’s.”

Both Gwen and Elyan grew immediately serious.

“Is he in trouble?” Elyan asked.

“Have you spoken to him?” was Gwen’s question. “He will not let me see him.”

“He’s not seeing anyone,” Merlin sighed. “Even George isn’t allowed to enter his chambers. Whatever his curse is, I bet it’s what’s causing his reclusiveness. I was hoping you would help me convince him to tell us what’s wrong so we can help, Gwen.”

“Of course, I’ll do anything in my power.”

“Then let’s go talk to him.”

“Arthur? It’s me. Will you open the door?”

Gwen and Merlin waited breathlessly for a reply, their ears pressed to the door to Arthur’s chambers, listening after the slightest sound.

After a moment, Arthur’s voice called back, “…Elyan?”

Gwen huffed a small laugh. “No, it’s Gwen. Our curse finally broke; I’m my old self again.”

A shuffle could be heard from inside the room and Arthur’s voice sounded slightly closer as he said, “I’m relieved to hear it.”

“I’m worried about you, though. Would you let me in, please?”

A pause, then, “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I just…can’t. It’s not safe.”

“Not safe for whom?”

“You.”

Merlin frowned at that, deciding to speak up. “Is your curse making you violent?”

She was fairly sure that she heard Arthur grumble, “Oh, great. Merlin’s here too,” before raising his voice to say, “Not…as such, no.”

“But you might accidentally hurt us?” Gwen asked.

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

“I— I can’t tell you.”

Merlin and Gwen exchanged a look that was equal parts concerned and frustrated.

Taking a step back, Gwen put her hands on her hips and said, “Arthur Pendragon! When I married you, I vowed to stand by you in sickness or in health, for better or for worse, but I can’t do that if you won’t let me. Now, if you won’t open this door I’ll have Elyan fetch his old tools and disassemble it bit by bit. Whatever you’re hiding, I’m not afraid. Merlin and I can handle ourselves, so just let us in so we can help you!”

For a long moment, there was only silence from within, but, at long last, Merlin heard the sound of the bolt being drawn aside.

Finally.

She allowed Gwen the honour of opening the door, which she did with only the briefest hesitation before tentatively stepping inside. When Merlin followed, it was to find the chambers in a state of such disarray that she could not take it all in at once. It was so much worse than she had imagined it would be, even knowing that they had been exposed to five uninterrupted days of Arthur’s negligent treatment.

As she had expected, there were articles of clothing strewn all over, but, more notably, the chairs that usually surrounded the dinner table were also scattered across the room, many of them broken. The table itself had been tipped over and carelessly shoved to the side of the room, bearing several scorch marks and stains, as did the walls and several of the curtains that were drawn in front of the windows, shrouding the room in twilight. The only source of light besides what little filtered in around the edges of the curtains was a glowing orb of cold, white light hovering near the ceiling in the centre of the room, drawing the attention of both Merlin and Gwen.

“I can’t get rid of it,” a small voice said. “It only goes out when I try to sleep.”

They looked over to see Arthur pressed up against the wall on the farthest side of chambers, separated from them by both his bed and his desk. There was no way he could have gotten all the way over there in the seconds between his unlocking the door and their entering.

Arthur looked as much a mess as his chambers. His tunic was on inside out, his hair was tousled and greasy, and the dark circles beneath his eyes spoke of many nights of restless or insufficient sleep. Apart from the obvious weariness, he looked to be in decent health physically, but there was a wild look of dread and desperation in his hollow eyes.

“Oh, Arthur…” Gwen breathed, hurriedly walking towards her husband.

Arthur’s hand shot up in a warning gesture and he exclaimed, “No, stay back!”

Even at this distance, it was impossible to miss the bright flash of gold in Arthur’s eyes as an invisible force pushed Gwen back several yards, her feet dragging across the floor. Merlin reacted just in time to step behind her and catch her before she could topple over backwards. Instead, Gwen’s back slammed into her chest with enough force to punch the breath out of them both.

Ow, my bloody tits! Merlin thought, but elected not to comment aloud on this newfound vulnerability of her feminine body, instead focusing on helping Gwen regain her balance as they both stared at Arthur.

“I’m sorry!” he said, taking half a step towards them before faltering and backing away again, pressing his back against the wall. “I didn’t mean to! I would never—! Forgive me, Guinevere.”

Gwen closed her gaping mouth with a click, wetting her lips before saying, “It’s all right. I’m fine, Arthur. You didn’t hurt me.”

“You have magic,” Merlin said bluntly.

“It’s the curse. It was just little things at first, but it’s spiralling out of control. You should go; it’s not safe to be around. I’m not safe.”

Merlin’s mind was awhirl with thoughts and emotions after this revelation, initially struck by the fear that this would only harden Arthur’s heart further against magic. He was clearly terrified of the power within him. Upon further reflection, however, she wondered if this might not be the best thing that could have possibly happened.

If her guess as to what lesson the curse was trying to impart on Arthur was correct, then there were only two possible outcomes. If he learned to accept magic—to see that it could be a force for good—it could very well lead to his lifting the ban and returning magic to the land. If he did not, the curse probably would not break, leaving him with no choice but to learn how to control the magic within him. With a little luck, getting it under control would help him learn not to fear it, which, in turn, might eventually open his eyes to the fact that merely having magic was not a source of corruption, thus (hopefully) leading to ultimate acceptance as well.

Hope welled up within her with such force that it was a struggle not to tear up. She had not felt this optimistic about fulfilling her destiny in years. How ironic that it was not her magic but Arthur’s that might be the key to the prophesied future she had so long hoped for.

She could not entirely quell the smile spreading across her face, but she tried to make it look reassuring rather than giddy as she strode up to the nearest window and parted the curtains.

“No!” Arthur cried. The curtains drew themselves right back into place. “Someone outside might see the light.”

“No, they won’t,” Merlin said confidently. “I’m helping you get rid of it.”

“How?”

“Just…trust me, all right?”

Arthur looked like he wanted to argue, but Gwen said, “Let her, Arthur. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Arthur nodded. He stayed frozen in his spot as Merlin moved around the room, letting some much-needed sunlight into the musty chambers, but when Merlin moved to part the curtains of the last window behind the desk, he scrambled along the wall to put more space between them, squinting against the brightness of the sun.

“Relax, Arthur,” she said with a disarming smile. “If you don’t want to hurt me, you won’t. You have more control of the magic than you think.”

“You sound very sure.”

“I am.” She threw the last curtains open, then turned around and nodded towards the middle of the room where Gwen was still lingering uncertainly. “See? The magic light is gone.”

Both Gwen and Arthur looked up in surprise at the empty spot where the glowing orb had been only moments earlier.

“How?” Arthur asked.

“I’m guessing the magic acts according to your emotions—reacting to your wants and needs. Letting in the sun meant that you didn’t need the additional light, and so it went out.”

Arthur stared at her in astonishment. “Did you know that would work?”

She shrugged. “It’s what happened to the light you summoned in the cave. It disappeared as soon as we got out into the sunlight, didn’t it? And you said the light only goes out when you try to sleep—in other words: when you need it to be dark.”

“Oh.” Arthur blinked dumbly a couple of times. “That’s actually almost clever of you, Merlin.”

“It’s very clever,” Gwen corrected him, cautiously stepping a little closer to them both.

“Why thank you, Gwen.”

“But if it acts on my desires, why would it attack Guinevere?” Arthur asked, still pressed against the wall in the corner of the room.

“It didn’t,” Merlin explained patiently. “You were trying to protect her by pushing her away from what you believed to be the danger: yourself. You just lack the skill to control how much power you put into the spell.”

“I appreciate the sentiment?” Gwen quipped, gingerly taking a seat on the side of the four-poster bed (which had very obviously not been made in days).

Arthur took a deep breath, relaxing minutely. “Right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it at all.”

“That too will get easier to control with a little practice.”

“Practice?” Arthur said, raising a sceptical eyebrow. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Merlin, but I’m the King of Camelot. I can’t exactly be seen practising magic.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Arthur,” she huffed, sitting down beside Gwen on the bed, “but you’re going to be seen doing it if you don’t practise control at the very least. You’re going to have to go out in public sooner or later, seeing as you’re the King of Camelot.”

“She’s right, you know,” Gwen said. “People will have noticed your sudden disappearance already. They need reassurance that their king is well, and that he has not abandoned them.”

Arthur floundered for a few seconds before the fight left him and his shoulders sagged. “You’re right.” Walking as slowly and carefully as if he were walking on a knife’s edge, he made his way towards the desk, flinching when the chair pulled itself out for him with excessive force, slamming into the wall behind it. Sighing wearily, he dragged the chair back into place and sat down on it. “I just don’t know if I can do that before breaking the curse. I know I deserve this punishment, but there must be a way to end it. I cannot serve my people like this.”

“‘Punishment?’” Gwen and Merlin asked in chorus.

Arthur dragged a hand through his hair, mussing it up even further. “You said this curse is trying to teach each of us a lesson, right? Well, mine is clearly meant to show me the error of my ways in going against my conscience and using magic to attempt to save my father. In retribution for using magic, it has cursed me with magic of my own.”

Merlin’s heart sank like a stone upon hearing these words. Her earlier optimism seemed naive in the face of Arthur’s interpretation of the situation. How was she supposed to make him see it as something positive when he was convinced that it was something more akin to divine retribution for his sins?

“Arthur, I’m not sure that’s true,” Gwen said gently, saving a dumbstruck Merlin from immediately coming up with something. “Elyan and I are happier than ever after having gone through this. For us, it was not a curse but a blessing.”

“How can you possibly see being turned into your nine-year-old brother as a blessing?” Arthur asked, frowning.

“Because it taught me that I have neglected the child within me for too long. My lesson was that I have been far too serious of late, denying myself opportunities for relaxation and diversion out of some misguided belief that abstaining from such things were part of my duties as a queen. For me, breaking the curse meant learning how to take care of myself, and I am glad for it. It has changed me for the better.”

Arthur considered this in silence for a moment. “I did not know you felt that way. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry—learn from it instead. I’m sure the lesson is applicable to you as well. I know how heavy the crown weighs on you.”

A reluctant smile tugged at Arthur’s lips as he looked at Gwen with the kind of soft gaze that was reserved solely for her. “Wise and observant as always, my dear Guinevere. Still, just because it was positive for you doesn’t mean the same is true for us all. What about the others? Any theories as to their lessons?”

“Well, Elyan’s was perhaps a little more like a kick in the behind,” Gwen admitted. “It reminded him that my childhood may have suffered a little so that his could be all the better, but the end result is still that our bond is stronger than ever. I believe he is happier for it as well. As for the others, I’m not sure…”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Merlin said. “Leon’s blindness has robbed him of his ability to fight, but he’s slowly being reminded that his worth goes beyond his skill with a sword—that he is a good leader who gives wise counsel, is an excellent judge of character, and knows each and every knight’s strengths and weaknesses.”

“That is all true,” Arthur agreed, “but surely he knows that I made him First Knight for good reason? Are you telling me he’s been blind to this the whole— Ooh. I see.”

“That’s sort of poetic, actually,” Gwen said. “Have you told him you figured it out?”

“No, should I? I was thinking that maybe the lesson would stick better if he figured it out himself, but maybe that’s just delaying it unnecessarily…?”

Arthur hummed thoughtfully. “Give him another couple of days. If he’s still doubting himself then, tell him.”

“Percival’s lesson must be something similar, then,” Gwen mused. “Losing his physical strength to be reminded of his other strengths?”

Merlin nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. He looked so surprised and happy when Leon and I called him insightful yesterday. People often assume he’s stupid just because he’s big. I’d say he’s well on his way to figuring out that it isn’t true, and that others know it too.”

“Another positive one, then, if you’re right,” Arthur said. “And I guess making Gwaine shut up for longer than a second is a blessing in and of itself.”

Merlin bristled at that. “That is exactly the sort of thing that had him convinced that his lesson was to learn that he’s annoying at first—as if he didn’t already think he was—and I’ll thank you not to repeat it where he can hear it.”

“Well, he is a bit, you have to admit…”

“I disagree,” Gwen said. “I think he’s charming and chivalrous, takes life more seriously than you might guess at first glance, and is far more sensitive than he likes to let on.”

This response was much more eloquent than the vicious glare Merlin had levelled at Arthur in lieu of saddling him with a curse to really worry about, and her features brightened as she smiled at Gwen and said, “That’s more like it.”

“I’m not saying he’s not a good man,” Arthur said defensively. “Of course he is, but you can’t deny that he talks a lot.”

“What, it’s a crime to want attention now?” Merlin spat, perhaps a little more venomously than intended, judging by Arthur’s raised eyebrow. “Maybe if you gave him some, you’d find that he’s more than the fool he thinks he has to play to entertain people enough to make them want to include him. That’s his lesson, if you ask me—to learn that he doesn’t have to put on a façade or be the loudest person in the room to get people to notice and love him. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make it even harder for him to believe it.”

Arthur looked a little taken aback by this vehement defence of Gwaine, but he eventually nodded and said, “Very well. That makes five positives. What about your curse?”

That broke her out of her righteous indignation, making her falter and stammer, “I— I don’t know…”

This was not untrue, per se, seeing as her only theories so far had been leaning more towards the punishment variety and it now seemed that she ought to explore more positive possibilities instead.

“You seem to have everyone else pegged but you can’t figure yourself out?”

“As Gaius says, it’s sometimes easier to diagnose your patient than yourself.”

“What do you make of it?” Arthur asked Gwen.

She cocked her head and gave Merlin a considering look. “I’m not really sure either. I think I’ll keep any guesses to myself for the moment being.”

Merlin was relieved that Gwen had chosen not to brainstorm aloud. If she eventually had to resort to an outside opinion, she believed she would really rather prefer for Arthur not to be in the room for it. Tactful was not an adjective she would ascribe to him in matters like these (whatever these matters turned out to be).

“All right,” Arthur huffed, straightening his posture. “Lay it on me; what’s your diagnosis for me, then? How on earth is anything good meant to come out of my having magic? Unless it’s to gain a better understanding of it to be able to combat it all the better in future?”

This was the moment she had been waiting for—her moment to convince Arthur that magic was not the evil he had been raised to believe—but now that it was here, she found herself choked-up and tongue-tied. There was so much she wanted to say, so many arguments she had rehearsed in her head lying awake at night, but where even to begin? And how to do it without casting suspicion upon herself?

Unexpectedly, Gwen stepped in in Merlin’s stead, candidly saying what she was struggling to put into words. “Arthur… You’re not meant to fight it. You’re meant to accept it.”

Merlin’s head snapped to the side, and she stared at Gwen in undisguised astonishment—not prompted by the fact that she had come to the same conclusion as Merlin so much as because it sounded like she actually thought that it was the right thing to do.

“Excuse me?” Arthur asked, looking just as stunned.

“I believe the curse—if that even is the right word for it—is trying to make you understand magic better in order to help you let go of your fear of it,” Gwen continued gently. “I think it wants you to see that it is not pure evil but a tool like any other.”

Her heart swelling with gratitude and affection for her friend, Merlin bit her lip to stop it from trembling. She had no idea that this was how Gwen felt about magic.

“To what end?”

“To lift the ban, of course.”

Arthur’s lips thinned into a displeased line. “I will not be extorted into changing the law by some curse.”

“But you’re not being extorted. You have been given an opportunity to learn more about that which you fear so that you may re-examine your biases against it. This is a good thing.”

“You believe the law to be unjust?” Arthur, his voice carefully level.

“I believe punishing each act of magic with death to be needlessly harsh,” she replied diplomatically. It was clear that she too felt the tension in the air and was conscious of treading lightly. “But no, I do not consider all magic an evil, nor all who wield it wicked.”

There was a lump growing in Merlin’s throat that was becoming increasingly hard to swallow down.

“Magic got your father killed.”

“Uther’s laws got him killed,” Gwen corrected him. “Magic prolonged his life.”

“What do you mean?”

“The plague. Uther had me arrested for curing my father, and though I was innocent, someone placed that poultice in his bed. I know that everyone accepted that the plague simply ended when that monster was slain, but I have no other explanation than sorcery for my father recuperating before everyone else. Someone healed him; I know not who or why, but I’m grateful they did.”

Arthur studied his wife in silence for so long that Merlin was starting to go a little light-headed from holding her breath in anxious suspense of his reaction to this while also trying not to look too guilty or touched by Gwen’s gratitude for her clumsy attempt to help her father back when Nimueh’s plague had struck.

“This is truly how you feel?” Arthur asked at long last.

“Yes. I have seen the same horrors wrought by magic as you, but I have seen enough good also to make me believe that it is how you use it that matters, not if. It saved my father, saved Ealdor, and I have a feeling it may have saved Camelot more times than we are aware. I think, in your heart of hearts, that you feel it too, or you would not have put an end to the persecution of the druids as you did.”

Clasping his hands atop the desk and rubbing absent-mindedly at his mothers ring, Arthur considered this before looking to Merlin, asking, “And what do you make of this? You have often cautioned me against the dangers of magic, and you seem unsettled by it even now.”

Fighting to regain control over her expression and her strained breathing, she frantically searched for something to say—something clever, something that would sway Arthur once and for all, something cautious but effective…

She found no words but dangerously true ones, and despite her fear of revealing too much too soon she choked out, “Arthur… Every opinion I’ve ever expressed on magic has been coloured by fear of a law that would see me convicted as a traitor for even insinuating that I sympathise with sorcerers.” She drew a deep, shuddering breath and continued, “If I seem unsettled, it is because I have a personal stake in the matter. I— I have…had loved ones with magic, almost all lost to me because it had to be kept secret, and I would have them remembered as heroes and innocents, not traitors and criminals.”

She knew the tremor in her voice and limbs must be noticeable, but she could do nothing to stop it. Even though she had left out her biggest secret, what she had admitted to was still closer to the truth than she had ever come before, and it was not without risk.

“Who—?” Arthur started, but then realisation dawned on him. “William. Right.”

Perhaps she ought to have taken this chance to come clean about who had cast the spell that saved Ealdor, but she could not bring herself to do it. She just nodded, a tear falling down her cheek at the jerky motion. “And I loved a druid girl once. I couldn’t save her. Will, Freya, my father… I couldn’t save any of them…”

Gwen reached out for her hand at the same time as Arthur said, “Your father?”

Realising that she might have revealed something a little too close to the truth, she drew back from Gwen’s comforting touch and sprang up from the bed, swallowing down tears as she bowed awkwardly and said, “Excuse me, sire. I should go speak to Gaius about possible means to get your magic under control.”

Without waiting for a response, she fled towards the door, ignoring Arthur’s perplexed voice crying out, “Merlin, wait!” She could feel his instinctive magic trying to block her from reaching the door, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through it, probably succeeding mainly thanks to Gwen’s appeal that he let her go. She dared not look back to thank her but simply unbolted the door and ducked out of it before she could embarrass or incriminate herself any further.

Chapter Text

Merlin strode down the corridor as fast as her legs would carry her, heedless of which direction she was headed. She just needed to get away. Perhaps if she put enough distance between herself and Arthur’s chambers, she would be able to shake the fear that he would come rushing after her to demand answers or berate her for keeping this from him or declare her a traitor and drag her off to the dungeons.

That last part was probably not wholly rational, given his surprisingly calm reaction to Gwen’s admission that she sympathised with the plight of magic users, but it was a deep-seated fear which had been smouldering in her mind for years at this point, and her agitated state of mind only served to stoke those flames.

Her swift pace was not helping her breathing calm down in the slightest, and after some time she was forced to stop walking to catch her breath. Slumping back against the wall of whatever corridor her feet had carried her off to—they all looked the same through the blurriness of tears—she drew a shuddering breath and tried to hold it in her convulsing chest as long as she could before releasing it in a stuttering, chopped-up exhalation. She repeated this procedure a number of times with a hand held to her midriff, concentrating on feeling it expand a little more with each breath as she gradually managed to deepen them.

She had gotten her breathing more or less under control by the time she heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching her, but she did not regain awareness of her surroundings quickly enough to look up before she felt hands close around her upper arms.

Instinctively, she flinched and tried to shake them off, but backed up against a wall as she was, there was nowhere to run. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, her wet eyes squeezed tightly shut. She did not want to see Arthur’s anger or fear or disgust, nor the cold eyes of a guard dispassionately performing his duty. “Let me go! Please. I’m sorry!”

To her surprise, the hands fell away immediately, and she braced herself for whatever might come next—most likely an accusation or a blow, her panicked mind supplied.

She received neither. Instead, there was the lightest of touches to her quivering chin, tipping her head up ever so gently. Startled, her eyes flew open, and as soon as they focused enough for her to recognise the blurry face in front of her, all the fight seeped out of her, leaving her weak, weary and weepy.

“Oh, it’s you,” she sighed, her shoulders sagging in relief.

Gwaine raised his hands to cradle her face in them, gently wiping at her tear-stained cheeks with his thumbs as he mouthed words that could only be, “What’s wrong?” His brow was furrowed in concern.

“I— I—” she tried, but her voice simply would not carry her words far enough to explain, and so she did the next best thing and surged forward to wrap her arms around his torso, burying her face in his shoulder.

He must have been on his way back from training, for the back of his tunic was a bit damp and the smell of fresh sweat was rather strong, but she could not care less about that at the moment. All she cared about was that the strong arms that wrapped around her shoulders in return held her not like she was something fragile but like they were holding together what was already broken, firmly and securely. She cared that her friend was willing to let her moisten his tunic even further as she let go of the cage she had tried to shove her fears back into and sobbed into his shoulder. She cared that he did not push her away so that they could try to communicate, instead holding her close and making soft shushing noises into her hair—one of few sounds he could still make. She cared that he cared.

Slowly, slowly, her sobs turned into sniffles instead, and the tremor in her shoulders gradually abated as her breathing calmed once more. As Gwaine made no move to be the first to let go, she allowed herself to linger a little longer within the embrace, turning her face towards his neck instead to settle in a little more comfortably—though more comfortable did not necessarily mean completely comfortable, as Merlin had only shrunk a couple of inches in her transformation, bringing them to about equal height, but a little crick in the neck was a small price to pay for the emotional comfort the hug afforded her.

Like this, Gwaine’s bristled cheek rested against her smooth one instead of against her hair, and the soft prickling of his beard and the warm touch of skin against her face made her breath stutter in her chest for a completely different reason than before. Glancing over his shoulder, she noted that his hair was messily tied up from training, and her heart skipped a beat as she caught a glimpse of the ribbon in his hair. Still blue. Still hers.

Oh. I love him.

This realisation should not have come as a surprise, and nor did it. She had known for years that she had feelings for Gwaine, and they had probably developed into Feelings quite some time ago. This was just the last step in the bureaucratic process. All the paperwork had been filed, the court of her heart had been petitioned, and the motion had been passed and ratified into law, marking her as officially In Love—and that was that.

If she had not been so worn out from crying, she might have added this to the list of things to worry and overthink about, but as it was it just filled her with a sense of calm. Gwaine was holding her, she was in love, and things would probably turn out all right—somehow, at some point, probably.

“Thank you,” she breathed, finally letting go of the last of her tension.

Gwaine said nothing (nothing audible, at least), but turned his head slightly to press the lightest of kisses to her temple.

Smiling wearily, she gently extricated herself from the hug with no small amount of reluctance, pleased when Gwaine did not fully let go but let his hands fall from her shoulders down to rub soothingly up and down her arms. There was still concern in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to worry you.”

Gwaine opened his mouth to not-quite speak, but closed it again, taking a look around them before nodding his head to the side. She allowed him to gently guide her a few paces further down the corridor and into an alcove, sitting them down on a seat that was built into the stone by a small window.

Right. This would probably have been a better place to have a breakdown than out in the open like that, but she had not exactly been thinking clearly enough to pay much attention to her surroundings. Besides, Gwaine might not have found her if she had had the presence of mind to hide away.

Gwaine’s hands slid down her arms to curl around her hands instead, and he angled himself on the seat to face her, fixing her with a sober look as he mouthed, “Are you hurt?” as clearly as possible.

She shook her head.

“Are you in trouble?”

This question she had to think about. Now that she had calmed down some, she could examine the situation from a more rational angle. “Probably not.” Not yet, anyway. “I don’t know how Arthur will see me after this, but I don’t think I’ll need to pack my bags and flee the city.”

This did not seem to reassure Gwaine all that much, because the furrow in his brow grew ever deeper as he asked, “What happened?”

She hesitated only for a second before deciding that she might as well tell the truth. It was already out there, after all, and it might be a good test to gauge Gwaine’s attitude towards magic. She had never really been able to put a finger on it. He certainly knew a surprising amount about magic weapons and creatures, and though he had pulled his sword on the cryptic Keeper of the Bridge to the Perilous Lands, his reaction to subsequently having the sword magically turned into a flower had been little more than mild annoyance at the inconvenience.

Squaring her shoulders, she looked him dead in the eye and said, “I told Arthur that my father was a sorcerer.”

That was evidently not what Gwaine had been expecting to hear, because his eyebrows rose and he blinked owlishly a couple of times as he processed this, but then he just nodded as if it made perfect sense and calmly asked something else. Probably. She did not really catch it.

“You don’t mind?” she asked.

Realising that she had not understood him, he simply shook his head and squeezed her hands, smiling reassuringly.

“Oh, good,” she sighed, letting out a little breathless chuckle. “I mean, I had thought—or hoped—that you wouldn’t, but you know how it is with these things, you can never be too careful, really.”

He nodded his understanding to this and mouthed something along the lines of, “What did Arthur say?”

“I…sort of ran away before he could really react,” Merlin admitted sheepishly. It seemed a little childish, all of a sudden, but at the time she had felt like she was teetering dangerously close to the brink of confessing to far more than Arthur would have been ready to hear. “Gwen was there too, and she seemed to take it well. I’m sure she’ll be able to talk him down if needed, but I don’t know what to say if he starts asking me about my father. Even telling him his name could mean real trouble. I’m not sure he’d want me around anymore after that.”

Arthur may have been prepared to work with her father to defeat Kilgharrah, but that did not mean that Balinor would have been welcome to stay afterwards, either in Uther or Arthur’s Camelot, and she had to assume that it was common knowledge that the power of a Dragonlord was inherited upon the father’s death.

“Why?”

She had the truthful answer on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back after reminding herself that they were still in a (relatively) public place where someone could walk past at any moment and overhear something they really should not.

“I’ll tell you someday,” she said instead. “Soon. I’d love to tell you about him, really, but I’d love it even more if I could actually understand any questions you might have.”

Gwaine huffed in silent amusement and nodded his head in a way that clearly conveyed the meaning, “Fair enough.” He then said something indistinct.

“‘Something, something, behave?’” she guessed, frowning.

“Be. Safe.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll try my best.”

Gwaine pointed at her. “You go—” He pointed at himself. “—I go.”

“What? If I have to leave Camelot?” Her mouth fell open in surprise as he nodded solemnly, not a trace of hesitation in his eyes. “I couldn’t ask that of you,” she said weakly.

Mirth crept into his expression then, and he winked as he mouthed, “Try to stop me.”

“I haven’t even told you why I’d be going!”

He just shrugged.

Overcome with astonishment and affection, Merlin stared at him for a long moment. Then, before she could think better of it, she ducked in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

“I’ll keep you posted, then.”

Gwaine beamed at her.

Chapter Text

Merlin managed to avoid Arthur for the rest of the day following the possibly-inadvisable confession about her father, and for most of the day after that also. Although, it might be more accurate to say that she managed to avoid anyone specifically sent to find her on Arthur’s behest. It was exceedingly easy to avoid Arthur himself, seeing as he still kept to his chambers.

At least Gwen had managed to convince him to let a few people in on the secret of his curse. George was now allowed inside the chambers to clean, and Arthur had met with a couple of council members to reassure them that their king was still of sound mind and body and perfectly capable of ruling—just from within the privacy of his chambers for a little while yet.

Gaius was one of the select few who was allowed not only to know the truth of Arthur’s situation but to actually enter his chambers in order to give him lessons in how to control his wild magic. Gaius had suggested that it might be good if Merlin joined in on these lessons, but she had wriggled her way out of this under the pretext of not having a good excuse for why she should be there and surely Gwen would suffice as moral support, Arthur actually listens to her, and seeing as you’ll be busy making sure Arthur doesn’t burn down the citadel someone ought to be doing some physicking around here so I’ll pop down to the town and do your rounds for you, happy to help, pip-pip, see you later!

Despite having been upset at first that she had mentioned her father to Arthur at all, she knew that Gaius also disapproved of her procrastinating speaking any further on the topic, but he had at least promised that he would not tell Arthur anything himself. Unfortunately, he had also promised Arthur that he would pass on a message to her, which he did when their paths inevitably crossed in the infirmary on the eve of the second day.

“Arthur wants you to know that he’s not angry, and that you are not in trouble for having consorted with sorcerers.”

Merlin nodded sagely, folding her hands atop the table they were sitting at. “He’s furious, isn’t he?”

“Well…he is hardly happy that you are avoiding him,” Gaius said, raising a reproachful eyebrow, “but I believe he is mostly curious. He has questions.”

“Which I don’t know how to answer!”

“Then I suggest you think of something, because he wants to see you at your earliest convenience.”

“By which he means, right this minute?” Merlin muttered.

“I should think so.”

“Well, what if that isn’t convenient? Maybe I have plans!”

The eyebrow climbed ever higher. “And do you?” Gaius asked, by which he meant, Yeah, right.

“Um, Gwaine wants to see me…” was the first thing Merlin could think to say. This was probably even true, in a sort of general sense.

Perhaps it was the gods taking pity on her that made the door open at that very minute, revealing a gaggle of excited knights, among them Gwaine.

“Are you coming to the tavern with us, Merlin?” Elyan asked.

“…because we’re going to the tavern!” Merlin concluded, smiling triumphantly and shooting up from her bench.

“We’re celebrating me!” Percival declared, loud and proud. He raised his arms, flexing his massive biceps in demonstration.

“Oh, very well,” Gaius sighed, reluctantly accepting defeat. “I am glad to see you restored to your old self, Sir Percival. Congratulations on breaking the curse.”

“Yes, congratulations,” Merlin agreed, bounding over to her friends. “I assume the plan is drinking you stupid to celebrate figuring out that you’re actually quite clever?”

“How did you know that was his lesson?” Leon asked.

She smiled secretively and tapped the side of her head, “Because I’m psychic.”

The gesture was, of course, wasted on the still-blind Leon, but Elyan laughed and said, “I wish you were, then Gwaine wouldn’t have to bother with that damned tablet, poor sod.”

Gwaine shrugged in a what can you do? sort of way, then slung one arm around Elyan’s shoulders and the other around Merlin’s and started leading them away down the corridor.

“Bye Gaius!” she called back over her shoulder. “Don’t wait up!”

“Don’t forget you have a conversation waiting for you tomorrow!” he returned, somewhere between exasperated and amused. Probably leaning more towards the former, though.

Is having it drunk an option? she thought miserably.

As it turned out, going out drinking was actually rather more enjoyable when one could actually drink without having to worry about ending up accidentally using magic in front of a crowded tavern. It was slightly less enjoyable as a woman, however, seeing as a good portion of men apparently lost all compunctions about what might in overly polite terms be called décolletage-appraisal when they were inebriated.

She almost wished that she had worn her considerably less revealing blue dress instead of the lilac one she had borrowed from Gwen’s stash of not-yet-donated clothes from her servant days. The boned lace-up bodice paired with the relatively low-cut neckline made sure that her modest but respectable bosom was put on display—not indecently so, by any means, but enough to draw the eye, if one was so inclined.

She was relieved to find that no one dared actually approach her while surrounded by knights known to be favoured by the king, and none of her friends gave her reason to feel self-conscious. Leon could not so much as tell the colour of her dress, Elyan was probably deeply conditioned not to pay any untoward attention to the shapes filling out his sister’s clothes, Percival seemed to forget that she even had breasts these days more often than not, and Gwaine… Well… Maybe she was not so averse to him stealing a glance or two, as long as he kept it classy, which he could be trusted to do.

She soon forgot all about her appearance as she was swept away by the intoxicating mood (and beverages) around the table. Three out of seven curses reversed was cause for celebration, and Leon hesitantly announced that he had some theories he was entertaining regarding his own, though he would be neither begged, goaded, nor bribed into telling them what they were.

At some point, after several rounds of competitive lip-reading and a game or three of try-to-convince-everyone-you’re-psychic, Elyan, Percival and Leon ended up engrossed in a debate on what kind of wood was most suitable for a certain type of shield, or some other such knightly nonsense. To be quite honest, Merlin had tuned them out the moment the words split-resistance and boss convexity had been used in the same sentence and instead turned her focus to Gwaine, who either had no strong opinions on the matter or could not be arsed to write them down fast enough to keep pace with the passionate discussion.

Whatever the case, he seemed perfectly content to miss out on the debate and talk to Merlin instead—or write, rather, seeing as her lip-reading proficiency seemed to worsen exponentially with every sip of mead she took.

“This is great,” she mused, feeling warm and content and pleasantly abuzz with drink. “Wish I could join you more often. Seems I’m missing out on a lot of fun.”

“More fun when I could talk.”

“You’re not enjoying yourself?” she asked, frowning. He had seemed happy enough until now.

Gwaine made a hurried gesture to disabuse her of that notion, shaking his head with a sheepish smile. He made a quick amendment to his tablet, making it read, “I’m More fun when I could talk.”

Faulty grammar aside, the message came through loud and clear, making her heart twinge. “I told you, you’re good company either way.”

His smile turned a touch too self-deprecating for Merlin’s taste and he glanced over at their friends before looking back at her and mouthing either, “Yoo-hoo,” or, “To you.” Probably the latter.

“To them too,” she insisted, lowering her voice. “You don’t think they keep inviting you just out of pity, do you?”

Gwaine shook his head, which would have been great if he had not also shrugged while doing it and looked down rather dejectedly at the stylus he was fiddling with.

“Gwaine…” She dragged her stool a little closer so the sides of their legs were touching under the table and laid a hand on his wrist to still his restless hands. “They invite you because they want to spend time with you, because they’re your friends and they— we love you. We’re all rooting for you to break your curse for your own sake, not because we think you’re boring without your jokes or whatever it is you’ve convinced yourself of.”

Gwaine looked somewhere between touched and uncomfortable, and his smile was somewhat strained as he nodded and mouthed, “Thanks,” avoiding looking her in the eye all the while.

Unsure if she had made things better or worse, she opted for a slight change in tactics. Tentatively, she slid a finger beneath the cuff of Gwaine’s sleeve, seeking out the blue ribbon she knew to be tied around his wrist. She traced it lightly with her fingertip as she confessed, “I do rather miss your voice, though.”

The change in Gwaine’s demeanour was instantaneous. His eyes fell to their hands before flitting up to meet hers, and his smile grew much more natural and flirtatious as he mouthed, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, grateful that her cheeks were already flushed from the alcohol. Hopefully, that would disguise the fresh blush rising in them.

She was not sure what had caused her to make the switch from trying to convince herself that it was a bad idea to encourage Gwaine’s sudden interest in her to actively flirting back like this. Perhaps it had been the long-overdue realisation that she loved him, or perhaps his acceptance of her father being a sorcerer, or his vow to leave Camelot if she did, or perhaps it was simply the alcohol.

Either way, she felt emboldened to give in to Gwaine’s irresistible magnetism, and only the presence of their friends made her reluctantly draw her hand away from the enticing warmth of Gwaine’s skin so as not to arouse suspicion. She kept her thigh pressed against his beneath the table, however, and it remained there as the conversation turned to lighter topics, with Merlin putting her quest to bolster Gwaine’s self-confidence out of mind for the moment being, not wanting to risk making him too uncomfortable.

Eventually, they ended up discussing Leon’s curse again. Percival and Elyan were busy trying to explain the secret to the perfect arm-wrestling form to some mates a table over, and so it fell to Merlin to pass on everything Gwaine wrote or mouthed to Leon, who could read neither lips nor tablets in his current condition.

“I’ll bet you anything that I’ve already got yours figured out,” Merlin said, perhaps a little overconfidently.

“Oh, really?” Leon laughed. “I’ll take that bet. What are we playing for?”

“I’ll…polish your armour for a week if I’m wrong, but if I’m right, you have to switch places with me next time Arthur decides to use me for target practice. Oh, Gwaine says, ‘She is very good at polishing.’ Which I am, second only to George.”

Leon hummed thoughtfully, finally nodding. “All right. Deal. So what’s your theory?”

“Nuh-uh,” she said, wagging a finger. “If I’m right, you’ll learn the lesson better if you figure it out yourself. I’ve already shared it with Gwen and Arthur, so they can vouch for my figuring it out days ago.”

“But if you tell me and you’re right, then I get to stop being blind now,” Leon protested, not unreasonably. “I’m sure I could endure a good while longer if necessary, but my duties are suffering as a result—”

“Are they, though?” Merlin cut in. “You’ve actually taken on more duties in Arthur’s absence, and you’re performing them admirably, if you ask me. Hold on, Gwaine is nodding and writing…that you’re a tyrant on the training field, which I’m gonna assume is a compliment in this case.”

Gwaine grimaced and made a little wiggly, “Eeh…” gesture with his hand, but Merlin elected not to pass this on.

“My point is,” she continued, undaunted, “that a little bout of blindness can’t stop someone like you from excelling in their duties. Only the other day, I was talking with Arthur and Gwen about your impressive knowledge of all the knights’ abilities and of how valuable your counsel and leadership is, especially in times like these. Never doubt that. Arthur doesn’t.”

Leon looked taken aback by being on the receiving end of such candid compliments, and he processed it in silence for a moment before smiling and saying, “Thank you, Merlin. I’m glad to be able to be of service still.”

“I know. You’re doing great.”

Leon nodded and took a thoughtful swig of his drink.

When Merlin turned Gwaine’s way it was to find him watching her intently.

“What?” she asked.

He smiled softly and said something unintelligible.

“One more time?”

Making the (correct) call that she would not get it on a second go either, he reached for the tablet and wrote, “Good friend.”

She ducked her head and shrugged. “I try.”

Perhaps it was the way Gwaine’s leg pressed a little more firmly against hers at that or perhaps the fact that she had continued drinking since their earlier conversation that made her want to help him too by giving him another push in the direction of breaking his curse.

Looking between Gwaine and Leon, she felt an idea take form and said, “Gwaine, would you mind getting me a new drink?” When he glanced at her still half-full tankard and raised an eyebrow, she put a finger in front of her lips with a meaningful look, then made a scooting sound with her stool and turned her head to call, “Cheers, mate,” over her shoulder.

“What?” Gwaine mouthed, bewildered.

She silently shushed him again before turning to Leon and asking, “Leon, I’ve been meaning to ask… What do you think of Gwaine?”

She could feel Gwaine freeze at her side while Leon lowered his tankard with a confused frown.

“What do I think of him? Just in general?”

“Yeah.”

Still looking puzzled, Leon considered this, then said, “Well, you could do a lot worse, that’s for sure.”

As soon as the implication of his words hit her she sputtered and exclaimed, “What?! No, I didn’t—! That’s…not what I’m asking.” Blushing furiously, she studiously avoided looking to the side to see what Gwaine thought of this assumption. “I just— Arthur made one of those jokes about him that aren’t really funny the other day, and I just wanted to make sure that— Well, that people don’t actually mean them, I guess…” she trailed off lamely. Already, she was starting to doubt the wisdom of her plan, but she was in too deep to pull out now.

Leon sighed. “I see. No, I think it’s mostly the sort of thing that somehow became a running joke and now gets repeated because people want to seem witty but can’t think of anything original.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Arthur, all right. Luckily, Gwen was there to join me in jumping to his defence. She shot Arthur down immediately and called Gwaine charming and chivalrous.”

“She’s a good judge of character,” Leon said. “I’ve known her all my life, and if she thinks someone is worth befriending, then so they are—and I’d say the same goes for your judgement. You two certainly weren’t wrong in this case.”

Relieved that the conversation was headed the right way again after the initial hiccup, she smiled and said, “He’s a good man. Arthur said so too.” Still, she kept her eyes on Leon, too craven to look at Gwaine, but through the connection of their thighs she could feel that his other leg was bouncing restlessly beneath the table.

“And a good knight,” Leon agreed. “I’ve never met a fighter like him before; his style is as unorthodox as it is effective. It’s given me a lot of new ideas for drills, actually. If I’m hard on him in training it’s only because I want to make sure he appreciates the importance of incorporating a measure of self-preservation into his fighting. I know that he would gladly lay down his life for any of us, but I’d hate to see it actually happen; it would be a true shame to lose such a knight, and even more so such a friend. Men like him are a rare breed.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Merlin said, smiling warmly.

“It’s strange, this curse. With me blind and him mute, it’s like he just disappeared, even if you can relay what he’s writing. Feels strange to miss someone when they’re right beside you. Guess I’d gotten used to hearing his voice every day; it’s been far too quiet around here this past week.”

Merlin was about to respond to this, but she forgot all about it when Gwaine suddenly rose from his stool, silently stalking away. She almost called out after him, but stopped herself just in time to not give the game away to Leon. Instead, she jumped to her feet and said, “Um, excuse me, Leon. I have to—”

“Go after him,” Leon said, shaking his head in amusement. “Make sure he believes what I said.”

Her eyes widened as she realised that her little ploy had not gone unnoticed. “You— Never mind. Thank you.” She hurried to grab the tablet from the table and excused herself with a quick, “Sorry, by the way,” then she set off after Gwaine.

A cursory glance showed her that he was not to be found inside the tavern, and so she made her way towards the door, finding that her inebriation was much more noticeable now that she was standing up and moving about. She was not so drunk as to have trouble walking in a straight line—no more trouble than usual, that was—but she wondered if she might not have thought twice about her plan if she had been sober. It did not seem all that clever all of a sudden, nor like something a good friend would do.

Chapter Text

Panic was starting to creep in as she stepped out of the Rising Sun and found the street empty. How far could he have gotten with only a few seconds’ head start?

Thankfully, the sound of footsteps alerted her to the fact that there was someone just around the corner of the tavern, and she rounded it to find Gwaine pacing back and forth, a hand raking anxiously through his hair.

“Gwaine?” she said tentatively.

He stopped in his tracks and let his hand fall to his side, and a moment later he turned around to face her, making a very poor attempt at an easygoing smile. “Merlin.” The shape of her name on his lips was familiar by now, but God did she miss hearing it in the voice that ought to accompany the motion.

“Gwaine, I want to apologise.” She walked a little closer so that she was off the main street at least, though she dared not approach him all the way. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was inconsiderate. I’m sorry.”

Gwaine looked down at his feet, letting his hair fall in front of his face. Finally, he gave a curt nod and looked up, flicking his hair back. She could not make out the words he mouthed, only the wry smile that accompanied it.

“What?” she asked, then remembered the tablet in her hand. “Oh. Here.” She stepped closer and held it out for him, trying not to be too disappointed that their hands did not brush as he took it.

“Think Leon meant it?” was what Gwaine wrote after a brief hesitation. They were lucky it was still summer, or it would have been too dark out for her to read at this hour.

“Every word,” she replied confidently. Even if Leon had known Gwaine could hear him—possibly from the very start—she had no doubts that he had been sincere. “I’m just sorry I tricked you into listening to it.”

Gwaine worried at his bottom lip with his teeth as he processed this, then he dragged a hand down his face and asked, “Why did you?” without bothering with the tablet.

“Why? Because…I worry that you don’t believe me when I tell you that people like you, and because I think it’s a crying shame that you’re the only one who can’t see how brilliant you are. I…I can’t stand the thought of you thinking that you have to be someone other than yourself to be loved, because nothing could be further from the truth!”

The stricken look on Gwaine’s face made Merlin worry that she had gotten carried away again and delivered a truth that was simply too uncomfortable to bring out into the open, but this concern was quickly exchanged for surprise when Gwaine made a vaguely pained expression and surged forward to kiss her.

The kiss carried with it a note of desperation apparent in the urgency with which Gwaine clung to her, cradling her face in his hands as if his palms were glued to it and pressing his lips against hers so firmly that actually kissing back was not really even an option, even if she had been able to gather her wits about her and react within the few, intense seconds that it lasted.

As it were, her sluggish mind had barely caught up enough with the situation to register what was happening by the time that it was over, and Gwaine pulled back just as suddenly as he had leaned in, breathing heavily as he searched her expression for a reaction. Her thunderstruck astonishment must not have been quite what he had been hoping for, because he let his hands fall to his sides, heaving a dejected sigh and mouthing, “Sorry.”

Before he was even done forming the second syllable, Merlin shot out her hand to grab him by the front of his tunic, pulling him right back in and crashing their mouths together. She wasted no time in raising her hands and burying them in his hair, carding her fingers through the silky waves like she had dreamt of a hundred times, all while holding him close so as not to give him the slightest reason to doubt how much she wanted this—wanted him.

To his credit, Gwaine got with the program much faster than she had, and he quickly returned the kiss with great enthusiasm, winding his arms around her waist in a tight embrace that had her smiling against his mouth. She had hardly been able to stop thinking about the feeling of his strong arms around her since their hug the previous day, and it was heaven to have them hold her again, especially when paired with the divine feeling of his lips moving against hers.

The kiss quickly grew open-mouthed and heated as Merlin eagerly allowed herself to make good on several years of dreaming about this moment. There was no stilted refinement in either of their performances—no artful affectations—just passionate ardour. It was all slick tongues and roaming hands, and yes, sometimes teeth clacked and noses bumped, but it was perfect in all of its occasional sloppiness.

It seemed an eternity before they came up for air, reluctantly putting the minutest distance between them to catch their breath. Panting softly, she stared at Gwaine’s kiss-swollen lips, hardly believing that she finally knew what they felt like against her own. They moved even now, soundlessly murmuring something she struggled to interpret.

“‘High…laugh…juice…?’” she tried despite knowing that she must be miles off.

Gwaine blinked, looking for a second like he had surprised himself by saying anything at all, then her poor translation registered and he burst out laughing silently as if this was the funniest thing he had ever heard. She wished she could hear the sound of it, but nonetheless savoured the way his eyes crinkled with mirth as the shoulders around which her arms were resting shook.

“Yeah. High laugh juice,” he mouthed when he finally regained his composure. Still chuckling, he leaned their foreheads together, nudging his nose affectionately against hers.

Deciding that Gwaine could write it down later if it had been important, Merlin kissed him again, less hurriedly. She delighted in taking her time exploring the shape of his lips before delving into his mouth where her tongue received just as warm a welcome as before, if more languid and deliberate this time. It was full as exciting as their first, frantic coming together, and it made her body yearn for more.

As heat pooled in her belly, she found herself wishing that Gwaine would allow himself to be a little less gentlemanly and let his hands dip lower than her hips, or even slide around to her front and touch the swell of her breasts. She was sure the thought must have crossed his mind at least once or twice over the course of the evening, judging by the number of times she had caught his eyes drifting downwards before politely snapping back up again.

She was just starting to seriously entertain the idea of dragging Gwaine into some more secluded part of the alley (or perhaps all the way back to his chambers in the citadel) when her plans were disrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching.

Gwaine tore his mouth away to look for the intruder, putting a little space between them again, though his hands lingered on her waist. She followed his gaze to see a stranger wobbling round the corner and turning down the alley on unsteady feet.

“Don’t mind me, folks,” the man slurred when he noticed them looking at him. “Jus’ on m’way to the bog.” He squeezed past them, but then stopped and bent down, almost toppling over as he picked something off the ground. “Whoops! This yours?” he said, holding out Gwaine’s tablet for him.

Gwaine took it with a polite smile, to which Merlin decided to add, “Thank you.”

“N’worries, sweetheart,” the man mumbled, setting off once again on his stumbling quest to relieve himself in the little house round the back of the tavern.

Raising a hand to her mouth to smother a giggle, Merlin shook her head and whispered, “I think the weirdest thing about this whole thing is strange men casually calling me sweetheart. It’ll take some getting used to.”

Gwaine chuckled and made an, “I can imagine,” expression, then his smile softened and he gave her a considering look before taking a step back and holding out his arm for her to take, mouthing, “Come on, let’s…[something, something]…miss us.”

Merlin obliged him by laying her hand in the crook of his elbow and letting him lead her out of the alley. Perhaps she was a little disappointed when he then walked them back to the tavern again instead of towards the citadel, but her arousal had abated enough to clear her head a bit after the interruption in the alley, and she had to admit that it might look a bit suspicious if they just disappeared into the night without so much as a goodbye to their friends. Leon, especially, was sure to suspect something as he seemed to have some ideas about her feelings for Gwaine already…

She let go of Gwaine’s arm when they entered the Rising Sun again and he slung it around her shoulders instead in a more innocent, comradely gesture. He was evidently also conscious of appearances, but she was not entirely sure that they were fooling anyone as they could not resist sitting rather close to one another.

Moreover, Gwaine’s hand would surreptitiously creep up behind her back every so often to fiddle with the green ribbon at the end of her plait, which was probably not quite as subtle as he hoped, even if it was technically out of their friends’ line of sight. She was not about to stop him though, thrilled by the implicit confirmation that his switching the ribbons had had a deeper meaning after all.

Their collective spirits were high for the remainder of the night, with Gwaine being much more animated than before, making more of an effort to join in on the conversation, scribbling away as fast as he could without making his words entirely illegible. However, wax really was not the surface best suited for expeditious writing, and the more drink was imbibed by both writer and readers the harder it got to follow along until it was almost a tie for what was easiest to read: his lips or the tablet.

“I’ve never seen anyone spell ‘purple’ that way before,” Merlin sniggered at one point, squinting at the rest of the squiggles to try and make sense of them, which was easier said than done when Gwaine would not hold the damned tablet still—or perhaps it was her head that was spinning.

Gwaine just waved his hand sloppily as if dismissing the entire concept of spelling and underlined the rest of the sentence that was probably meant to say, “suits you.”

“Why, thank you. Gwen told me that once. Gave me a flower. I remember ‘cause I was carting around a corpse at the time.”

“As you do,” snorted Elyan.

“When you work for a physician, yeah.”

Whatever Elyan was about to say in response was derailed by Percival almost knocking him off his chair when he nodded off and tipped sideways.

“Oi, wake up you big oaf! This is your party!”

“I’m awake!” Percival mumbled, righting himself again. “Clever and awake, tha’s me.”

“I believe that’s our cue to call it a night,” Leon said, putting down his tankard decisively. “We have training tomorrow, and I need the person acting as my eyes to be able to keep theirs open.”

“But I’m big now! I can hold a sword good again! I wanna train too.”

“I’ll be your eyes,” Merlin said confidently. “I’ve watched you lot train forever. I know all the words, like…like parry and riposte and cun— um, contre quarte and sword and all that.”

“Even sword, huh?” Leon laughed. “Let’s wait and see if you can even get out of bed come morning before making any promises.”

“I’ll be fine, I’m not even that drunk,” she lied. “An’ even if I were, which I’m not, Gaius’ hangover cure is a bloody scientific miracle.”

“Be that as it may, it’s time for us all to get going,” Sir Killjoy insisted.

“Wait!” Percival exclaimed. “Just one more round of I’m Psychic before we go. He…uh, she almost had us last time.”

“And I’ll get you yet. Come on, Leon. Gimme a theme and I promise I’ll help make everyone go home afterwards and assist you tomorrow,” Merlin vowed.

“Fine,” Leon sighed, shaking his head in exasperation. “The theme is…jealousy.”

She considered this for all of a second before grinning. “Oh, this is easy.” Pointing at each of her friends as she worked her way around the table, she said, “Elyan is jealous of Gwaine because he can’t figure out how he does his fancy disarming trick and he’s too proud to ask him to teach him. Percival is jealous of Gwaine’s punning prowess and wishes he would beat him to the punch more often. And Leon is also jealous of Gwaine ‘cause he’s spent years trying to get his hair that swooshy.”

The three of them gaped at her in stunned silence and she turned to Gwaine with a victorious grin.

He gave her a look that clearly meant, “I see what you’re doing,” but thankfully he just seemed amused by it this time. Pointing to himself, he mouthed, “And me?”

“And Gwaine…is jealous of me.”

“Why?” Percival asked, looking like he was on the edge of his seat to hear the last part of her act.

“Because I’m Psychic!”

The table erupted into laughter.

Ending on this high, they finally called an end to their night and stumbled out of the Rising Sun and into the peaceful night together, making it much less so with their raucous conversation (everyone but Gwaine) and occasional outbursts of song (mainly Percival).

Their walk home was unrushed and meandering, and by the time they reached the castle they had split up into two groups. One was made up of Elyan and Leon supporting a softly humming Percival between them and constantly risking walking into things as both Elyan and Percival were a bit too far gone to be doing much guiding for a long-suffering Leon. The other consisted of Gwaine and Merlin, who eagerly took every chance to touch one another under the clumsy guise of making sure neither of them lost their balance or drifted off in the wrong direction.

As they slipped indoors and the group of three took a turn towards the knights’ quarters, Merlin said, a little louder than strictly necessary, “Gwaine, would you mind escorting me to the infirmary? I need someone to make sure I don’t break my neck climbing the stairs in these skirts.”

It was not, perhaps, the most wily of excuses (especially as the dress was a rather practical length on Merlin, who was a good deal taller than Gwen), but their friends hardly seemed to notice them lagging behind anyway, so they were probably not in a state to overthink it.

Grinning mischievously, Gwaine stuck out his arm for her again, mouthing, “My lady.”

Not one to be outdone, she stuck out her arm instead and said, “Sir Knight.”

He took it with a silent laugh and let her drag him down the corridor in the direction of the physician’s tower. It took them a frankly ridiculous amount of time to actually reach it, however, as they kept getting delayed by tumbling into alcoves to have a snog along the way, yet it felt like all too soon that they found themselves outside the door to Gaius’ quarters.

Reluctant to part, Merlin pulled Gwaine in for another kiss, leaning back against the wall beside the door to aid her unsteady legs in supporting her. Annoyed by the feeling of her plait pressing into the top of her spine, she reached behind her to brush it to the side, but in doing so she made a discovery that promptly made her break the kiss to inspect her hair.

The plait was half unravelled, the green ribbon that had tied it together nowhere to be seen. Gwaine’s fiddling with it must have loosened it, and somewhere along the way it had fallen out without either of them noticing.

“Oh nooo…” she gasped, staring down at the dishevelled plait, completely crestfallen. Looking back up at Gwaine, she said, “I’ve lost your ribbon! I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Gwaine assured her.

“It’s not okay; I loved it! Maybe if we retrace our steps…”

He shook his head. “Late. [Indistinct.]”

“You’re right,” she sighed, “it’s too dark. Maybe tomorrow.” Nervously twirling a loose strand of the plait around her finger, she gathered all her courage and said, “You…could come in? Gaius is asleep in there, but— Well, you’re quiet and I—”

Gwaine interrupted her by shaking his head again, but he smiled and mouthed something short yet unintelligible. When she frowned in incomprehension, he clarified it by miming taking a drink rather than going to the effort of pulling out his tablet again.

Realisation dawned on her. “‘Drunk?’ I mean, maybe a little, but not too drunk,” she said, deciding that she was probably not even lying.

It was clear that Gwaine had his doubts about this. Nevertheless, he pointed at himself and mouthed, “I am,” instead of challenging her claim.

“Oh, right. Of course.” Feeling a little awkward all of a sudden, she said, “See you tomorrow, then?”

Gwaine smiled warmly. “Tomorrow,” he promised, then leaned in for a kiss so soft and sweet that it wiped away all her misgivings. When he finally drew back again, he ran the back of his fingers along her cheek in an achingly tender caress, his lips curling around his next words with obvious affection.

“I’m sorry, I’m still getting, ‘High laugh juice,’” she admitted sheepishly.

He nodded with a silent chuckle, then gave her a light peck on her cheek and backed away, raising his hand in farewell as he started making his way back towards his own quarters.

“Good night,” she murmured, lingering where he left her until he was well out of view. Then she drew a deep breath, smiled so widely that her face was at risk of splitting into two pieces, and opened the door to sneak into the infirmary, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake the snoring Gaius. Hopefully, the fact that she tripped over a stool along the way did not disturb his slumber too much.

Chapter Text

Merlin was woken by someone knocking on the door to her room, a sound which harmonised nicely with the throbbing in her head.

“Guh,” she said, peeling her face off her pillow with immense reluctance.

Apparently this did not suffice as a response, for there was another bout of knocking and a voice calling her name.

“Wha’?” she tried instead, at a slightly louder volume.

“Merlin, it’s Leon. Are you decent?”

“Uhh…” She looked down at herself, pleased to find that she had at least had the presence of mind to dress down to her shift before passing out last night. “D’s it matter?” she asked. It was not like he would be able to tell, after all.

“Well, it sort of does, actually.”

“Oh.” After summoning the energy to flop onto her back and drag a blanket haphazardly over any parts of her body that might be semi-discernable through the light linen of her shift, she called. “Come in.”

Leon hesitantly cracked the door ajar, then pushed it all the way open when he found that she was, indeed, decent, though not even remotely presentable by the standards of polite society.

“Ready for training?” Leon asked wryly.

Eyes widening as the memory of last night’s promise to assist him rose from the mists of her mind, she said, “Um, be with you in a minute?” Then she spotted the impish glint in his eyes—eyes which were clearly focused on her—and she finally caught up with reality. “Oh, you absolute— Sorry. I mean, congratulations on breaking your curse.”

He grinned. “The good news is I didn’t need an assistant at training—which ended hours ago, by the way. The bad news is I’ll have to take your place as a target at some point.”

“I was right, then?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows and trying to ignore the nausea the movement caused her.

“Arthur confirmed that you called your theory days ago when I reported my recovery. He wanted me to pass on a message.”

“Oh no.”

“He said to tell you that if you have time to go to the tavern, you have time to meet with him. I’m afraid it’s an order.”

“Kill me?” she suggested, giving Leon a pleading look.

“I owe you a favour for giving me a nudge in the right direction last night, but I won’t do that,” he chuckled. “I suggest you get a move on. It’s past noon already, and he will only get crankier the more you delay.”

“He only has himself to blame if I throw up on him,” Merlin muttered, falling back against her pillow with a heavy sigh. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Good.” Leon nodded at her and started turning towards the door, but then he hesitated and said, “Oh, and Merlin? Thank you.”

She raised her head and returned his smile (if somewhat queasily). “My pleasure.”

Thanks to the hangover potion and breakfast—or late lunch, at this point—which Gaius had left out for her, Merlin felt at least somewhat alive by the time she had made herself presentable enough to wander the citadel, a random piece of twine in her plait standing in for the ribbon she had tragically lost last night.

The memory of her kiss with Gwaine—and every subsequent one that had followed the first—also helped keep her feeling a little less like she was marching towards her doom. Whatever Arthur wanted to talk about, there was something good waiting for her on the other side, assuming that Gwaine had not lost all interest in her and regretted the kiss upon sobering up, but she sincerely doubted that.

Still, she stood stuck staring at the door to Arthur’s chambers for a good minute before she dared raise her hand and knock.

“Yes?” came the reply from within.

“It’s me. Merlin, sire.”

“One moment.”

Approximately three moments later, the door was opened, but by Gaius rather than Arthur.

“Back amongst the living, I see,” he said, a stern eyebrow raised.

“Thanks to your potion.”

He smiled then, softening significantly. “We were just wrapping up a lesson.” Turning his head to look over his shoulder, he said, “Good day, sire,” and walked past Merlin as he was dismissed, but paused briefly to lay a hand on her shoulder and whisper, “Courage, child. He is in a listening mood.”

Slightly heartened by this, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Looking around, the change from the last time she had been in here was striking. Things were back in their proper places, the various stains and scorch marks that had adorned walls and furniture alike were mostly gone, and the curtains were only half-drawn, letting in a fair amount of sunlight.

Arthur’s desk was one of the only messy spots left in the room, covered as it was in books and scrolls and loose leaves of parchment, and the dining table at which Arthur was sat was likewise littered with documents, a massive tome resting in front of him.

“Ah, Merlin. Finall—” Arthur trailed off when he closed the book and looked up at his visitor. “Is that…Guinevere’s dress?”

“Yes, sire,” she said, fiddling with one of the sleeves where she had her hands locked behind her back. She had chosen to pull on the same lilac dress from last night simply by virtue of it being the outfit closest at hand. “She lent it to me.”

“Right. Well. You…don’t look entirely ridiculous in it, I suppose.”

“Just what every girl wants to hear,” she quipped before she remembered that she was supposed to be tense and reserved. “Sire.”

Arthur huffed, gesturing at the chairs along the side at the table. “Come. Sit.”

Merlin approached the table somewhat warily, choosing to sit down at the end opposite Arthur instead of in one of the indicated chairs closer to him. “You wished to talk to me, sire?” she asked when she was seated.

Arthur observed her quietly for a second before saying, “What I wish is for you to stop looking at me like I’m about to chop your head off.”

“I’m sure you can see how confessing to repeatedly consorting with sorcerers would make me consider it an option, sire.”

“And stop with all the ‘sires’. It’s even weirder than seeing you in my wife’s dresses.” When she made no response to this, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I had hoped that we might speak as…friends? There is much I’d like to ask you.”

“What do you want to know, s— Arthur?”

“Last time we spoke, you insinuated that your father was a sorcerer, but you once told me that you never knew him, nor his identity.”

Jumping right into it, huh?

“At the time, that was true,” she said slowly. “I only met him briefly some time later. Just before he died.”

“You never mentioned it.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Because he was a sorcerer?”

She nodded.

“Will you tell me about him now?”

“I…can’t.”

Arthur frowned and clasped his hands on the table. “Why not?” When she only bit at the inside of her lip and looked down at her lap, he said slowly, “Merlin, if you’re worried about getting in trouble, I can assure you that I won’t hold anything you tell me against you. I understand the past need for secrecy, and I only ask now because I am trying to understand magic better and this is as close to a first-hand account that I can get save for Gaius. And…because it’s your father. I would like you to be able to speak of him without fearing repercussions.”

She looked up at that, fixing him with a grim look. “You swear it? Nothing I say here will earn me legal retribution?”

“I do.”

“Even if it implicates me in something bigger than just consorting with sorcerers?”

“I— Like what?”

“Nothing I had any control over or say in, yet your father would hang me for it all the same. Do you swear that you won’t do the same?”

Arthur regarded her with something like morbid curiosity. “Well, now I have to know. Yes, fine, I swear.”

Just say it, she told herself. Just say it and be done with it, then you can leave if you must. Gwaine would run away with you if you asked; you could start over somewhere new. You’re not much use here without your magic anyway. It’s all in Arthur’s hands now, to accept or learn to live with as he chooses. Both options would free you of your destiny, either because it would be fulfilled or because Arthur would be able to defend himself in your stead.

She could hardly believe that she was considering telling the truth after all this time, and she marvelled absently at the fact that she did not feel half as shaky as when this whole thing had been set in motion two days ago. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she had both Gwaine and Gwen on her side, one of whom represented a way out if Arthur should be upset enough to go back on his word, or perhaps she was just too tired and hungover still to be able to summon the energy to be properly afraid.

“My father’s name…” she said slowly, meeting Arthur’s eyes with solemn defiance, “was Balinor.”

It took a second for the name to ring a bell in Arthur’s mind, but then his eyes widened a hair and he leaned back in his chair. “The Dragonlord? He was your father?”

“Gaius told me just before we set out to find him. I had never even heard his name before.”

“I see… Did he recognise you?”

“He didn’t know he was a father. He had taken refuge with my mother in Ealdor, but Uther’s men found him and he was forced to flee before she could tell him she was with child. He was surprised when I told him who I was, but I think… I like to think he was pleased.” She smiled sadly as she remembered waking up to find the little whittled dragon he had made for her, only minutes before tragedy had struck. Her voice came out thick as she continued, “He told me he was proud of me, just before he died. We— He jumped in front of that sword to save me. And I…I couldn’t…”

Her throat closed up too tightly to let her voice out, and a tear fell down her cheek as she closed her eyes, trying to dispel the phantom feeling of blood from her hands.

“God, Merlin…” Arthur dragged a hand down his face. “I could tell his passing affected you deeply, but I had no idea— I would say I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose one’s father in that manner, but I know only too well. I’m sorry you had to go through the same thing.”

She nodded mutely, raising a hand to wipe at her face with her sleeve. Thinking about it, their experiences were remarkably similar. Their fathers had both taken a blade meant for their children and had both bled out in their arms, only Uther had survived a little longer. In both cases, Merlin had been the one who failed to save them. She often wondered if she could have saved Balinor if she had tried to heal him quickly enough—if she had not been so afraid of Arthur catching her using magic…

“You could have told me,” Arthur said quietly.

She sniffled and drew a deep breath. “No, I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Arthur… What do you know of Dragonlords?”

“More now than at the time. They were descended from an ancient line of men, said to be able to communicate with dragons in their own tongue—to issue commands to them.”

“And how does one become a Dragonlord?” she asked, her voice steady, if slightly hoarse.

“I believe they were born into it. Why?”

She raised a pointed eyebrow.

After a small eternity, the penny finally seemed to drop. “You’re a Dragonlord,” Arthur stated flatly.

“Yes. Or…I was, at least? The gift is passed down from father to son, and now I’m a girl, so I guess there’s a chance I’ve lost it. I haven’t really checked.”

It was an interesting question, but at the moment it seemed less important to muse on whether there could be such a thing as a Dragonlady than to pay attention to Arthur’s reaction to the revelation, which was hard to read.

For the longest time, he just sat there, staring at his clasped hands resting on the table as the cogwheels turned behind his unfocused eyes, but at long last he looked up at Merlin, a furrow in his brow as he asked, “I didn’t kill the Great Dragon, did I?”

“No. My father’s gift passed to me upon his death. I wasn’t sure I had the power until we returned to Camelot and rode out to battle the dragon, but when I faced him I was able to find the voice within me that let me command him. I told him that I’d kill him if he ever attacked Camelot again and forced him to leave.”

“You didn’t kill it?!”

“Arthur, there is a deep bond between dragons and Dragonlords. We are kin, and both a dying breed. As the last Dragonlord, it is my sacred duty to protect the last dragons.”

“Protect them? Merlin, the damned thing almost razed Camelot to the ground! What’s to stop it from trying again, especially if you have lost the power to control it?”

“He won’t,” Merlin assured him. “His quarrel was with Uther. Even without my influence, he would do nothing to harm the kingdom further. In fact, he has since helped save it without my having to command him to lend his aid.”

Arthur looked taken aback by this. “It— He has?”

Electing not to mention the myriad of times that she had sought Kilgharrah’s counsel—before and after freeing him—she confessed, “I called for him when Agravaine’s men found us in Ealdor, and he took care of our pursuers. Without him, we would surely have been overrun in the tunnels.”

“Oh.”

When Arthur seemingly could not think of anything else to say to this, Merlin tentatively asked, “Do you see now why I could not tell you about my father without endangering myself? I would have liked nothing more than to be able to talk about him, but I could not be sure it would be safe.”

“But we went to Balinor for help. We wanted to work with a Dragonlord. Knowing that there was one left after he died would have been a boon.”

“And what do you think Uther would have done to him afterwards—or to me? After slaughtering our whole line for simply being born with this gift, I can’t imagine he would suddenly pardon my father, however helpful he had been. At best, he would have been forced back into exile, and at worst… Well. Uther did once trick him into thinking he wanted to make peace with the Great Dragon, only to imprison it…”

“I am not my father.”

“No, you’re a better man than he ever was,” Merlin agreed solemnly, “but you would have had to choose between betraying my trust or his, had I told you what I was, and I didn’t want to put you in that position.”

Arthur nodded reluctantly at the wisdom in this, but then quietly asked, “If that was the only thing that worried you, why not tell me when I became king? Why…why do you still look at me like I might have you burned?”

“Arthur…” She swallowed, clenching her fists tightly in her lap. “You still uphold your father’s laws. Uther considered the gift of a Dragonlord to be tantamount to magic, a crime which you still execute people for. I would like to believe that you would not hurt me, yet why should I be an exception to the rule? Why should I be spared just for knowing you when others aren’t so lucky?”

Arthur’s jaw worked silently as he looked away, a shadow of guilt passing over his face. “Is it?” he asked after some time. “Is the gift magic? Is that why you called your father a sorcerer?”

The question, Are you a sorcerer? hung unspoken between them, and Merlin’s heart was in her throat as she considered how to answer this.

“I don’t know,” she said finally, cravenly choosing to tell only enough of the truth as to leave the answer ambiguous. “I know too little of my own heritage to say if the bond between us and dragons is something you would classify as magic, but I know you would consider my father a sorcerer. He healed you with magic when I brought you to him, saving you even though he suspected your identity. I don’t know if that was connected to his power as a Dragonlord or not.”

Arthur nodded slowly, looking like he was on the brink of asking something else before deciding against it. Instead, he inhaled and shifted a little in his chair, studiously smoothing his thoughtful expression into something more relaxed as he said, “It seems I owe Balinor more than I knew, and you also. You have my gratitude for saving Camelot from the dragon, and, uh, for saving us with the dragon too, I suppose. Any other heroic deeds you’ve been hiding from me that I should know about?”

Merlin’s nerves were not soothed in the least by the light-hearted tone of the question. “Yes,” she said bluntly, her heartbeat picking up its pace. “I don’t enjoy deceiving you, Arthur, but there are many things I have been forced to keep secret to ensure the safety of myself and others—yourself included. I don’t want to lie to you, but there are things I do not feel I can talk about until such a time as the laws change—if ever.”

Arthur’s expression turned grave again, and Merlin could tell that he did not like the sound of this one bit, yet he said only, “I am…in the process of re-examining those laws.”

“You are?” she breathed, hope mingling with the anxiety.

She knew Gwen had seemed set on convincing Arthur of this, and of course Gaius had been teaching him more about magic—both how to control it and of its history—but she had not had the chance to speak long enough with either of them to ask how that was progressing. Although, to be fair, this had rather a lot to do with her actively avoiding them these past days…

“I am,” Arthur confirmed. “Guinevere has been very clear about her opinion on the matter and has made some good points. I have sought Gaius’ counsel also, aside from our lessons in managing the magic I was cursed with. I am beginning to see that there is much I have been misinformed about, or blind to. I would welcome your perspective, or any information you are able to share with me that might enlighten me further.”

Merlin suspected that she was gaping rather stupidly at Arthur, but she could not help it. There might be true hope after all. He had called her being a Dragonlord a boon, had somehow resisted pressing her for the full truth after she confessed that she was still keeping things from him, and now he was telling her he was actually properly reconsidering his stance on the ban? It was almost too good to be true.

“I think you’re doing the right thing,” she hurried to say. “There is no cruelty in magic, only in the hearts of men. For every person you have seen use it for harm, there are a thousand for whom it is simply a part of their everyday life, and many of them would gladly use it to help their neighbours and their kingdom if they were only allowed. Just look at the druids! They healed Leon—a Knight of Camelot—out of their belief that life is sacred, even the lives of those who would call them their enemy. Surely they are proof that you can live with magic for a lifetime without inevitably being corrupted by it?”

“Perhaps I ought to make contact with some of their elders to learn more about their ways and viewpoints,” Arthur mused.

“That’s a great idea! I’m sure they have tons of knowledge that even Gaius doesn’t know.”

Letting out a sudden huff, Arthur shook his head with a wry smile and said, “God, if my father could see me now… He’d be turning in his grave. One little curse, and I’m considering overthrowing his life’s work.”

Merlin found nothing amusing about this whatsoever, and any trace of budding excitement fell from her face as she said, “Uther’s life work was a genocide driven by his own guilt. Is that the sort of legacy you want to leave behind?”

Perhaps that had been a tad too bluntly put, judging by Arthur’s stricken look, but it was not as if it was not true.

“What do you mean, ‘his guilt?’”

Ah.

“Arthur, if you’re truly considering this, then there is something you should know…” She hesitated, turning around the issue in her mind as she pondered how to approach it. “To this day, I still wonder if I made the right choice in keeping this from you—if there even was a right choice to be made… But you deserve to know.”

Arthur scowled and tilted subtly forward in his chair, leaning some of his weight on his arms atop the table. “Tell me.”

“Morgause wasn’t lying about you being born of magic.”

“What?” Arthur’s voice had gone cold as stone.

“I cannot be certain if the spirit she showed you was truly your mother or if her words were her own, but Gaius confirmed that the gist of the story is true. Your father did ask the High Priestess Nimueh to use magic to help your mother conceive, and he was warned there would be a price—a life for a life. I don’t think he knew it was your mother who would pay it, but he knew there were risks involved. When she died, he blamed everyone but himself and started a war against an entire people which had, up until then, been respected and valued citizens of Camelot.”

Eyes closed tightly shut and jaw clenched, Arthur processed this. “Merlin. I need you to swear to me that you’re telling the truth right now.”

“I swear that I am telling the truth as I understand it, but you should ask Gaius to explain it in full; I don’t have all the details.”

He looked up at her again then, his eyes burning with barely restrained fury. “Why did you tell me she was lying?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“Even if she was telling the truth, what she wanted was to sow discord between you and your father, and you were playing right into her hands,” she replied quietly. “You were going to kill Uther. I couldn’t let you go through with it.”

“It was not your choice to make!”

“It would have destroyed you to kill your own father!”

“He would have deserved it!” Arthur exclaimed, slamming a fist on the table and rising from his chair with such speed that it almost tipped over. “If what you say is true, then he slaughtered thousands of innocents in the name of a woman he killed, then indoctrinated me to do the same! How could you keep this from me?”

Her chest tight, she choked out, “I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right—”

“Uther killed your entire bloodline! How could you possibly defend him?!”

There was a breeze picking up inside the room, making the curtains flutter lightly.

“I didn’t know that at the time,” she protested weakly, but it was not much of an argument. She might not yet have known that she was the child of a Dragonlord, but she had known that she was a sorcerer, and she was very well aware of Uther’s crimes against her people in that respect. “I thought I was protecting you,” she added, though this did not account for all the other times she had saved Uther’s life. She could have let him die any number of times over the years without his blood being directly on her hands, yet she had not, swayed by Gaius’ pleas or by childish reluctance to let anyone come to harm when she had the power to stop it, however much they might deserve it.

“You don’t get to decide that I need to be coddled and shielded from the real world!” Arthur bellowed. The wind was increasing, sweeping through the room with enough force to make some of the documents on the table flutter to the ground. “I had a right to know!”

“You’re right. I’ve questioned my choice that day so many times, wondered how many lives might have been spared if I had not hidden the truth… I should have told you.”

Arthur turned his back to her, one hand clutching tightly at the top of the backrest of his chair. “Leave me.”

Those words cut her deeper than any reprimand. “Arthur—”

“Don’t.”

“Arthur,” she insisted, rising herself. Flyaway strands of hair were escaping her hastily-made plait and whipping into her face as the wind whirled around them. “Calm yourself. Your magic—”

“I said, leave me!”

Merlin flinched as several window panes cracked under the onslaught of Arthur’s emotions. Her instincts told her to stay and help her friend tame the magic that was lashing out at his surroundings, but at the same time she feared that he was too angry to allow himself to be soothed by her at the moment. Perhaps the best thing would be to just leave him to cool off on his own and trust that he would eventually remember whatever lessons Gaius had given him in controlling his magic.

Heart heavy with regret, she made her way to the door, fighting against the gale that tangled her skirts around her legs. Hesitating with her hand on the door handle, she looked over her shoulder at Arthur’s back, his fury writ plain in his tense bearing.

“I’m sorry,” she said, hoping that the wind did not sweep her voice away. Then she slipped out of the room.

Chapter Text

The last time she had left Arthur’s chambers, she had rushed out in tears and panic, but this time she dragged her feet, heavy of heart but strangely calm despite having given up much more damning information than merely insinuating that her father had been a sorcerer.

She had been pleasantly surprised by Arthur’s easy acceptance of her being a Dragonlord, and thoroughly unsurprised by his anger at learning that she had lied to him about his father.

It was, at least, some small comfort that he had only sent her out of the room rather than calling her a traitor or threatening to banish her or anything like that. If his outburst today truly was the worst of it, then she would probably be fine; she was hardly a stranger to Arthur kicking her out of his chambers in a fit of fury or annoyance, after all. The question was whether they would ever be fine after this…

By the time she made it back to Gaius’ chambers, the weight of regret over the lies she had finally confessed to—and of those that still remained—had eased slightly, leaving a peculiar sense of lightness in her chest. For all that her revelations had hurt Arthur, he had seemed to take them as truth and indicated that they were changing the way he viewed his father and his actions. As devastating as it was to think that their friendship might not recover from this, she at least had hope that their personal conflict had not endangered the progress Arthur was making towards a kinder opinion on magic.

“Gaius?” she asked as she pushed open the door to the infirmary, hoping to get his opinion on the situation.

Unfortunately, the room was deserted. Recalling that it was late afternoon already, she figured that he must be out on one of his rounds and so she set about busying herself as best she could as she waited for his return. She pottered around the workshop, getting some tidying and herb-grinding done while she digested her meeting with Arthur, but as time dragged on, her thoughts started straying to the events of the previous evening instead.

Though some memories were a little hazy with drink, she was relieved that there did not seem to be any real gaps in her recollection. It would be a shame to forget a night like that. The mere thought of the kisses she and Gwaine had shared was enough to lift her spirits and bring a small smile to her lips, and she found herself looking to the door every so often, hoping that a certain someone might come a-knocking in search of her company. Tomorrow, they had said, and as she had slept half the day away, it was rapidly approaching dinnertime already.

After having to pause her herb-grinding to brush a strand of hair away from her face for the dozenth time as she bent over the pestle and mortar, she decided that she might as well go deal with it while she waited for either Gwaine or Gaius to show up. In her haste to ready herself for her meeting with Arthur, she had only made a cursory comb-through of her sleep-tousled hair before weaving it into a passable plait tied off with twine, and it had been messy even before Arthur’s little temper tornado had dishevelled it further.

Bounding up the steps to her room, she headed straight for her bedside table where she had left her comb a few hours earlier, but her steps faltered when she noticed something lying beside it which had definitely not been there before: a small, rolled up piece of parchment bound up with a purple ribbon.

She picked it up and ran her fingers lightly over the ribbon, noting the costliness of both the material and the rich dye before carefully tugging at it to unfurl the neat bow so she could unroll the note. Her face split into a sappy grin upon reading the three words written within.

High laugh juice.

Gwaine opened the door to his chambers only moments after Merlin had knocked on it, smiling brightly when he saw her standing there with a platter of food in hand.

“I was wondering if you had any dinner plans?” she said hopefully.

“I do now,” came the mute reply, and he stepped aside to let her in.

It was a little disappointing to find that her not-so-subtle encouragement last night had not been enough to break Gwaine’s curse, but then she supposed that this sort of thing might take time. It was one thing to be told that you were loved for who you were, and quite another to start believing it. Or perhaps she had been way off in her diagnosis and Gwaine’s lesson was actually that he needed to practise his calligraphy or something…

She walked up to the small dining table to deposit the food, then turned around to see Gwaine trailing after her. His smile grew wider when he spotted the purple ribbon in her plait, which she might or might not have purposely arranged to hang in front of her shoulder so the ribbon would be on clear display…

“Purple really does suit you,” he mouthed, coming to a stop but a pace from her. Her breath hitched as he reached out to toy gently with the end of her plait, careful not to dislodge the ribbon this time.

“Thank you,” she said, meaning both the compliment and the gift. “You must just have missed me when you delivered it; I was away talking to Arthur.”

A slight note of concern crept into his expression as he asked something along the lines of, “How did it go?”

“Surprisingly well…and also maybe not so well? You know, it’s hard to say…” She broke away from Gwaine, putting a little distance between them before she started pacing nervously back and forth. “I don’t think I’m in any danger, still, but he’s definitely pissed at me, and I may have told him rather a lot more than I had been planning to, which means there are things I feel like I should probably tell you, even if I said I’d wait until your curse broke, because it doesn’t feel right that Arthur should know and not you, you know?”

She paused in her steps and looked up to find that Gwaine had procured his wax tablet from somewhere and was now sitting in a chair angled towards her at the end of the table—the tablet spread open, ready for his reactions and questions. He motioned for her to go on, looking like he was listening intently.

A surge of affection swept through her at the sight, and she relaxed a little. Gwaine would understand. Her secrets would be safe with him.

“Okay. So. I told you my father was a sorcerer, right? Well, I may have let slip to Arthur that he was also…a Dragonlord? Which, um, makes me one as well.”

Gwaine’s mouth fell open, and he stared at her for a good couple of seconds before shaking himself out of it and quickly writing something on the tablet, holding it up to show her. She had to take a few steps closer to him to be able to read it, and upon doing so she discovered a single word.

“COOL!”

She laughed incredulously as she looked between the tablet and Gwaine’s grinning face. “I think I prefer your reaction to Arthur’s.”

“Angry?” he wrote.

“Weirdly not. I don’t think he ever shared Uther’s view on Dragonlords. He didn’t even seem to understand why I’d hidden it from him until I reminded him that his father tried to kill every Dragonlord he could find, leaving me as the last living one, as far as I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I told him that when the Great Dragon attacked Camelot the Dragonlord we set out to seek help from was my father, and that when he died to save my life during an ambush on the way back, his power was passed on to me.”

His expression turning sombre, Gwaine squeezed another word into that last sentence, making it read, “I’msosorry.”

“Thank you,” she said earnestly, giving him a sad but grateful smile. “I’ll tell you the whole story someday. Obviously Arthur already knew most of it, except the bits he was unconscious for, and though he questioned my decision to order the dragon to leave rather than kill it, he actually thanked me after I revealed that I enlisted the dragon’s help to eliminate the horde of men Agravaine sent after us to Ealdor when Morgana invaded.”

Gwaine pointed at the word “COOL!” again.

“I guess,” she laughed. “I think he was a bit disappointed to learn that he has to strike ‘dragonslayer’ from his list of impressive epithets, but other than that he took it much better than I thought he would.”

“So why pissed?”

“Well, I, uh, sort of told him that there’s quite a lot of things I’ve been hiding from him, and that one of them was that— Actually, maybe that’s a bit private, but essentially I told him that Uther’s justification for his war on magic was built on a lie to ease his own guilt for something.”

Gwaine frowned. “He didn’t believe you?”

“No, I think he did, it’s just… Well, someone told him this secret before, and it made him so angry at his father that he tried to kill him, only I stepped in and told him he’d been lied to so he’d calm down. But it was true.”

“Why?” Gwaine mouthed in disbelief, then added to the tablet, “Fuck Uther!”

“I know,” she sighed, picking up her pacing again. “I wonder if things would’ve turned out better if I’d just let him die, but I worried Arthur would never recover from having his father’s blood on his hands, and instead I am now indirectly responsible for everyone Uther kept hurting. Guess we’ll never know what would’ve happened if I’d let Arthur go through with it, but at least he knows now. What he’ll do with that information remains to be seen, as does the question of if he’ll ever forgive me for lying to him. And even if he forgives this lie, there are so many more that he doesn’t even know about yet—that almost no one knows about.”

“Merlin,” Gwaine mouthed, trying to reach for her hand, but she evaded him and walked on, back and forth and back and forth and back again.

“I know I have to tell him someday, and maybe that day is coming sooner than I thought, and I don’t know what will happen then, but there’s a secret I still have the chance to tell you about first, so I thought I had better get it over with before I accidentally tell Arthur that too and find out if I really do have to leave. So. Um. Here goes.”

She came to a stop, finally making herself look at Gwaine again. He was looking back with patient attention, the hinged tablet held half-closed in one hand, a finger casually inserted between the two slates as if keeping his place in a book.

Meeting his eyes helped calm the nerves she had worked up, the warmth in them reminding her that she had decided to tell him for a reason, and that she had every faith that he would take it well. He had been all right with her father being a sorcerer and a Dragonlord, thought it was “cool” that she was one too, and had openly condemned Uther both in the past and just now. He would understand. Probably. No, definitely.

“Iwasbornwithmagic,” she blurted out, fast enough that she was not sure Gwaine even caught the words.

Gwaine, to his credit, only smiled and opened the tablet again, holding it up so she could read what he must have written while she was busy rambling. His hand was covering half the slate, but just above it she could read, “I know you have magic.”

She stared at the words, then at Gwaine, then at the tablet again. “You— How—?”

His hand slid down an inch to reveal the words, “I’m Psychic!”

A startled laugh burst out of her, and she covered her mouth with her hand as she tried to quell it, but it just kept bubbling up. Gwaine silently joined in with her, reaching out for her free hand again. She made no protest against his taking it this time, appreciating the comfort the steady touch offered her.

“How long have you known?” she asked when she finally managed to subdue the laughter, though it left behind a disbelieving grin.

Gwaine held up a single finger. “Day one.”

“What? Why did you never tell me?”

He started mouthing something, but then shook his head and picked up the stylus, starting to write only to hesitate and scrape it away. After another moment’s thought he sighed and just made an amendment to the last line, making it read, “I’m Psychic! stupid?”

“No, you’re not,” she chuckled, squeezing his hand. “You figured out my biggest secret years ago when I’ve been using magic right under Arthur’s nose ever since I came to Camelot without him noticing. I only wish I’d known you knew; it would have made so many things easier.”

Gwaine grimaced sheepishly. “Yeah…”

“And you really don’t mind? I mean, I’ve lied and—”

He interrupted her with a vigorous shake of his head. “Not lied.”

“Well, maybe mainly by omission, but—”

He shook his head again, then scooted his chair a little further away from the table, giving him space to tug at her hand and guide her to sit down on his lap, which she did with some confusion, though it was mixed with exhilaration. As his left arm wound around her waist to help steady her, she instinctively laid one of hers around his shoulders, revelling in their closeness.

“Merlin…” Gwaine raised his right hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, seamlessly transitioning to cupping her cheek. “It’s okay.”

She shivered lightly at the feeling of his thumb gently brushing along her cheekbone. “Really?”

“Really.”

There was so much more she wanted to tell him, but she dearly wanted to hear his opinions on it all in far more detail than the stilted communication the wax tablet allowed them. For now, she decided to settle for communicating her gratitude and affection for his accepting her magic and keeping her secret all these years.

Bowing her head, she slowly leaned down to press a chaste but lingering kiss to Gwaine’s lips. When he responded by sighing softly and tightening his arm around her waist to hold her a little closer, she melted into the embrace as well as the kiss, parting her lips slightly to deepen it.

If she had still had access to her magic, she would gladly have used it to find a way to stretch this moment out into infinity. There was nowhere she would rather be right now than right there, perched on Gwaine’s lap with his arms around her, his lips moving gently against hers in such a tender kiss as this. Although, as the memories of last night started filtering in, she amended that opinion to not minding in the slightest where she was as long as Gwaine was still touching her and kissing her in whatever manner he wished—tenderly or not so tenderly…

Struck by the thrilling realisation that they were finally alone within the privacy of four walls and neither of them drunk or expected to be somewhere anytime soon, she licked along the seam of Gwaine’s mouth, pleased when he immediately opened up and met her probing tongue halfway.

Being sober, she was now in a much better position to appreciate just how phenomenal Gwaine was at kissing—or perhaps it was just that it was him that made the experience positively transcendental compared to her previous fleeting liaisons. Every brush of his lips sent a shiver down her spine, each slick caress of his tongue made her toes curl, and when he nipped lightly at her bottom lip she could not hold back a soft moan, which only incentivised him to do it again.

Emboldened, she sank her fingers into his hair, combing through the flowing locks gently at first before eventually tightening her grip and using it to guide the angle of his head as she shifted on his lap to press ever closer. The gasp this wrung out of Gwaine abruptly reminded her that she had no way to tell a moan of pleasure from a grunt of pain without studying his expression, and she relaxed her grip and drew back a handbreadth to be able to look him in the eye.

“Good gasp or bad gasp?” she asked.

“Good,” came the unequivocal answer, emphatic even in its silence. It was easy to read pleasure in Gwaine’s expression with his pupils blown wide, his cheeks lightly flushed, and his eyes firmly fixed on Merlin’s lips, regarding them as if they were the fount of the nectar of the gods themselves.

“Good. Just…pinch me or something if you need to get my attention.”

He grinned rakishly at that, sliding his hand down from her cheek to lightly trace the pout of her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “Do I not have it?”

“You do,” she huffed, then ducked down to murmur in his ear, “I’ve barely been able to pay attention to anything but you these past days.” She punctuated this with a nip at his earlobe. “You’ve been driving me half mad with all the flirting and the gifts and the touching.”

A shiver ran through Gwaine and he dropped his hand to clutch at her thigh. She was rewarded with another gasp when she tightened her hands in his hair again and tilted his head slightly to the side so she could press a kiss to the spot of bare skin just behind his ear, between his stubbled jaw and the luscious locks of his hair.

“Touch me some more?” she whispered, her lips brushing against his skin as she spoke.

Gwaine did not need to be asked twice. As she continued peppering kisses along the side of his neck, he raised the arm he had wrapped around her waist to curl his hand over the nape of her neck, his palm a scorching warmth against her skin. The hand on her leg crept up along the outside of her thigh, smoothing over the curve of her hip and then down to caress the top of her buttocks.

Thrilled to finally be properly moving past the flimsy pretence of chaste gallantry, Merlin lifted her head from Gwaine’s neck and captured his lips again in a filthy kiss. One of her hands untangled itself from his hair and slid down to his shoulder, slipping into the neckline of his tunic to appreciatively explore as much of his skin as the indecently gaping opening in the garment allowed. She could not count the times she had thought about getting her hands on that sculpted chest. With any hope, she was not far from finally ridding Gwaine of his tunic entirely to give her access to the full experience.

He gasped again when she dragged the pads of her fingers over his nipple, the nub of flesh pebbling under her touch. As this was not followed by a pinch of discouragement, she decided to pinch him instead, lightly twisting at his nipple in the same manner that she herself often found pleasurable when she brought herself off. Gwaine seemed to likewise enjoy it, judging by his sharp inhalation and the way he squirmed restlessly beneath her.

His hand left her buttocks to slide around to her front, ghosting over her stomach and chest on its journey ever higher, up to cradle her cheek and pull her even deeper into their heated kiss before dropping again. His sword-calloused fingers trailed maddeningly lightly along the tendons in her neck, down to run along the stark ridge of her clavicle and then finally his palm was smoothing over the swell of her breasts, their prominence exaggerated by the boned bodice hugging her figure.

For all that this part of her body was still new and somewhat foreign to her, she found it just as titillating to be on the receiving end of the touch as it had been to be the one doing the fondling during her short-lived tryst with Molly the scullery maid many years ago. It grew even more enjoyable when Gwaine’s fingers dipped beneath the confines of the rigid bodice to better cup the soft shape of her breast. Even through the fabric of her dress and shift, the feeling of his thumb rubbing over her already stiff nipple combined with the gentle squeeze of her supple flesh made her moan into the kiss.

Drawing her head back slightly, she let her arms rest loosely around Gwaine’s shoulders as she caught his eye and breathlessly suggested, “Unlace me?”

Gwaine retrieved his other hand from where it had been toying with the downy hairs at the nape of her neck and set to work, looking only too glad to do so. The bow knot she had made at the top of the bodice unravelled with a simple tug and the gap in the lacing widened as its power of support weakened. Hooking a finger into the loosened laces, Gwaine started unhurriedly pulling them out of the eyelets, unwaveringly maintaining intense eye contact.

It was, quite possibly, the single most erotic experience of her life, and she looked back at Gwaine through heavy-lidded eyes that must surely be as lust-darkened as his were. Had she been in her old body, she had no doubt she would have been achingly hard by now. Instead, she felt her desire as an insistent throb in her cunt, long since gone slick with arousal. Gwaine’s corresponding excitement was pressed eagerly against the side of her thigh.

As the laces slipped through the last eyelets, Merlin slid off Gwaine’s lap and onto her feet, fixing him in place with a pointed look lest he get any ideas about getting up as well. “Take off your tunic,” she told him, shrugging out of the unfastened bodice and folding it up before putting it away on the table behind her (where it was kept company by Gwaine’s wax tablet and their forgotten dinner).

Gwaine did not seem to mind being ordered around in the slightest, for within the few seconds that she had been looking away he had somehow managed to remove his belt, pull his tunic over his head, and unceremoniously dispose of both articles on the floor beside the chair.

It was difficult to spare much thought for this impressive feat of escapology when presented with the absolute vision that was Gwaine lounging in the chair like this, his bare chest on full display and the hard line of his cock visibly straining against the fabric of his breeches. It was such an enticing sight that Merlin completely forgot about any self-consciousness she might otherwise have felt as she hurried to hike up her skirts above her knees to be able to climb right back onto Gwaine’s lap, this time straddling his legs with her knees on either side of his hips, letting the (thankfully) wide seat of the chair take the brunt of her weight.

Gwaine’s hands landed on her waist as she settled in his lap and she immediately reached out to run her own hands over every inch of skin she could reach, eagerly exploring what she had admired from a distance during far too many training sessions. His warm body felt divine against the palms of her hands as they smoothed over the hills and valleys of his warrior’s physique, tracing the well-defined contours of strong muscles that had been instrumental in saving her hide more than once.

While she was transfixed by the task of mapping out the expanse of skin before her, Gwaine’s hands slid down to her arse again, able to follow the full curve of her buttocks all the way down to the crease where they met her thighs now that she was not putting her full weight on them. Arousal flared in her as he massaged the ample handful of yielding flesh, his hands so close to where she so desperately wanted them.

Hoping to encourage Gwaine to take things further, she let one of her hands trail down his stomach to cup his erection through his breeches, giving it a light stroke and delighting in the sight of Gwaine’s eyes fluttering closed as his lips curled into what could only be a silent moan.

She was further rewarded by Gwaine’s right hand drifting down her leg and fumbling with the folds of her skirts where they were bunched-up around her legs before finding its way beneath them. He dragged his fingers over the garter tied just below her knee to hold her hose in place, leaving it alone for now as he moved higher until he was met with bare skin. There, his roving hand crept up the smooth inside of her thigh at an excruciating pace until finally it reached her sex, brushing lightly against the dark curls covering it.

Almost dizzy with anticipation, Merlin urged Gwaine on by stroking him a little more firmly and leaning into his touch. Taking the hint, he slipped a finger between her folds, letting out what looked like a silent curse followed by her name at finding her soaking wet for him. It was an easy glide up to her clitoris which he circled lightly with the pad of his finger before dipping lower again, letting the side of his finger slide alongside the sensitive nub as it went.

A tremor ran through Merlin’s thighs at the sensation and she made a breathless noise of appreciation and encouragement, leaning down to kiss him again. It was strange how different yet similar pleasure was in this body. She had already explored it herself in the dead of night after that day Gwaine had made her drop her apple with his shameless stripping on the training field, but it was, naturally, quite a different experience when it was someone else doing the touching, especially when that someone was as skilled as Gwaine.

It was very obvious that he was far more practised at this than Merlin, even though her paltry experience had now been supplemented with a first-hand account of what it felt like to be on the receiving end. His hand moved with purpose and confidence, quickly mapping out her sex and cataloguing what sort of touch made her shiver and gasp against his mouth and which made her moan and grind down against his hand.

Before long, she felt him languidly circle her opening before slipping the tip of a finger in and stilling there. His left hand, which was resting on her hip on the outside of her clothing, tapped out a little rhythm to draw her attention.

Realising that she was being asked a silent question, Merlin tore her mouth from Gwaine’s just long enough to breathe an emphatic, “Please,” before diving into the kiss again.

Much like her tongue licking into Gwaine’s mouth, his finger delved deeper, pressing in to the second knuckle in a slick slide before withdrawing and returning to sink in as far as it could go. She groaned against his lips at the sensation, revelling in the feeling of finally having Gwaine inside her, even if it was just a finger. When she had tried this herself, it had felt a little strange before she found the right angle and learned to relax instead of reflexively clenching down on the intrusive object, but in her current state of intense arousal her body was practically begging to be filled and welcomed Gwaine eagerly with little need for patient coaxing.

As Gwaine started slowly pumping his finger into her, she found it difficult to focus on returning the favour, and when he angled his hand such that his thumb rubbed against her clit in tandem with his thrusts, she gave up on the task of stroking his clothed cock altogether, dragging her hand away to sling both her arms around his neck just to have something to cling on to. She desperately needed the extra support as Gwaine proceeded to take her apart with his expert touch, reading her reactions like an open book and seemingly figuring out her preferences—such as being breached with just the single finger rather than two or three—before she even became conscious of them herself.

Kissing became a near impossibility as her moans increased in frequency and her breathing became laboured, and eventually she had to break away, tipping her head back in pleasure as she gave into the urge to use the leverage of her legs to rock down onto Gwaine’s hand, meeting his every thrust with a roll of her hips as if riding something more than his fingers.

Gwaine responded by instead burying his face in her chest, using his free hand to fondle her breasts and push them up to reveal as much skin as the neckline of her dress would allow, nuzzling into her modest cleavage and licking along the curves, his beard tickling the skin deliciously.

She gasped when he rolled one of her nipples between his fingers, the erect nub just barely able to peek over her neckline. “Oh… Harder,” she pleaded, moaning loudly when he obliged and pinched her properly, the sharp feeling shooting through her right down to her burning loins.

Her rutting picked up speed as Gwaine kept teasing at her nipple, heightening the sensation of his pumping hand, now rubbing mercilessly at her clit rather than circling it every now and then to give it the occasional break. The sounds he drew out of her were more akin to mewling at this point as she desperately chased the pleasure she felt building within her, so so close to cresting.

“Please… Ah! Gwaine…”

Gwaine looked up at her, waiting until her eyes were on him before he tilted his head to suck her nipple into his mouth, closing his teeth around it and tugging. The intense pleasure-pain combined with the debauched picture he painted suckling at her breast wearing an expression of hungry desire was more than enough to push her over the edge, and she tumbled over it with great zeal.

Her climax surged through her like a shock wave of fluid heat, making her all but sob with pleasure as she rode out her orgasm, unceasingly grinding down against Gwaine’s hand to milk every ounce of ecstasy out of her throbbing cunt before it would all become too much. She only slowed down when the acute pleasure started to abate and turn into something a little less insistent, glowing pleasantly in the background rather than filling each of her senses with white-hot light, and soon she was forced to halt the undulation of her hips entirely as further stimulation to her clit became overwhelming and her trembling thighs gave out under her weight.

Though Gwaine stilled his hand he made no move to slip out of her—even when she more or less collapsed on his lap—seemingly enjoying the feeling of her insides pulsing around his finger with the aftershocks of her orgasm. Merlin certainly did not complain. If it were up to her, she would quite like for him to stay inside her forever, impractical as that would be.

Still panting, she leaned their foreheads together and let her body go limp as she tried to catch her breath enough to speak. “Buh…” was all she managed on her first attempt. After gulping down another breath, she tried again. “Bloody hell, Gwaine…”

He chuckled quietly and ran a finger along the neckline of her dress, making sure her bust was neatly tucked in.

“Don’t bother,” she huffed, amused. “I’m planning for it to come off anyway.” She let her hand drop down to palm at Gwaine’s crotch again, pleased to find him still standing at full attention. “Unless you’d prefer I keep my clothes on as you fuck me…?”

She suspected that the fervent kiss Gwaine bestowed upon her would have been accompanied by a growl, had not the curse kept him silent, but there was nothing stopping her from moaning as he thrust his finger deeper into her, the heel of his hand pressing against her sex in such a way as to subtly stimulate her swollen clit without it being too much too soon.

The way his free hand tugged at her skirts, rucking them up over her thighs, led her to believe that the vote was decidedly in favour of clothes off. Liberating both her arms to aid him in this endeavour, she did her best to wriggle out of her dress and shift as one without falling backwards off the chair, which was no small feat. With Gwaine’s one-handed help, they just about managed it, and soon her clothes joined his tunic on the floor, leaving her bare save for her hose and boots.

Gwaine leaned back in his seat, eyes raking down her body with undisguised admiration. “Beautiful,” he mouthed.

Merlin could not help wondering what the odds were that he would say the same were it her male self spread out before him, but she was promptly distracted from any such misgivings by the feeling of Gwaine’s finger slowly pushing in and out of her as his other hand followed in the wake of his roaming eyes, gently caressing the pale skin of her torso.

“Bed,” she said, breathlessly but decisively. “Just as soon as my legs can carry me…” This was a real concern, considering that they were now threatening to fall asleep on top of the trembling caused by exertion and pleasure alike.

With a nod, Gwaine finally withdrew his probing finger and raised his slickened hand to his mouth, giving it a perfunctory cleaning by sucking his fingers into his mouth while Merlin looked on dazedly, her steadily rebuilding arousal spiking at the sight.

Wrapping his arms around her, he then said something along the lines of, “Hold on,” and by the time her lust-addled mind caught up with what he meant by this, he had already shuffled forward on the chair and started standing up, taking her with him.

With a yelp of delighted surprise, she wound her arms and legs around her lover, marvelling in his strength as he carried her over to the bed with seemingly minimal effort. He sat her down gently on the edge of the mattress, then sank to one knee to start working on the buckles of her boots, making an expression of mock annoyance at the admittedly excessive number of them.

“I’ll deal with them,” she laughed. “There’s a trick to it. You take care of yourself.”

Seeing the sense in this, Gwaine got off the floor and kicked off his own (much plainer) boots before reaching for the laces at the waistband of his breeches. Merlin, meanwhile, hurried to loosen that one specific buckle that would let her simply slip her foot out of the boot without having to fiddle with the rest. It was the work of a moment to tug both boots off, and she swung her legs onto the bed to finish undressing.

She had managed to rid herself of both garters and was halfway there with her hose as well when she was distracted by the mattress dipping under Gwaine’s weight as he climbed onto the foot of the bed. She forgot all about her last remaining article of clothing as she took in the sight of him kneeling by her feet, finally gloriously nude.

Though she had seen him bare-chested during training dozens of times, the rest of him tended to remain clothed in her presence. There had been a couple of baths in streams or lakes when out on patrol, and that time back in the beginning when they had been forced to remove his breeches to treat the stab wound to his leg, but his braies had always remained on and he had certainly not been erect inside them.

Merlin had never really thought of genitalia as being beautiful in their own right before, but everything about Gwaine was gorgeous, so she supposed it stood to reason that his cock would be too. Its base nestled in a thatch of dark hair, it rose proudly in a gentle curve up towards his stomach, sizeable without being intimidatingly big. A gleaming pearl of pre-come glistened at the tip, making Merlin’s mouth water as years of fantasies about getting on her knees for him resurfaced, but she pushed them aside. At the moment, she had another goal in mind.

Her legs fell open almost of their own accord and her eyes flitted up to meet Gwaine’s, inviting him with breathless anticipation. He mouthed something incomprehensible but likely complimentary, letting his gaze sweep appreciatively up and down her body before he reached out to help her out of her remaining hose.

His palm followed the curve of her calf as he lifted her leg and pushed the fabric down, his other hand tugging at the toe. With his assistance, she was quickly freed from her last thread of clothing, and not a second too soon, for despite having barely recovered from her first orgasm, Merlin felt like she might actually go mad with desire if Gwaine did not start touching her a little less innocently again—not that there was anything chaste about the way he looked at her as he undressed her.

Though obviously eager, Gwaine did not seem to be in quite the same hurry, for he lowered his head to drop a kiss to her shin, then her knee, then the inside of her thigh, slowly licking and nibbling his way up toward her groin. There, he used a hand to part her folds before diving in for a taste.

Merlin gasped at the feeling of Gwaine’s tongue lapping greedily at her, sorely tempted to let him drink his fill, but she was longing for something more, both to satisfy her curiosity of what it would feel like and to offer pleasure in return. Burying a hand in his hair, she gave it a light tug to make him look up at her.

“Later,” she promised. “Want you now.”

Gwaine did not seem to overly mind having his meal interrupted, for he only grinned and let her drag him up along her body and into a hungry kiss. His cock pressed hot and insistent against her belly and she felt a pleasant twinge of excitement at the thought of soon having it do the same from the inside.

Snaking a hand between their bodies, she wrapped her fingers around Gwaine’s shaft and gave it a light stroke, gratified when his breath stuttered and he rolled his hips to rut into her grip.

With a last nip at her mouth, he propped himself up on his arms, looking down at her and asking, “Ready?”

“Yes.” She swept her thumb over the weeping head of his cock before releasing him and adjusting herself to lie more comfortably against the pillows. As he slid lower to settle into position between her legs, a thought struck her, and she asked, “Will it hurt? I don’t actually know if this body… Well. You know.”

Gwaine seemed to give the question some consideration, and he reached down to slip a finger inside her again, then two when she got over the surprise and stopped instinctively clenching down on him. He drew a soft sigh from her as he slowly pumped in and out a few times while scissoring his fingers, then he smiled reassuringly and shook his head, mouthing, “Just relax.”

She nodded, confident that he knew what he was talking about and that she was in safe hands. Besides, even if it did hurt a little, she had a frankly absurd pain tolerance after all her adventures. It could hardly be worse than a bloody serket sting, now could it?

Thus assured, she felt only excitement as Gwaine bent over her and lined himself up with her entrance. Her slick cunt eagerly swallowed his blunt head as he nudged forward, but he was met with a little more resistance a bit further in. No sooner had she had the thought of maybe shifting her hips a little to improve the angle than Gwaine snuck an arm under the small of her back and did it for her. Another silently murmured, “Relax,” reminded her to do just that, and she gave control over to Gwaine, focusing on the reverent adoration in his eyes as he looked back at her unwaveringly.

Before she knew it, the quiet reassurance in his eyes and the shallow rocking of his hips had loosened her up to the point that he easily slid the rest of the way home until he was buried to the hilt in her sheath, filling her up in a way mere fingers never could.

She did not quite catch the words on his lips before they captured hers, but the ardent kiss spoke volumes on its own. Heart full to bursting with affection, she felt herself actually choking up a little as she wound her arms around Gwaine’s neck and settled into the feeling of being filled and held and kissed with such care.

There had been so much pain in her life, especially these last few years, but here, in this moment, there was none at all, only warmth and kindness and patient desire. She could not remember the last time she felt this at peace—this safe—as if destiny could not touch her within the shelter of Gwaine’s arms.

She must have made some unexpected sort of noise when Gwaine pulled out the tiniest bit and slowly pushed back in, because he immediately stilled and broke the kiss to look down at her. Concern marred his brow upon finding that Merlin’s eyes had gone misty.

“Pain?” he asked.

She shook her head with a smile, swallowing down the lump of emotion clogging her throat. “Happiness,” she said honestly, and within the privacy of her own mind she added an even more honest, I love you.

The furrow in Gwaine’s brow eased a little and he brought a hand up to her face to wipe away a lone tear that was making its way down her temple despite her best efforts to the contrary.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she assured him, twirling a lock of his hair around her finger. “I’m good. Really good.”

Luckily he seemed to believe her. His eyes crinkled with a small smile and he leaned down to press the most tender of kisses to the glistening tear track at the corner of her eye before mouthing, “Good.”

He held her gaze intently as he rolled his hips experimentally once more, and then again when she gasped softly rather than show any sign of distress. The overwhelming sentimentality that had washed over her out of nowhere gradually gave way to pleasure as she got her emotions under control and returned her focus to the matter at hand.

Soon, all her senses were absorbed in the experience of Gwaine moving inside her and above her, slowly at first but gradually increasing his pace and the depth of his thrusts. There was only the delicious drag of his cock within the slick channel of her cunt, the worshipful caresses of his hands, the hot press of his lips against hers, and the dance of muscles under her hands as they smoothed over his back.

The pleasure building within her with each roll of Gwaine’s hips felt different to before—good, but somehow more…diffuse and elusive than the sharp thrill of his hands—and she eventually found herself urging him on by hooking her legs around him and moaning, “Faster…” as she chased the nebulous promise of a second orgasm.

She could feel him smile and murmur something inaudible against her throat before obliging by speeding up the rhythm of his rutting, thrusting harder and deeper in a way that punched the breath out of her in the form of ecstatic little huffs. It was divine but still not enough, and before long she was writhing beneath her lover, panting and pleading for more without a clear idea of what exactly she was asking for.

Luckily, Gwaine seemed to know exactly what she needed. He pushed himself up with one hand and brought the other to Merlin’s mouth, running it over her bottom lip until she got the hint and eagerly sucked it into her mouth, wantonly swirling her tongue around the digit while idly dreaming of substituting it for his prick at some point in the near future.

Gwaine looked like he was thinking much the same thing, for he watched her lips with rapt interest as they enveloped his thumb and he pumped it languidly in and out of her ravenous mouth a couple of times before getting on with his plan. Merlin reluctantly relinquished him as he withdrew his hand, but she did not mourn the loss long, for he brought the spit-slickened pad of his thumb between them to massage her clit in time with the snapping of his hips.

A long, drawn-out groan escaped her, and it rapidly devolved into breathless moans as Gwaine’s hand and cock worked in tandem to intensify and multiply her pleasure, inside and out. Her hands roamed restlessly, clutching at anything they could find that might tether her as she threatened to fall apart—Gwaine’s hair, his arms, the sheets—finally ending up over her head, bracing against the headboard as Gwaine drove into her relentlessly, obviously determined to ensure she found the release she so desperately craved before giving in to pleasure himself.

And so she did. Once more, the throbbing heat of climax washed over her, making her arch her back and cry out in bliss as Gwaine fucked her through it, keeping up the pace until her taut body grew boneless, limply falling back against the sheets.

When she regained enough brain power to notice him slowing down, she exerted herself to string enough words together to gasp, “Please, keep going… Want to see you come.”

Gwaine’s mouth formed a silent curse before suddenly it was on hers again, kissing and licking and nipping at her puffy lips and swallowing down all the soft noises his renewed pace drew out of her. His hands found hers on the pillow above her head, their fingers interlacing as they both clung on tightly to one another.

Merlin was far too spent to consider attempting to wring a third orgasm out of her body this soon, but the residual pleasure that lingered from her most recent climax was prolonged and stoked into something nearly as good by Gwaine’s pursuit of his own peak, and she felt almost delirious with it, moaning and whispering incoherent encouragements whenever his mouth momentarily strayed from hers.

“Wish I could hear you,” she breathed. “Gonna make you—ah!—cry my name as soon as your…fuck…as your curse breaks…”

His response was the unmistakable shape of her name on his lips, but for now it remained inaudible, his ragged breathing the only sound made as he tipped his forehead against hers and abruptly pulled out of her only to trap his cock between their bodies, rutting up against her lower belly—once, twice, then he was coming, smearing his milky seed into the pale skin of her stomach with a quiet gasp.

Merlin absently noted that it was a good thing Gwaine was a seasoned enough lover to have kept in mind that her new body could conceivably…well, conceive, for she had certainly not thought that far, nor did she have the mental wherewithal to spare it much thought in that moment either, distracted as she was by the delightful experience of embracing her lover as he came down from his high.

She was vaguely aware of his lips moving in a silent litany of words, but given that their brows were still pressed together, she assumed that they were not necessarily meant to be deciphered. For her own part, there were only three words bouncing around in her head at the moment, but she kept them unvoiced as well for the moment being, choosing to express their sentiment through the soft kisses she bestowed upon Gwaine’s face while he caught his breath and through the brilliant smile she gave him in return when he eventually drew his head back to look at her, beaming brighter than the sun.

I love you, I love you, I love you…

Chapter Text

“God, you’re beautiful…”

Merlin blinked and looked away from the spot on the ceiling she had been staring at unseeingly since waking up ages ago. Her body had not yet caught up with the fact that her “vacation” from being Arthur’s servant meant that she could sleep in much longer in the mornings, and falling back asleep was impossible on this particular morn, given everything going through her mind.

“Good morning to you too,” she murmured, her contemplative frown melting away as she turned her head to look at Gwaine. It was impossible not to smile at the sight of him lying there looking all soft and sleepy, his hair a complete mess for once, courtesy of last night’s activities.

He reached out and brushed some hair from her face, suggesting that she was not faring much better despite her hair still being loosely plaited. Very loosely, at this point.

“What are you thinking so hard about at such an ungodly hour of the morning?”

“Curses. Us.” She paused, then tentatively added, “There…is an ‘us,’ isn’t there?”

The question seemed to take Gwaine aback at first, but then he huffed a small laugh and cupped her cheek, smiling fondly. “I should hope so. I don’t go around saying ‘high laugh juice’ to just anyone, you know.”

She stared at him in utter incomprehension for several seconds until the phrase finally clicked in her mind.

Oh!

She opened her mouth to speak, but another realisation struck her, interrupting her train of thought. “You— Wait, you’re talking! I can hear you!” She should probably have made a better response to that first bit before pointing this out, but there was rather a lot going through her head at the moment.

“Oh, so I am,” Gwaine said, looking like he was only now realising it, though he seemed less surprised by this than Merlin was. “All thanks to you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Surely you’re not suggesting I fucked the curse out of you?”

He burst out laughing at that, and oh, but how she had missed that sound…

“No,” he chuckled, “not quite.” Pulling himself together, he stroked his thumb along her cheekbone and said softly, “You made me feel loved. Spent all week trying to convince me of that, haven’t you?”

“You are,” she said earnestly. “By which I mean…high laugh juice too. High laugh juice very much, in fact.”

Gwaine’s face split into a dazzlingly bright grin. “I’m starting to get that.” He was still smiling as he rolled closer and pulled her into a kiss, but so was she, and she could not care less that the resulting kiss was a bit toothy.

“God, I’ve missed your voice,” she said as they parted. “I’m so glad your curse is finally broken.”

“Any ideas about your own curse?”

She wet her lips, hesitating briefly before saying, “I’ve been thinking… What if it just…doesn’t break?”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” he assured her.

“No, I mean, what if it didn’t have to break?”

He frowned slightly, first in confusion and then in concern. “Merlin… Do you want to be a woman? It’s fine if you do; you wouldn’t be the first lad I’ve met who would rather grow a pair of tits than a beard.”

“That’s not it,” she protested. In her research on sex-switching curses, she had come across a few accounts of people purposely seeking out such magic, which had forced her to confront the fact that some people apparently did have very strong opinions on their bodies matching what they felt like on the inside, strange as the concept of feeling like anything at all still seemed to her. “Truly, I’m no more attached to this body than I was to my old one—not in the way you’re thinking, at least.”

“Then how?” Gwaine asked, propping himself up on his elbow and looking down at her with puzzled interest.

“It’s just… Things will be different if I go back to normal. This—us—will be harder.”

“I suppose… But we can make it work, can’t we?” There was a reassuringly hopeful note in Gwaine’s voice.

“Maybe, but why should we have to? Why not just…let it be easy?”

“By you remaining a woman?”

“Why not? If I don’t mind either way, why not go with the option that lets us be together without all the complications?”

Gwaine hummed, abstractedly tracing patterns into the skin on her bare shoulder as he contemplated this. “The curse has to break eventually,” he said at length. “You’re too clever not to figure out the lesson you’re meant to learn.”

“I don’t know, I’ve done a pretty good job of not thinking too closely about it these past days,” she muttered darkly.

“Didn’t you say the curse is more of a blessing? That the lessons learned from it are designed to change us for the better? It’s been true for the rest of us, why shouldn’t it be for you?”

“Because for me being cursed has been a blessing!” she exclaimed, surprising even herself with her vehemence. She sighed and pushed herself up to sitting, leaning back against the headboard and drawing her knees to her chest, hugging them through the covers. “Maybe my lesson is that I’m better off this way. Maybe for me it’s not a curse to be broken but a gift to be treasured. Getting turned into a woman gave me a break from waiting on Arthur hand and foot all day, and it led to us getting together. Also, Arthur getting custody of my magic may have finally set our destiny in motion—something I obviously wasn’t getting anywhere with while I had magic.”

“Wait, you’ve lost your magic?” Gwaine asked, sitting up as well.

“Oh, I didn’t mention it yesterday? It’s part of my curse, I think. Or it’s a separate curse with a different lesson; I’m not really sure.”

“So…Arthur has your magic?”

She shrugged. “It’s a theory. It might just be a coincidence, but his magic is very powerful from what I’ve seen and what Gaius has told me, and it sort of feels like my magic did, if that makes sense?”

Judging by the confused crease between Gwaine’s eyebrows, it did not, but he said, “Right… And what was that about destiny?”

“There are prophecies,” she said with another sigh. “Apparently, Arthur is ‘the Once and Future King’—whatever that means—and is destined to unite the land of Albion in peace and prosperity and bring magic back to the realm. It’s my destiny to protect him and make sure he achieves this. That’s the purpose of my magic.”

“Those are some heavy expectations to live up to,” Gwaine said solemnly, something like understanding growing in his eyes. “But doesn’t that make it all the more important to break the curse so you can get your magic back?”

“But that’s the thing! Don’t you see? The magic isn’t gone; Arthur has it! It doesn’t matter if I get it back or not, because now he has the means to protect himself, and he’s finally considering lifting the ban because of it. Maybe this is destiny’s way of…of giving me a break, or letting me off the hook entirely, or getting things moving because I was too slow, or fixing its mistake by giving the magic to someone who’s actually worthy of it, or—”

“Merlin.” Gwaine interrupted her increasingly frantic ranting by cradling her face in his hands and gently guiding her to look at him. There was deep concern in his eyes as they studied her. “Oh, love…” He gathered her up in his arms, hugging her close. “I always thought you carried yourself as if the weight of the kingdom rested on your shoulders rather than Arthur’s but I had no idea how true that was. No wonder you look exhausted all the time.”

All the frenzied agitation dissipated as she let herself melt into the embrace, turning her face into the crook of Gwaine’s neck and quietly saying, “I am.” She drew a shuddering breath. “I’m…I’m so tired, Gwaine…” Somehow, admitting to this felt almost as nerve-racking as telling Arthur of her heritage.

“Of course you are,” Gwaine murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Arthur complains about the weight of the crown, and here you are, shouldering the fate of the entire isle without getting so much as a circlet or shiny necklace out of it.”

A wet laugh burst out of her despite everything. “I don’t need a crown or any other trinkets in reward; I just want to be free—free from persecution and free from being controlled by bloody destiny. I want to see the future the prophecies speak of come to pass, and I have faith that Arthur will bring it about someday, but I’m tired of being trapped in the role I’m fated to play. I’m tired of doing all the work alone and from the shadows—tired of giving up on living my own life as I wait and wait and wait for the dawn of a new world.”

“So stop waiting and live,” Gwaine said, squeezing her tighter. “Hopefully, Arthur isn’t far from taking responsibility for his part in the prophecies, but in the meantime there’s no reason your whole life should revolve around keeping him safe.” When she made a small noise of protest, he quickly added, “I’m not saying you shouldn’t protect him if danger pops up, but you’re not alone in it anymore, and there’s a lot of life to be lived in between crises.”

“So I gather,” Merlin sighed, adjusting herself so she was half lying down in the bed and leaning into Gwaine’s side rather than being curled up in a ball in his arms. “I just never seem to have any time for life between all the chores Arthur gives me and helping Gaius and foiling never-ending plots against the kingdom. This really is the closest thing to a vacation I’ve ever had, and I feel like I’ve lived more during these past days than I have in half a decade. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I’m not ready to give that up.”

“I think you of all people have earned the right to make a selfish choice for once in your life,” Gwaine huffed, stroking a hand up and down the arm she had slung across his chest. “If that means quitting your job, I say go for it. You’ll still be able to stay at court to keep an eye out for trouble.”

“I may not have to quit, even if I do turn back into a man. Arthur really is pissed that I lied to him. At this point, I’m lucky if he doesn’t banish me.”

“He’s your friend; I have a feeling he’ll come around. And if not, I meant it when I said I’ll go where you go. I have a bag packed and everything, just in case we need to leave in a hurry.”

Merlin angled her head up to give him a surprised look. “You do?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

“No!”

“Huh. I’d definitely keep a permanent one if I had magic while living in this place. Not sure if that means you’re overly optimistic or that I’m a paranoid pessimist.”

“I think it mostly means that I’m not rich enough to take any of my clothes out of rotation to keep stashed away indefinitely,” she said wryly.

“Fair point.”

Silence fell over them as they both processed everything that had been said, and Gwaine finally broke it by asking, “So where does all this leave us when it comes to your curse? Or curses, plural. Do you not want to get your magic back either?”

“I…don’t know. All my life I’ve been torn about my magic, going back and forth between fearing that it made me a monster and thinking that I was nothing at all without it. Now that it’s gone, I still can’t decide how to feel. I don’t know if I should be relieved to finally be normal or disappointed that I’m no longer special or scared because I’ve never been this defenceless before.”

“Does it help if I tell you that you’re the furthest thing from a monster I’ve ever met, there’s no such thing as normal, you’re incredible with or without your magic, and that as long as I’m around you’ll never be defenceless?”

She raised her head from his chest and smiled up at him. “And what if you are one of the people I’m concerned about defending?” she teased. “But yes, thank you, that is nice to hear. Maybe getting my magic back wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world… It is quite useful, and it could take years for Arthur to learn how to control his properly if it doesn’t go away on its own.”

“We’ll put regaining your magic on the to-do list, then. I’m sure you’ll figure it out in no time, seeing as you played an instrumental role in breaking everyone else’s curses already.”

“Did I?” she asked.

“You know you did. You encouraged Gwen to let loose and play, which in turn helped Elyan realise what she has been missing out on for his sake. You gave both Percival and Leon some pointed compliments targeted at the exact insecurities that they needed to overcome, and we both know that you were not exactly subtle in trying to help me.”

She groaned and buried her face half in her hands and half against his chest, muttering, “Don’t remind me… In my defence, I was drunk.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Still, it was a sly, underhand way to go about it, and for that I’m sorry.”

He just chuckled and dropped a kiss to the top of her head. “It was, yeah, which only goes to show that even when you’re sloshed and magicless you’re still clever enough to break curses and help your friends. Behind those brilliant eyes of yours, there’s an equally brilliant mind, and I’d wager that’s what’s helped you achieve your goals just as often as your magic has.”

“You really think so?”

“Don’t you?”

“Well… I guess when you have to play the idiot all the time to keep your real talents secret there’s always a risk you end up convincing yourself too. I mean, even Gaius—who knows about the magic, by the way—can’t seem to make up his mind about me being a genius or a simpleton, and Arthur certainly has no compunctions about calling me stupid to my face.”

“Hm, and do you think he means it or could it be another one of those running jokes that aren’t really that funny…?”

“I’m sure he means it at least half the t— Hang on!” Merlin extricated herself from Gwaine’s arms to sit up and glare suspiciously at him. “Are you trying to pull a me on me?”

He was visibly holding back a grin. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You are!” she said, poking an accusatory finger into his sternum. “You’re trying to…to trick me into admitting that I’m clever and capable and…I don’t know, that I have other valuable qualities besides my magic or something!”

“Your words, not mine,” he said innocently, then let his grin bloom unrestrained and asked, “Is it working?”

She crossed her arms in mock sternness. “Seeing as you’re not currently a toad, no.”

Though she had actually attempted to cast a spell to put her powers to the test, it had only been to make him sneeze, in truth, but he did not need to know that.

“Why don’t you sleep on it? You can turn me into a toad tomorrow if I was right,” he said, still smiling smugly as he folded his hands behind his head and leaned casually against the pillows at his back.

Narrowing her eyes, she said, “Don’t think you can get out of trouble for using my own wily tricks against me by distracting me with your arms.”

“Again, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” He flexed his biceps unsubtly.

“Oh, you know exactly what you’re doing, posing like that,” she accused him, finding it increasingly difficult to keep a smile off her own face.

He snorted and nodded to her chest. “You’re one to talk.”

Looking down, she discovered that in crossing her arms she had inadvertently framed and accentuated her bare bosom rather noticeably.

“Whoops,” was all she could think to say, and the second she looked up and met Gwaine’s eyes they both burst out laughing. “I keep forgetting about them,” she confessed between bouts of giggling. “Good to know they can be weaponised.”

“You’re set on keeping them, then?”

Making an effort to compose herself, she said, “I think so. The way I see it, the only real benefit of going male again would be getting my old job back, and if that’s not in the cards either because Arthur won’t have anything to do with me or because I’m quitting, then why bother?”

“There’s the issue of strange men calling you sweetheart, or far less gentlemanly things,” Gwaine reminded her.

“If I get my magic back, I can hex them with something suitably awful in revenge. If not, I could always punch them, or sic you on them for me.”

“And if getting your magic back also turns you male in the process?”

“I’m pretty sure I already know the spell to reverse it again.”

“And if you get your old body back but not your magic?”

“I can call in a favour with the druids; apparently that sort of spellwork is relatively common in their culture.”

“And if someone asks why your curse is the only one not to break?”

“I’ll lie and tell them that I figured out that my lesson was that I did always want to be a woman, deep down, and that the blessing part of the curse was to let me stay that way.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”

“I woke up quite a while ago.”

Gwaine reached out to touch her cheek with wonder in his eyes. “It’s a big change. You’re really prepared to go through all this trouble for me?”

“For us,” she replied, raising a hand to wrap her fingers around Gwaine’s wrist. She turned her head to press a kiss to his palm before adding, “and for me. All my life, I’ve had to hide who I am. If we— If you’re as serious about us as I am, I want to be able to be with you openly.”

“Dead serious,” he breathed, shuffling closer to pull her into an ardent kiss. He leaned their brows together when they broke apart, murmuring, “I love you.”

Though he had already told her as much—several times, in fact, even if she had not understood it at first—hearing him say the actual words out loud made her heart flutter, and she felt like she might burst with happiness as she said, “I love you too.”

Gwaine’s smile was blinding as he said, “We’re telling people about us, then?”

“I’d like to, but it might be best to wait until I’ve at least regained my magic, just so I can make sure there won’t be any inopportune transformations that could ruin the excuse of the curse being permanent.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” He pressed another kiss to her lips, then said, “Just remember that you can change your mind about the whole thing. I have faith that we could make it work either way; it’s up to you.”

“Understood,” she said with a smile. “But I have to admit, there’s one thing about this body that would be a shame to give up, even if there were no other reasons for keeping it…”

“Oh?”

She leaned in even closer to whisper in his ear. “Multiple orgasms.”

Laughing, he wrapped his arms around her and tackled her onto the mattress, rolling them over so he was lying on top of her. “Now that is a convincing argument.” There was a spark of mischief in his eye as he gave her a considering look and said, “You know, when you get your magic back, I might just ask you to try out that sex-switching spell on me so I could have a go at that experience too…”

“If you think I’m going to abuse my powers for the sake of sex magic,” Merlin started in a chastising tone, then switched over to something far sultrier, “then you’re absolutely right. I have so many ideas that I’ve never had the chance to try out with anyone, and I bet you’d be bloody gorgeous as a woman.”

“We had better get working on breaking that curse, then,” Gwaine grinned.

“Later. Right now, I have a few non-magical ideas for making you late for morning training…”

“See? You are a genius.”

Chapter Text

Gwaine was late for training that day, as predicted, and by the time Merlin had made herself presentable as well and snuck out of his chambers it was mid-morning. The citadel was bustling with activity as usual as she made her way back to Gaius’ chambers, with everyone going about their lives blissfully ignorant of how much had happened in less than a day.

Arthur knew Merlin was a Dragonlord and might be changing his mind about magic but might also hate her for lying to him, Gwaine had not only finally bedded her but also told her that he loved her and that he had known of her magic all along, and Merlin herself was most likely quitting her job (if Arthur did not sack her first) and starting her new life as a woman on a permanent basis.

The bit about Arthur potentially hating her was…not great, obviously, but there was too much good outweighing the bad to completely bring her mood down, and she was humming happily as she entered the infirmary. Not until she saw Gaius sitting by the table, reading a book while obviously waiting for her, did she realise that she had not actually given him any warning yesterday that she might spend the night elsewhere.

The degree of Eyebrow that she was served as Gaius looked up from his book was quite possibly unprecedented, and it made her stop guiltily in her tracks just inside the door.

“Well,” he said, looking her over, “You don’t appear to be injured, so I’m guessing you weren’t kidnapped or battling someone in the woods.”

“What? No, I’m fine.”

“And I haven’t heard of any recent arrests, so I don’t suppose you were smuggling druids out of the city either.”

“Nope. No smuggling. No crimes at all, as a matter of fact.”

“Then would you care to explain where you’ve been all night?”

“I…was helping Gwaine break his curse,” was what she came up with, which was true enough, after a fashion. “Succeeded too, so that’s five out of seven done.”

Gaius sighed and nodded to the bench on the other side of the table. “Sit.”

“I, um, should probably go cha—”

“Sit, Merlin.”

There was no arguing with that tone, and so Merlin did as she was told, sitting down opposite Gaius and feeling much like she had when her mother had found out that Will knew about her magic. The scolding that had followed was still fresh in her mind.

Rather than immediately launch into berating her, Gaius surprised her by saying, “Arthur called me to his chambers last night to confirm something you told him.”

“Oh.” She worried at her lip, then asked hesitantly, “Is he…all right?”

“He was rather upset.”

“With me?”

“With you, with me, with his father, and with himself.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t consider that I might get you in trouble as well.”

Gaius’ severe expression softened a little at that. “You were right to tell him. It was long overdue, and I have faith that the storm will blow over when he has had time to come to terms with it. I’m not angry with you for telling him, but you can imagine my concern when you did not return home after revealing all this to Arthur.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, the guilt growing stronger. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I did come back here afterwards, but you were out on your rounds and I grew restless and then I went to see Gwaine and…got sidetracked.”

After quietly studying her for a moment, Gaius said, “What exactly are your intentions towards Sir Gwaine?”

“My intentions?” she chuckled nervously.

He shot her a pointed look that clearly showed that he saw through her innocent act. “Merlin. Do you think it has passed me by that the man has taken to coming round to leave you little notes and gifts? If you are just toying with his affections—”

Her jaw dropped. “What? Toying? Me?”

“I realise that it may be tempting to…explore…this new body of yours and have a bit of…fun…while it lasts, but—”

“Oh my God…” Merlin groaned, hiding her burning face in her hands and dropping her head to the table for good measure.

“All I’m asking is that you keep in mind that Gwaine may be rather more sensitive than his reputation would suggest and that his feelings may not fade as quickly as yours when the curse breaks and your, ahem, bodily urges change.”

The only saving grace in this situation was that Gaius seemed just as uncomfortable discussing this as she was—although that did not really make it better either…

Through immense exertion of willpower, she composed herself enough to raise her head again, but she could not quite bring herself to meet Gaius’ eyes as she said, “First of all, I’ve told you that I feel just the same as I did in my old body. These…urges—” She made an effort not to gag on the word. “—aren’t exactly new.”

“…Ah.”

She barged on before he had time to say anything more, eager to get this over with so she could go throw herself off the highest tower of the citadel all the sooner. “And, secondly, I’m not toying with anyone’s affections. I’m in love. We’re in love.”

“Oh.” Daring to take a peek at Gaius’ expression, she found that he looked taken aback by these revelations, but not so much upset as concerned. “And how long has this been going on?”

“Um… About two days?”

“I know the passion of youth flows swiftly, but even so, is it not a bit soon to be speaking of love?”

She shook her head. “I mean that we only got together just now, but I’ve liked him for years, Gaius, and I think I’ve loved him far longer than I’ve even been aware of it myself.”

“I see. And is the same true for him?”

This question gave her pause. She did not doubt the honesty or feeling behind Gwaine’s profession of love, and he did not seem like the kind of person who would use those words without first thinking long and hard about it, but it was true that the flirting had not started until after her transformation…

However, he had said that he thought they could “make it work” even if she turned back again, though that was not necessarily a confirmation that he had found her male body attractive all along, nor a guarantee that he would learn to do so if she chose not to stay female after all. Still, in the hypothetical event that he did lose his physical attraction to her, was not the fact that he was willing to give it a try anyway even more indicative of the depth of his emotions?

“I…couldn’t say how long he’s loved me,” she said after a pause that was slightly too long even to her ears, “but I’m absolutely certain he means it, and he did offer to run away with me before we even confessed our feelings to each other, so that probably means something.”

“Run away?!” Gaius exclaimed.

“Oh, don’t worry, we’re not planning to. It’s only if Arthur decides to banish me for lying to him or if he finds out about my magic and reacts badly.”

“You told Gwaine about your magic?”

“Well, yes, but apparently he figured it out the day he met me. Guess I wasn’t as subtle in that tavern brawl as I should’ve been…”

“Merlin! How many times do I have to tell you to be more careful? What if he had reported you?”

She winced sheepishly. “I know, I know. But he didn’t? Which proves that he’s trustworthy, don’t you think? Not to mention how many times he’s saved my life or helped me save someone else’s—yours included.”

“I’m not questioning his trustworthiness or honour,” Gaius protested, then sighed and shook his head. “If you two are serious about this, then I am pleased for you, truly, but I cannot help but wonder what will happen when your curse breaks. I worry that you will find that the path you’ll be taking is a difficult one, even if your love holds true and you walk it together.”

“I know, which is why I’m choosing the path we’re already on instead.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning…” She drew a steadying breath, reminding herself that Gaius deserved her honesty and was likely to see through the excuse of the curse having turned her female permanently anyway. “I’m staying a woman. If the curse breaks, I’ll be turning myself female again before anyone notices. It’ll be easier that way.”

“What? Merlin, you can’t—!”

“Why not?”

“What of your position? Arthur won’t let you return to work unless—”

“He may be too angry with me to do that anyway, and I’ve decided I’m not going back even if he does.”

“Merlin!” Gaius was actually starting to look upset by now. “Arthur needs you by his side! You can’t just go throwing away your destiny for…for—”

“For love?” Merlin bit out, shooting to her feet. “Was that what you were going to say? That this destiny that I never asked for means that I should give up every chance for my own happiness?”

“Merlin—”

There was regret in Gaius’ voice, but Merlin did not let him continue. Stepping away from the bench, she started to pace along the table as she let out the feelings she could no longer keep inside.

“Everything I do is for destiny or for Arthur! Am I not allowed to do this one thing for myself? And I didn’t even say I was giving up on destiny! I’m working on getting my magic back, and then I was going to ask you to let me be your apprentice full-time. I’d still be at court—still close to Arthur—only I would have more freedom to actually go deal with problems as they arise without you having to tell him I’m at the bloody tavern all the time!

“I could go where I need to when I need to. I could rest when I’m injured instead of being forced to grin and bear it to avoid suspicion. I could come home to the comfort of a man who loves me and not have to hide or apologise for our relationship! Where does it say that I can’t fulfil my destiny and be happy at the same time? Don’t I deserve it after everything I’ve sacrificed? Don’t I deserve a moment of rest? Don’t I deserve love?!”

She came to a stop as she ran out of steam, deflating slightly as she anxiously awaited Gaius’ reaction to her outburst.

Gaius had risen as well at some point during her ranting and now approached her, raising his hands to wipe tears from her face that she had barely noticed falling. “Oh, Merlin…” He pulled her into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry. You bear your destiny with such courage that I forget sometimes how heavy the burden must be.”

“I don’t want to be brave,” she choked out, returning the hug. “I want to be happy.”

“And you deserve every happiness in the world. If this is what you truly want, then I will not stand in your way; I just wish there was a way for you to find what you seek without having to become someone else.”

“But I am myself,” she said, sniffling as she extricated herself from the hug to look him in the eye, desperate to make him understand, even if she hardly understood it herself. “I really don’t mind spending the rest of my life looking like this. This is me too.”

“Do you feel like a woman?” Gaius asked, still looking confused. “Because I know the druids—”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?!” she exclaimed in exasperation. “Why do I have to feel like anything? Can’t I be just…Merlin?”

“But you insist on being referred to as a woman…?”

“Well, right now it’s less wrong than the alternative, isn’t it? Or less confusing, at any rate? I don’t actually care what I’m called, though I’m beginning to realise that most people do. I just— I don’t know that I have any of those feelings at all. I thought everyone was pulling my leg when they said it was weird that I didn’t still feel like a man after getting cursed, and I still don’t entirely get what that’s even supposed to feel like. This body doesn’t feel either less or more like myself than my previous one, except I’m not quite as used to it yet. Does that make sense?”

To her great surprise, Gaius simply nodded and said, “Well, of course! Why didn’t you just say so?”

“What? Really?” she asked dumbly.

“It’s hardly unheard of.”

“It…isn’t?”

“I can’t say I personally know anyone else who feels this way, but I am familiar with the concept. You see, in the days of the Old Religion, there were several orders and levels of priesthood; the High Priestesses and the Bendrui were exclusively female, the Catha were male, and the Vates accepted anyone whose power of prophecy was strong enough, but then there were also the Velites who welcomed those who could not or would not be defined as either or just one sex.

“While the Velites were mainly seers and keepers of legend, most also specialised in the art of shapeshifting. Besides transforming into different animals, they were known to also change their human forms, shifting between sexes as they pleased, or combining them, or even presenting themselves as something entirely undefinable if neither male nor female felt appropriate.”

Merlin’s eyes gradually widened as she listened. “So this is…a thing?”

Gaius huffed a small laugh. “Not only is it a ‘thing,’ the Velites were quite revered—not in spite of their differences but because of them.”

“You think that’s what I am, then?”

“Well, a ‘Velis’ was the name for a member of that specific religious order, not a descriptor of just anyone harbouring such feelings, but I’d say it sounds like you would have fit right in, yes.”

A smile slowly spread across her face as she processed all this. She truly had not given the subject much thought before the curse—not beyond thinking it ridiculous that she was expected to act or think or love a certain way just because she had been born with a certain set of body parts—but this past week had introduced her to a whole world of feelings that she had not previously realised that other people had and she lacked.

It had been as eye-opening as it was confusing, and it had been hard not to feel like maybe there was something wrong with her if everyone else felt this way. To hear that she was not alone in her experience was a soothing balm to her doubts and confusion. It was a comfort to know that neither she nor the rest of the world had gone insane.

“All right, then,” she said, her grin almost wide enough to hurt. “That’s me. Neither man nor woman, just Merlin. Do you see now why it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice to stay in this body? Maybe in a perfect world I wouldn’t have to choose but could jump back and forth and explore everything in between and beyond whenever I wanted like the Velites of old, but until such magic and practices are accepted again, I might as well pretend to be a woman as pretend to be a man.”

“I think I do understand,” Gaius said, returning her smile. “You know, come to think of it, I don’t believe any of the old prophecies I’m aware of ever specified outright that Emrys was going to be a man…”

“See? We’re still on track with destiny; it doesn’t care what bits I have. Maybe fate and happiness aren’t mutually exclusive after all.”

Gaius hugged her again. “Oh, I do hope so, my bo— Um, ‘child?’”

Merlin laughed. “Does this mean you’ll let me officially become your apprentice instead of just an occasional assistant?”

“It would be my pleasure. With your bright mind you’ve picked up enough to be halfway to a fully fledged physician already.” Gaius let her go and gave her a considering look. “If I was not already running late for my magic lesson with the king, I would say that we’d get started on your formal education right away, but you will have to settle for doing some studying on your own while I’m away. I have something in mind that you ought to read anyway.”

As he walked over to a bookshelf and started searching for the book in question, Merlin asked, “Arthur still lets you see him even though you also kept the secret of his birth from him? That’s a promising sign, right?”

“We must hope so. Ah! Here it is.” He returned to her and handed her a small book bound in plain leather. “Read it well; it may come in useful.”

“I will.” She fiddled with the book as she watched him assemble the items he needed for Arthur’s lesson and prepared to leave. “Gaius?” she said, stopping him with one foot out the door. “Thank you.”

He smiled. “I love you like my own, Merlin. Your happiness is my happiness.”

She felt a little choked up as she nodded and shakily returned the smile. “Tell Arthur I’m sorry about lying?”

“I will. Now, get reading.” With that, he left her alone in the infirmary.

For a long moment, she simply stood there, breathing deeply as she enjoyed the peculiar feeling of lightness in her chest that was the result of the morning’s conversations with both Gaius and Gwaine. Their love and support meant the world to her, making her apprehension about the whole Arthur debacle considerably easier to bear.

It was with hopeful contentment in her heart that she opened the book in her hands, but this feeling promptly turned into pure mortification when the title page informed her that it was a treatise on contraceptives.

“Oh my God…”

Chapter Text

That evening, a knock on the door made Merlin and Gaius look up from their work to see Gwaine peek in. He broke into a warm smile when he laid eyes on Merlin, which made her light up in return as joy bubbled up inside her at the sight.

“Thought I might find you here,” he said, lingering just inside the door as he turned to Gaius and said, “I don’t suppose you could spare Merlin for the evening?”

Gaius sent a knowing glance Merlin’s way before asking Gwaine, “And what exactly do you need my apprentice for?”

Merlin might have laughed at the look on Gwaine’s face as he floundered for an answer if she had not been too busy wishing for her magic back so she could make the earth swallow her whole.

“Um, well, you see, there’s a, uh—”

“Gaius knows,” she hurried to say, coming to Gwaine’s rescue. “I told him everything.”

“Ah. Grand so.” Some of the tension seeped out of Gwaine’s shoulders, though now he looked like he was nervous for a completely different reason. “Then I’m here to request the pleasure of your fair ward’s company for dinner,” he told Gaius, turning his most disarming smile on him.

“Hm. I suppose we could call it a day…” Gaius mused, looking between them with a twinkle in his eye that Merlin did not care for at all. “But not before you and I have a little talk, Sir Gwaine.”

“Gaius, no,” Merlin warned him.

“Merlin, your mother entrusted you to my care. Dealing with suitors falls within my purview.”

“Gaius, please.” She only barely resisted the urge to throw herself into the fireplace to escape the situation. “I’m six-and-twenty! And it’s Gwaine! You know him!”

“It’s all right, Merlin,” Gwaine assured her, though his easygoing smile looked a little shaky around the edges. “I’ve faced worse dangers than concerned guardians.”

“But have you faced worse embarrassments?” she muttered, then shook her head. “Fine. You have your talk. I’ll go wait in the knights’ quarters.” Rising from the table, she shot Gaius a sharp look and said, “Remember that Gwaine has saved your life on several occasions, not least by fighting a never-ending slew of Morgana’s thugs while actively starving to win food for you.”

Gaius just nodded sagely. “I will keep it in mind.”

A minute twitch of his lips betrayed the fact that he was enjoying this, the bastard. She was not sure if she should take it as a good sign that he would go easy on Gwaine or be cross that he was amusing himself at her expense, so she settled for giving him a half-hearted glare before turning to leave.

As she brushed past Gwaine, she murmured, “Sorry about this,” and gave him an apologetic pat on the arm. Looking back over her shoulder, she pointedly said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Gaius,” before slipping out of the infirmary and abandoning Gwaine to his fate.

By the time Gwaine returned to his room, Merlin had stress-eaten her way through half her share of the food that had been waiting on the table when she got there. She perked up when Gwaine let himself in, turning in her chair to look him over for clues as to how the conversation had gone, but his expression was not giving much away. At least he did not look too scarred by the experience as he closed the door behind him and sauntered over towards the table.

“Sorry I started without you,” she said. “It was that or pace a groove in the floor. I hope Gaius didn’t say anything too mortifying?”

He made no answer to this but to walk up to her and bend down to give her a long, ardent kiss.

“Oh, good,” she said when he eventually drew back, feeling slightly dazed as she looked up at him. “He didn’t scare you off completely, then.”

Gwaine smiled and shook his head. “A horde of rabid wyverns couldn’t scare me off you, Merlin. I’m glad you have someone like Gaius. He cares for you deeply.”

She relaxed a little, smiling back. “I know. I suppose I should’ve known he wouldn’t be too hard on you after having warned me not to hurt you this morning.”

“Did he, now?” Gwaine chuckled, pulling out a chair to sit beside her at the same side of the table. “Well, I didn’t entirely escape that part of the talk, but I think I managed to soothe most of his concerns in the end.”

“Still, I’m sorry he sprung that on you only seconds after you found out he knew about us at all.”

“I’m glad he did. He gave me some interesting advice, actually.”

“Oh no. Please tell me it’s less embarrassing than the book on contraceptives he gave me.”

He laughed at this, but quickly sobered. Scooting his chair around to face her better, he said, “Nothing quite like that, no, but there was this one question he asked me which he thought you might be just as surprised to hear the answer to as he was.”

She turned her own chair towards him as well. “What question?”

Leaning forward, he took her hands in his, resting his elbows against his knees. “The question of how long I’ve loved you. He seemed to think that you were under the impression that it was a recent development.”

“Oh. Um. Well, I just told him I didn’t know exactly— I mean, I was beginning to suspect it must be at least a bit longer than— That’s to say—”

“Merlin,” Gwaine said, interrupting her stammering by squeezing her hands. “I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes on you back in that tavern, and I think I started falling for you properly when you insisted on going to get those enchanted swords in my place without hesitation or fear. You trying to convince me to stay and pleading with Arthur to find a way to lift my banishment certainly didn’t help in the matter, and I knew my fate was sealed when you wasted precious time tracking down little old me to help Arthur on his quest when I knew you had magic on your side.”

By the time Gwaine finished this confession, Merlin’s mouth was wide agape and her eyes were as round as saucers. “What? You—? All this time?”

“You really didn’t know, huh?”

“No! How could I? I didn’t even know if you were interested in men!”

He snorted. “Are you serious?”

“Well, I only ever hear about you going home with women.”

“You only hear about the women because taking men to bed usually calls for more discretion, but I would’ve thought everything else about me would be a dead giveaway.”

“I— But then why didn’t you say something? Or…I don’t know, at least flirt with me to give me a hint?”

“Merlin, every day of my life, I flirt with you,” Gwaine said, shaking his head in fond exasperation. “I was starting to think you were just politely ignoring it because you weren’t interested, not that you didn’t notice at all.”

“No, what you’ve been doing this past week, that’s flirting. I noticed that.”

“Again, flirting with men usually requires a bit more subtlety—not that I thought I was being that subtle. But since you insisted that you were a woman after being cursed, I decided to throw caution to the wind and flirt with you as one in a last-ditch attempt to either win you over or get explicitly rejected once and for all. Imagine my surprise when it worked—and without even having the use of my voice to aid me in my quest.”

Merlin’s head was spinning with all these revelations. It was true that Gwaine’s love confession had made her suspect that there must have been some sort of feelings brewing for longer than she had been a woman—or woman-shaped, at any rate—but she had not expected something on this scale.

“Are you saying we could’ve been together for years if I had only realised that you fancied me?” she asked incredulously.

“Aye, we— Wait, have you fancied me for years too?”

“Obviously! Did you think I suddenly developed an interest in you along with growing tits? I don’t go around telling just anyone I love them either, you know.”

“I…admit the thought crossed my mind, but since you were so adamant that you still felt exactly like yourself I let myself hope that you’d just been too busy for a relationship until the curse gave you a break. Didn’t dare hope you’d liked me that long, though.”

“Oh, I was busy, all right,” she huffed, smiling wryly, “but I would’ve at least tried to make time for you—for us—if I’d realised I had a shot.” She rubbed her thumbs gently over the back of Gwaine’s fingers as she confessed, “You caught my eye from the very start too, swaggering into a fight with impossible odds just for the hell of it and proceeding to absolutely demolish those thugs, all while looking like an impossibly dashing swashbuckler straight out of some chivalric legend. And when you stopped to introduce yourself between— Wait. Were you chatting me up in the middle of a fight?”

A cheeky grin spread across Gwaine’s face. “Of course I was. I joined the fight partly to get an excuse to talk to the elfin beauty who had gotten into a spot of trouble, and when benches and plates started flinging themselves across the room I was half convinced that you really were one of the fair folk who had crossed realms to grace us mortals with your presence.”

“Shouldn’t have given me your name so readily, then,” Merlin chuckled.

“Hm, maybe I didn’t mind so much the idea of being spirited away if it meant getting to see your enchanting face every day,” Gwaine said, winking and lifting one of her hands to his lips to press a feather-light kiss to her knuckles that made her insides flutter.

She could not stop herself from asking, “Then why didn’t you stay?”

“Suppose I thought a little crush wasn’t enough reason to reveal the blue blood I never asked for just so I could serve under Uther of all people. ‘Course, the crush didn’t go away just because I put some distance between myself and Camelot, and then you searched me out and it wasn’t so little anymore. After you saved us from that slave trader—oh, yes, I figured it was you behind that fiery distraction—I found I couldn’t bear saying goodbye to you for a third time, and so I finally stayed.”

“You stayed…for me?” she asked.

“For you,” he confirmed solemnly, his eyes shining with adoration.

“Gwaine…” Her heart full of love and gratitude, she leaned forward to catch his lips in a tender kiss that gradually grew more intense as she processed just how much time she had wasted on being oblivious when Gwaine had been right there all the while, showing her the most extraordinary devotion despite her being too blind to see it. “I’m sorry,” she said between kisses. “I’m sorry I didn’t realise any of this. I’m sorry I was too stupid to notice how you felt.”

“You’re not stupid,” he protested, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and pulling back to look her in the eye. “You were busy slaving away for Arthur and saving the kingdom every other day. If anything, I’m stupid for not just telling you outright what you meant to me. Guess I worried you wouldn’t want me around anymore if you didn’t feel the same.”

“I always want you around. I want to see your face every day, I want to talk to you all the time, and I never want to be too busy to spare enough attention for you or your feelings ever again. If I had the choice, I would be yours—only yours and not destiny’s plaything. I love you.”

With a quiet whimper, Gwaine pulled her into another feverish kiss before leaning their foreheads together and saying, “I don’t mind sharing you with destiny as long as you know that I am yours—always have been. If destiny starts keeping you busy again, I want to be right there by your side to help you carry the load as far as I can.”

“Maybe that’s exactly where destiny wants you to be too,” she realised, her lips spreading into a smile. “According to the Fisher King, you are the Strength to my Magic, after all.”

“Come again?”

“There was a prophecy— Ah, I’ll tell you the whole story of our trip to the Perilous Lands some other time.”

“Why not now?”

“Because right now I don’t think I can keep myself from kissing you long enough to do it justice.”

“Fair enough,” Gwaine laughed, surging in to claim her lips again.

For the second evening in a row, their dinner went neglected for quite a while before hunger eventually drove them out of bed and back to the table.

Chapter Text

Merlin woke early again the next morning, feeling oddly rejuvenated despite having stayed up late into the night trading kisses and stories with Gwaine. At first, she thought that the happy buzzing of energy in her veins was nothing more than the joy of getting to wake up beside the man she loved again—a man who had, as it turned out, loved her since their second meeting—but as the fog of sleep gradually dispersed from her mind, she realised that there was more to it.

As soon as the suspicion struck her, she bolted upright in bed, her pulse rushing. Slightly apprehensive, she cupped her hands in front of her and whispered a couple of words. The rush of power that swept through her as the spell worked felt even better than she remembered, and euphoric laughter escaped her as she opened her hands and saw a blue butterfly slowly beating its wings as it wandered across her palms.

Before the curse, she had taken her magic for granted for so long that she had almost forgotten how much a part of her it was—how alive it made her feel. What a fool she had been to ever think that she might be better off without it.

“M’rlin?” Gwaine stirred beside her, raising his head and blinking blearily against the pale morning light. “Oh. Where’d that come from?”

“From me,” she said, smiling giddily. Transferring the butterfly to one hand, she made another one—green this time—appear in the other one with nothing but a flash of her eyes, holding it out for Gwaine. “My magic is back.”

Gwaine sat up beside her, gawping at the insect as he let it crawl onto his extended index finger. “It looks so real.”

“It is.”

“You just…created a living creature from thin air?”

“Guess so.”

“You guess? You really weren’t kidding when you said you’re powerful, huh?”

She shrugged sheepishly, the motion making her butterfly take flight. “If anything, that may be an understatement.”

Gwaine shook his head with a disbelieving smile, following his butterfly with his eyes as it fluttered away after Merlin’s. “You’re a wonder, you know that, love?” he said fondly, reaching up to ruffle her hair.

“So I’ve been told,” she laughed, smoothing down her short locks again to the best of her ability.

Another flash of her eyes opened a nearby window to let the butterflies out, then closing it behind them.

“And? Was I right about your lesson?”

She needed only think about the question for a second, for the answer seemed to have settled into her mind with almost preternatural clarity overnight.

“Of course you were. Gaius also agreed with you when I told him of your theory; I needed the reminder that I’m more than my magic—that I’m bright and capable in my own right and that I need neither rely solely on my magic nor fear it.”

Gwaine grinned and leaned back against the headboard. “Well, I don’t want to say ‘I told you so,’ but—”

“Yeah, you do, you smug bastard,” she chuckled. “But I guess it’s only fair I got a taste of my own medicine, and it feels too good to have it back for me to care at the moment.”

“You can have the honour of telling me what the other lesson was all on your own as compensation—though I may have some theories on that too.”

“The other lesson?”

“Looks like you reached more than one insight overnight,” he said with a nod to her chest.

Looking down, she found that the breasts she had only just been getting used to were gone, leaving her chest flat once more. Only then did she realise that there was no plait tickling the bare skin of her—his—back, and a quick peek beneath the covers confirmed that sh— that he was back to his old self in every physical aspect.

“Oh. Right.” The slight sting of disappointment prompted by the realisation was easily soothed by reminding himself that his magic was back too and that their plan could still proceed with the help of a quick spell. “That one…is a little more complex.”

Just like with the other lesson, he felt its moral as an absolute certainty in the back of his mind, almost as if it was a feature of the curse to leave no room for ambiguity about the insight it wanted to impart.

“There are several facets to the lesson, because of course nothing is ever just easy and straightforward when it comes to me,” he continued with an exasperated sigh. “Turning female set a bunch of things in motion, resulting in Arthur giving me a ‘vacation’ and you changing your flirting tactics.

“The former taught me how badly I needed that break and that I can’t keep wearing myself out like that; I really can’t go back to being his servant—always trying to find time and energy that doesn’t actually exist to protect him and the kingdom on top of working day and night to serve him.

“As for us, more explicit flirting was definitely needed, as was the spare time to actually do something about it and let myself go after the happiness I used to think was out of reach because you weren’t interested in men or because there was only room for work and destiny in my life. It feels a bit funny that I had to turn into a woman to realise that I didn’t need to be one for you to like me, but there we go.”

“Is that what you thought?” Gwaine asked solemnly, taking his hand and interlacing their fingers. “That I wasn’t attracted to you until you became a woman?”

“At first,” he confessed, flushing lightly. “I wondered if you just wanted some sort of friends-with-benefits arrangement, but then you kissed me like it meant something—not to mention that you could’ve taken me home afterwards before we got too drunk to do anything more than kiss. All the signs pointed towards you feeling something deeper for me, so despite being confused that you’d never given any indication of it before—or so I thought—I eventually let myself hope… I’m almost surprised I managed to break the other part of the curse, actually; realising that I’d been completely oblivious to years of flirting didn’t exactly make me feel very clever.”

Gwaine huffed a small laugh and squeezed her hand. “In all fairness, I didn’t realise you liked me either. We can’t all be clever all the time, and we got there in the end. That’s all that matters, is it not?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling warmly and leaning in for a kiss.

“I have to admit I missed seeing you like this,” Gwaine said, playing with the now short hair at the nape of Merlin’s neck. “How does it feel to be a man again?”

For all that he had slipped back into the habit of thinking of himself as a he again upon discovering his transformation, hearing someone else call him a man rubbed him the wrong way now that he knew what he knew about himself. After a second of indecision, he decided that he might as well try to explain it to Gwaine as well. He had been incredibly understanding so far, and if Gaius had grasped it immediately, then why not Gwaine?

“I’m…not. That’s the third part of the lesson: I was never a man—nor a woman. Not really.”

Gwaine hummed and gave him a thoughtful look. “No, you weren’t, were you?”

Merlin blinked. “You knew?”

“Not as such, but the way you talked about it when we had just gotten cursed made me think. I’ve met a lot of people in my travels—women who didn’t fill out their dresses in the conventional areas, men who donned breeches not for practical reasons but to escape their skirts permanently—but the only person I’d heard talk a bit like you did was this old cleric I met when I spent some time in a druid camp.

“They would come out of their tent looking completely different every morning—only way to tell it was them was that they were the only one whose triskelion tattoo had a blue circle in the middle—and when I asked why they kept changing their appearance and switching sexes, they said they simply let their body reflect what was on the inside on any given day. There were plenty of days where I couldn’t for the life of me guess what they were going for, which I can only assume was intentional.”

“A Velis,” Merlin realised. “They must have been a member of the Velites before the Purge.”

“Aye, that rings a bell.”

“Gaius told me about their order—that they were people who didn’t fit into either sex, or not just one of them. It made me realise that I wasn’t alone in feeling like this—or not feeling, in my case. Do you understand?”

“Well enough. Can’t say I fully get what it’s supposed to feel like, not feeling like anything in particular, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“And I can’t fully comprehend what you even mean by feeling in the first place,” Merlin chuckled, relieved by this easy acceptance.

“We’re on equal footing then,” Gwaine grinned. “Does that mean you’d also be shapeshifting more often if you could get away with it?”

He shrugged. “Could be fun just to try it, but I don’t really care what my body looks like beyond practical reasons, and I think I’d rather keep looking like myself regardless of sex.”

“Mm, I’m rather fond of your appearance myself. Masculine, feminine, neither… I don’t think you can help being gorgeous either way.”

“You charmer, you,” Merlin huffed, kissing him partially to hide his reddening cheeks. It would seem the blushing problem had nothing to do with which body he was in and everything to do with Gwaine complimenting it. “I should probably change back so I look like a woman again,” he said as they broke apart. “Wouldn’t do to let anyone see me like this if our plan is to work.”

“We’re still going with that, then?” Gwaine asked, absentmindedly trailing his hand along Merlin’s neck and shoulders in a tantalising caress.

“If you’re okay with it. I’m sure you’re right that we could make it work if I stayed like this—” Especially now that I know you’re attracted to this body as well. “—but it still seems less complicated to go on looking like a woman. Maybe not everyone would care that we’re together even if I stayed, uh, man-shaped, but some people would make a fuss if we were open about it, and it’s easier to justify leaving my position like this.”

This way, I won’t have to quit in the traditional manner, and Arthur won’t have to sack me if he can’t forgive me, he added privately.

Gwaine nodded solemnly. “Whatever you want.”

“Is it what you want?” Merlin asked, fairly certain that he knew the answer already, but keen to be absolutely sure. “Being open about us?”

“Merlin, my love, I would gladly have spent all of yesterday hanging up banners all over the kingdom announcing the fact that I have the great honour of being loved by the most amazing person in all of Albion.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Merlin laughed, his cheeks burning—both from blushing and from his painfully wide smile.

“You love me.”

“God help me, I do.” Composing himself, he drew a deep breath and said, “All right, let’s get this over with. Luckily, I made sure to double check that I’ve got the spell memorised correctly.”

“Woah there! Right now?” Gwaine asked, stopping Merlin with a hand splayed over his chest.

“I can hardly leave the room looking like this.”

“Sure, but you don’t have anywhere to be just yet, and it’d be a shame for me to say goodbye to this version of your body without first showing you just how much I’ve admired it over the years. What do you say to helping me fulfil some of the many fantasies this look of yours has inspired before changing back?”

The only reason that Merlin’s blush did not deepen further at this was that Gwaine’s suggestive tone of voice made most of his blood rush south. Shivering beneath the touch of a finger slowly dragging down his sternum, Merlin said, “Oh yeah?” His voice came out decidedly breathless. “Any ideas in particular strike your fancy?”

A devious smile spread across Gwaine’s face and he trailed his eyes languidly across Merlin’s bare torso as he considered this, finally saying, “Far more than we have time for…but I’ve been dying to get my mouth on your cock, for a start.”

Merlin’s cock was, predictably, rather keen on this idea, rapidly hardening under the covers. “Far be it from me to deny a dying man’s wish. Go on, then.”

Gwaine was chuckling even as he kissed Merlin and pulled him down to lie beside him on the bed, their tongues and limbs entwining. Rubbing himself to full hardness against the crease of Gwaine’s hip, Merlin revelled in the feeling of having the proof of his lover’s attraction pressed up against his own yearning flesh.

Gwaine rolled them over to settle between his legs and started kissing his way down his neck, stopping to lick along the outline of his collarbones before moving lower to lap at one of his nipples. As it stiffened under his tongue, he caught it between his teeth and gave it a light tug, wringing a low moan from Merlin.

“Like that in this body too, do you?” he asked, his lips and stubble brushing against the sensitive skin as he spoke.

“God, yes,” Merlin breathed, unable to stop his hips from bucking up as Gwaine returned his attentions to his nipples, nipping and suckling at one and rolling the other between his fingertips. The scant relief he found rutting up against Gwaine’s stomach was not nearly enough, though, and he was reduced to pleading for more embarrassingly quickly.

Luckily, Gwaine seemed just as eager to get on with it, and soon he abandoned Merlin’s chest in favour of throwing the covers back and diving lower, mouthing at the planes of his stomach and dipping his tongue into his bellybutton before following the narrow trail of hair down towards the weeping head of his cock.

Instead of taking him into his mouth immediately, however, he sat back on his heels, kneeling between his legs and looking him over with naked appreciation in his eyes. “Look at you…” he murmured, his lust-darkened eyes flitting between Merlin’s chest—a fair bit broader now than when he had first come to Camelot—and his groin, wetting his lips at the sight. “Fuck, but you’re even more gorgeous than I could’ve ever imagined. I guessed one thing right, though.”

Fighting the urge to squirm under the weight of the admiring gaze, Merlin managed to squeeze out an inquiring, “Oh?”

Gwaine grinned hungrily and said, “You’re big,” then bent down and licked a stripe from the base of his cock all the way to the tip, thus saving Merlin from coming up with a response more eloquent than a breathless moan.

Delaying changing back into his feminine form quickly went from a good idea to a brilliant one in Merlin’s opinion as Gwaine took him in hand and sank down on him, engulfing his cock in the wet heat of his mouth. He had been fantasising about this as well—among other things—and he was glad for the opportunity to experience it in the flesh at least once.

Come to think of it… His research suggested that these sex-change spells were not half as taxing as, say, the ageing spell he sometimes had to use; they needed no maintenance once they were cast and did not require a potion for changing back. Perhaps he could afford to switch back and forth every now and then—at least within the privacy of this room—and maybe even experiment in other ways as long as he was sure he could reverse it before having to go out in public again. He should probably look into the subject further, maybe see if he could find any writings on the practices of the Velites, and—

All thoughts about research fled from his mind as the head of his cock hit the back of Gwaine’s mouth, only for his lover to relax his throat and swallow him down even further. “God, Gwaine…” he groaned, crying out in pleasure as Gwaine drew back in a slow drag of taut lips and swirling tongue before sinking back down again, taking him so deep that his nose nuzzled into the curls of hair at the base of his cock.

His hands flew up to tangle in Gwaine’s hair, grasping tightly at the flowing locks both to have something to cling onto as his lover gradually picked up the pace and because he knew Gwaine loved the enticing sting of having his hair pulled. The pleased hum that sent delicious vibrations through his shaft was proof enough of Gwaine’s approval.

It quickly became evident that Gwaine was far too skilled at this for Merlin to last long under the onslaught of his clever tongue and sinful lips, especially in combination with the wandering hands teasing at his bollocks and pinching at his nipples and pumping at his cock in tandem with the bobbing of Gwaine’s greedy mouth.

All too soon, Merlin felt the telltale signs of the building pressure within him nearing a breaking point, and he was forced to give Gwaine’s hair a pointed tug and say, “If— Fuck… If you have any other fantasies involving my cock that you want to get to, you may want to slow down.”

Gwaine let him slip out of his mouth with an obscene sound. His voice was slightly hoarse as he said, “I’d ask you to fuck me—hell, I’d beg you to—but I have training in a couple of hours and it might be a tad awkward if I show up with a limp just before going public as being in a committed relationship with a ‘woman.’”

A thrill ran down Merlin’s spine at the revelation that this was one of Gwaine’s fantasies, and his cock twitched against his stomach at the very idea of fulfilling it. “I have a fix for that,” he hurried to say, reluctant to let the opportunity pass them by. “I know spells to ease both preparation and any soreness afterwards.”

“I thought you said you’d never had the chance to try sex magic,” Gwaine said, but he looked intrigued rather than sceptical.

“With anyone else, no, but on myself? Let’s just say I have some practice.”

A delighted grin tugged at Gwaine’s lips as he raised a cheeky eyebrow. “Merlin, you shock me.”

“Like you wouldn’t have experimented too if you’d grown up with near-unlimited magic at your disposal.”

“I think we both know I would have done little else,” he laughed and dropped a light kiss to the tip of Merlin’s cock before crawling up his body to do the same to his lips. “All right, then, I’ll ask: will you fuck me?”

Merlin pretended to consider this, as if the eagerness with which he had offered a solution had not already given away his feelings on the matter. “Hm… I seem to recall you saying something about begging?”

“I’m not above it, believe me.” Kissing a trail along Merlin’s cheekbone, Gwaine’s mouth made its way to his ear to whisper, “Please, Merlin, would you fuck me?” He rolled their hips together languidly. “I’d do anything for you to spear me on your pretty cock. Won’t you please put an end to years of yearning and finally fulfil all my wettest dreams?”

Amused but very aroused, Merlin flipped them over so he was the one pressing Gwaine into the mattress. “Well, since you ask so nicely,” he huffed, then claimed Gwaine’s mouth before he could come up with something even cheesier to say.

Gwaine’s legs fell wide open with wanton eagerness, allowing Merlin to settle between them. “There’s oil in the bedside table,” he said when Merlin eventually let him come up for air.

“And here I thought you wanted a demonstration of sex magic,” Merlin smirked, trailing his fingers along Gwaine’s straining erection in a light touch.

“Oh, I do.”

“Then trust me when I say my magic will provide everything we could possibly need.”

“There’s no one I trust more,” came the honest answer, but the sober profession was followed by a salacious wink. “I place myself in your expert care.”

“Keep in mind I’ve never done this on someone else before,” Merlin warned him, more to manage any undue expectations about his sexual prowess than because he was truly worried about the magical aspect. “Just stop me if it feels weird. Well…too weird.”

“I’m sure I’ve done stranger things in bed before, love. G’wan, show me what you’ve got.”

Smiling at the cocksure reassurance, Merlin let his hand slide lower, brushing past Gwaine’s bollocks to slip between his cheeks. With a thought, his fingers were coated in oil, bypassing the need to fumble with a bottle, and he set about smearing it into Gwaine’s skin, unhurriedly circling his entrance with his fingertips.

“Your eyes are even more beautiful when you do magic,” Gwaine breathed, raising a hand to Merlin’s face and swiping his thumb across his cheek in reverence.

“Mm, want to see it again?”

“God, yes.”

Merlin let his magic reach out and seep into the tight furl of Gwaine’s hole, encouraging the muscle there to relax just enough for him to slip a slickened finger inside in an easy slide. The sound Gwaine made could best be described as a startled moan and he jolted a little before settling into the touch with a more deliberate sigh of pleasure.

“You’re right, that was weird. Do it again?”

Merlin chuckled and obliged him, sending another pulse of magic ahead of a second finger, making no effort to go slowly as his magic had ensured that he was open enough to take it without further preamble.

“Fuck, that’s—” Whatever Gwaine had been about to say was lost in a groan as fingers brushed over his prostate, and as Merlin pulled back to add a third finger, he let a tendril of magic remain inside, curling around that sensitive spot and turning Gwaine’s groan into something between a whine and a moan. “Merlin…!”

“Still weird?” Merlin teased, his magic keeping up the massage as his fingers tested out the state of Gwaine’s rim, finding him more than relaxed enough to proceed despite the rest of his body tensing up as he arched his back in pleasure.

“Hnngh!” came the eloquent answer.

Showing mercy, Merlin let the magic dissipate and retrieved his fingers as well, willing them clean. Leaning over Gwaine, he brushed a strand of hair from his face and asked, “All right?”

Gwaine’s eyes opened and focused on him with some difficulty. His face was flushed and he was panting harshly despite the whole ordeal having lasted mere seconds. “All…all right?” he echoed when he finally found his voice. “Never better.”

“Still want me to fuck you, then?”

“I may die if you don’t, but don’t expect me to last if your prick is as magical as your fingers.”

Merlin smiled and said, “I’ll go easy on you,” with the confidence of someone with significantly more experience in the field than he really possessed, bolstered by the warm reception his magic had received. That, at least, was an area in which he felt secure in his expertise.

“Not too easy, I hope.”

“Whatever you wish, as long as you keep begging.”

He had meant it mostly in jest, but judging by the way Gwaine’s breath hitched and his eyes darkened with lust, the joking suggestion was not only taken seriously but received favourably.

“Then, please, fuck me.”

Merlin needed no further urging. Pausing only to magically coat his achingly hard erection with oil, he lined himself up with Gwaine’s hole, a faint nudge of magic accompanying his cock as he pushed in to ensure that nothing had started to tense up again.

Gwaine let out a pleased sigh as he sank inside, but Merlin barely heard it, focused as he was on the sensation of plunging into the heat of his lover’s body, so open and welcoming. It was just as pleasurable and emotionally rewarding as being on the receiving end, and as he bottomed out deep within, he had to burrow his face into the crook of Gwaine’s neck and take a few steadying breaths to keep his composure.

“God,” he groaned, “you feel…”

“You too,” came the breathy answer.

Merlin used the few moments they both needed to adjust to lick and nibble at Gwaine’s neck, and soon he was rewarded by his lover starting to squirm beneath him. Not until Gwaine pleaded for him to move did he do so, setting a slow, gentle rhythm.

Gwaine sounded just as heavenly as he felt every time Merlin rolled his hips, and after having been denied hearing his pleasantly gruff voice for a week, each vocalisation of pleasure was all the more precious. Merlin took it upon himself to try to draw as many of these noises out of him as possible—a useful distraction from the threat of prematurely being overwhelmed by his own pleasure.

“Merlin…” Gwaine groaned between soft gasps, his hands roaming restlessly over Merlin’s back. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve dreamt of having you like this?”

“You’ve got me,” he murmured back, nosing at the shell of Gwaine’s ear. “Anything you want—anything you need—just ask and you shall have it.”

“You just said it: I’ve got you.” Gwaine turned his head to seek out Merlin’s lips, pressing a tender kiss to them before saying, “Although, maybe a pillow under my hips could improve upon perfection.”

Instead of bothering with a pillow, Merlin let his magic reach out and lift Gwaine’s hips, raising them off the mattress to enhance the angle.

Gwaine’s eyes grew wider as he realised what he had done. “Fuck, but that’s hot. Bet you could manhandle me any which way you wanted, couldn’t you?”

“Mm, probably… The question is do you want me to?”

“Wouldn’t say no to a wee demonstration,” he replied, his casual tone belied by his wide-blown pupils and the way he wet his lips hungrily.

A flash of gold in Merlin’s eyes was the only warning he got before his arms were dragged up over his head and pinned there, magic wrapping gently but firmly around his wrists and pressing them down against the pillows. He tested his invisible restraints, breath hitching when he found them entirely unyielding.

“All right?” Merlin asked, though it was abundantly clear that his prey was thriving in the trap he had been asked to rig.

“God, yes,” came the immediate answer. “Even better if you started fucking me properly.” When Merlin raised a cheeky eyebrow at this, Gwaine added, “Please?”

“As you wish.”

Merlin kissed him once before pushing himself up, trailing his hands down Gwaine’s toned torso and giving his magic a nudge to raise his hips slightly higher still, allowing him to kneel between his legs. Fixing Gwaine with a heated gaze, he drew out of his body in a slow glide until only the head of his cock remained nestled inside, then gripped his hips and pushed back in with a fair bit of force.

Gwaine let out a delicious moan, painting a gorgeous picture with his head thrown back and the muscles in his arms tensing as they strained instinctively against the magical fetters keeping them in place. As Merlin repeated the powerful thrust, establishing a more vigorous pace than before, Gwaine groaned, “Yes… Oh, like that— Yes!”

After this, communication grew rather inarticulate for some time as they lost themselves in the pleasure of each other’s bodies, moans and the slapping of flesh on flesh being the predominant sounds echoing around the room.

There was something titillating about the eagerness and wantonness with which Gwaine gave himself up. As powerful as he was, Merlin rarely felt like he was in control; either destiny was throwing him around like a rag doll or he was following orders from Arthur or Gaius or whatever visiting noble the king saw fit to offer up his services to without a second thought as to how he was supposed to fit that into his impossible schedule, but here Gwaine was, handing over the reins with gleeful abandon, entrusting his body to Merlin’s magic and even finding pleasure in phrasing what he wanted as requests rather than orders.

It felt good. Addictive, even. It was very fortunate indeed that Gwaine had proven to be in it for the long run, because Merlin did not know that he could bear having to give up this unexpected gift.

Before long, Merlin found himself teetering near the edge of orgasm. Resolved to see Gwaine fall over it first, he spared a tendril of magic to squeeze the base of his cock and stave off any release for the time being. It was a form of exquisite torture to keep rutting into Gwaine’s pliant body, feeling every bit of pleasure it gave him but denying himself the climax looming over him.

Thankfully, Gwaine did not seem to be too far away either, for he was panting and letting out a steady stream of moans and aimless pleas. “God, Merlin… Please— I need— Oh, yes!”

“What do you need?” Merlin asked him, his voice laboured as he kept up his relentless pace. “Tell me.”

“Fuck… Touch me. Please.”

Merlin’s gaze fell to Gwaine’s straining cock where it lay engorged and weeping against his belly, thus far neglected. His lips pulled into a smirk as an idea struck him, and he said, “I’ll do you one better.”

His magic leapt to his command, snugly enveloping Gwaine’s cock and making him cry out in pleasure. It only took a couple of thrusts before he caught on to what the spell was doing, and he looked up at Merlin in wild-eyed wonder, asking, “Is that…? Are you—?”

“Making you feel what I’m feeling, yes,” Merlin confirmed. “Seemed a shame for you not to know exactly how divine you feel around me.”

Whatever Gwaine had been about to say to that was interrupted by incoherent cursing as Merlin sped up the rolling of his hips, stimulating Gwaine both from within and without as the magic simulated the slick squeeze of his insides around his cock, making him feel every thrust as if he was the one driving into the tight heat of his own yielding body.

Gwaine did not last long under this onslaught of sensation, and he came with a wordless cry, his technically untouched cock spurting seed all over his stomach as he thrashed ecstatically against the constraints of Merlin’s firm grip on his hips and the magic still fettering his wrists.

With some relief, Merlin let loose his own restraints and let pleasure engulf him, following Gwaine over the edge only moments later, his hips stuttering in their rhythm as he spent himself inside his lover, fucking him through their orgasms until they both ran out of steam.

Only through immense willpower did he manage to keep enough concentration to lower Gwaine’s hips back onto the mattress with at least a modicum of control, letting go of the magic around his wrists as well before he collapsed and draped himself over his lover’s body, heedless of the sticky mess smearing between their torsos. He could simply magic that away—as soon as he could be arsed.

After catching his breath for a few seconds, Gwaine dragged his arms from above his head and slung them limply around Merlin’s equally boneless form in a loose embrace and mumbled, “Now that’s a novel take on the expression go fuck yourself.”

Merlin huffed a winded laugh, his breath ruffling Gwaine’s sweat-moistened hair at the base of his neck. “A more pleasant one, I hope.”

“Oh, aye. Please tell me we can do that again sometime, even if you’re about to turn back into a woman.”

“Definitely. In here, I should be able to be whatever you want.”

“I’ll gladly have you in any form you want, but I’m absolutely going to need a repeat of this performance at some point.”

“Mm… The sex magic met with your approval, then?”

“Above and beyond my wildest expectations—although, now that I’ve gotten a demonstration of what it’s capable of, I’m sure I can dream up something even wilder…”

“I’ll just have to keep pace and continue inventing ways to exceed expectations, then. I’m already a pioneer in the field; I’m sure I can come up with new avenues for further research.”

Gwaine chuckled and tightened his arms around him. “Sounds like we have a lot of experimenting to do. For science, of course.”

“Science. Naturally.”

They both dissolved into giddy laughter, and even after it eventually abated, Merlin was left with a sense of elation buzzing in his chest. This was what had been missing in his life, he realised—not the sex or even the romance, necessarily, but the opportunity to just be himself and use his magic freely around another person with the sole aim of bringing joy. To do something just because it made him happy. To just be.

“I love you,” he murmured into Gwaine’s hair, spent and content.

“You too. More than you could ever know.”

Chapter Text

Merlin was alone in the infirmary when someone knocked on the door and let themselves in. Looking up from the book she was reading, she smiled and said, “Morning, Gwen. You just missed Gaius, I’m afraid.”

“I know, I met him on his way to Arthur’s lesson. I’m here for you, actually; I feel like we’ve barely seen each other since my curse broke.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’ve been busy.”

Gwen huffed and walked up to the table Merlin was studying at. “Busy avoiding Arthur?”

“I’m not avoiding him. I’m just…giving him some space. If he wanted to talk to me, he would summon me.”

Gwen just hummed and sat down beside her on the bench. Looking her over, she asked, “Has Gwaine been by this morning?”

Somewhat surprised by the non sequitur, Merlin said, “I’ve…seen him, yes. Why?”

“Your plaits, they look like the ones he made on our picnic.”

Right, those. After she had changed back into her feminine form that morning, Gwaine had volunteered to help with her hair, and, seeing as she had still not gotten the hang of anything more complex than a rather skewed plait, she had accepted. Perhaps she ought to look into some spells to aid her, though if waking up beside Gwaine was to become a habit, maybe she would not need to.

“Yeah, he gave me a hand,” she confessed, unable to keep from flushing. “He used to help his sister, so he’s pretty good at it.”

“That’s kind of him.”

“That’s Gwaine for you.”

Gwen gave her another thoughtful look before gently saying, “You care a lot for him, don’t you?”

Her blush deepening, Merlin said, “I do.”

“Maybe…as more than a friend?”

Her heart pounded as she summoned the courage to nod. They had agreed that the time had come to start being open about their relationship and she had told Gaius already, but it was still nerve-racking to take the leap to going properly public. (Gaius hardly counted, to be honest, given how many of her secrets he was already keeping.)

“Is it that obvious?” she asked with a nervous chuckle.

The smile Gwen gave her in return was kind, yet there was something slightly off about it. “You’ve been very defensive of him since the curse hit, but I had my suspicions even before that.”

“And you didn’t mind?”

“Of course not.” Gwen reached out to lay a hand on Merlin’s forearm on the table. “But, Merlin, there is something you ought to know. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…”

“But what?”

She hesitated, then heaved a sad sigh. “Did Gwaine tell you where he was going this morning?”

Merlin raised an eyebrow, starting to feel a little uneasy. “To training?”

“Well, yes, but before that he went to see Arthur while we were breaking fast together.”

“And?”

“And he— Oh, Merlin, I’m sorry. I’m sure Gwaine likes you a great deal as well, but he’s getting married.”

“He’s what?!” she squeaked, her voice reaching a heretofore unprecedented octave.

Gwen squeezed her arm comfortingly, sounding truly regretful to inform her that, “He came by to ask the king’s permission to marry.”

Thoughts rushed through Merlin’s mind at a dizzying rate as she digested this. For a miniscule fraction of a second, she questioned everything that had happened between them these past days, but then she shook herself out of the burst of reflexive anxiety by reminding herself that it was utterly ridiculous to think that Gwaine would not have told her of something as significant as an engagement and impending marriage to someone else. Erasing the “someone else” part from the equation, however, yielded a scenario that sounded rather more plausible, if full as overwhelming…

With great difficulty, she forced her dry mouth to cooperate long enough to croak out, “And who did he say he was marrying?”

“He would only say that she’s a serving girl at court. I’m guessing he didn’t want to risk her reputation, should Arthur refuse to grant his leave.”

“Right.” The burning in Merlin’s cheeks could have single-handedly heated the entire citadel through the most bitter of winter nights. “And what did Arthur say to that?”

“He…told Gwaine that he was not surprised that his, uh, amorous escapades had finally resulted in a situation where he was forced to marry to preserve some poor girl’s honour.”

“Gwaine told him she’s pregnant?!” Merlin exclaimed.

“Um, well, technically it was Arthur’s assumption, but Gwaine didn’t correct him.”

Merlin’s flush was covering every inch of visible skin at this point, from the tip of her ears to the top of her newly-restored bosom, and she hid her face in her hands as she mumbled, “Oh my God…”

Mistaking Merlin’s reaction for something else entirely, Gwen wrapped an arm around her shoulders and softly said, “I’m so sorry, Merlin, but Arthur gave him his permission. I don’t know exactly when, but Gwaine will be getting married soon.”

“Given that she says yes,” she muttered wryly.

“True, but I would assume they came to an arrangement before Gwaine brought the matter before the king.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

“And even if there is not yet a formal engagement, I’m afraid not many women would turn down such an opportunity, especially not in her, ahem, situation. She would become a lady, and the child would be legitimate.”

Biting down on the inside of her lip hard enough to risk drawing blood, Merlin did her best to compose herself enough to lower her hands and meet Gwen’s eyes. Her friend was much too kind for pity, so the look she gave her as she rubbed soothing circles into Merlin’s back was more accurately described as excruciatingly empathic.

“Right. So you think I should say yes, then?”

Gwen frowned. “What?”

“You seem to think there are compelling arguments for a serving girl to marry a knight, so you would accept his proposal if you were in my shoes, right? I mean, I suppose I already know the answer to that since you married Arthur, but still.”

The cogs were turning uncharacteristically slowly behind Gwen’s eyes, but finally it clicked and they widened comically. “Was Gwaine talking about you?!” she squealed.

Torn between amusement and mortification, Merlin shrugged with ill-feigned nonchalance and said, “Unless someone accosted him and told him he was going to be a father between my leaving his room this morning and his visiting Arthur’s chambers a few minutes later, I think I can be fairly confident in the assumption that he’s not thinking of marrying someone else.”

Gwen’s jaw dropped, and so did her gaze, landing on Merlin’s belly. “You’re not…?”

“What? God, no! And even if I were, how would I know? It’s only been a couple of days!”

Not to mention that my womb temporarily disappeared during the night.

“But you’re…?”

“Together, yes. I had no idea he wanted to propose, though!”

“But your curse, what will happen when it breaks?”

“It already did.”

“But you…?”

“I still look the same, yes.” Exerting herself to push her shock over the revelation of Gwaine’s conversation with Arthur to the side, she took Gwen’s hands in hers, resting them between them on the table. “We haven’t had time to tell anyone but Gaius yet, but I woke up this morning to find that I had learned my lesson, thereby breaking the curse.”

“I don’t understand; what was the lesson, and why didn’t you change back upon learning it?”

Choosing her words carefully, Merlin went for something which was technically true, saying, “I learned that…I never did feel like a man before all this, and that I would be happier living my life looking like this.” The next part was a little less truthful though, and she could not help feeling a bit guilty about it. “As you said, the curse was more of a blessing, and so it let me stay a woman after realising that I wanted to.”

Calling herself a woman again felt a bit strange after everything she had learned about herself, but it was necessary, and she had instructed both Gwaine and Gaius to use a feminine vocabulary for her to minimise the risk for any slip-ups when talking to people not in the know. She had also elected to mostly follow her own directive even in the privacy of her own mind; it just seemed easier that way.

Gwen still looked confused. “But you told Arthur you didn’t want to be a woman.”

“I… It just took some time to come to terms with it.”

“Are you certain that this is what you want?” she asked. “I’m not sure Arthur can keep you on as his manservant if—well, if you’re not a man.”

“That’s all right,” Merlin hurried to say, smiling reassuringly. “Gaius has already agreed to take me on as his apprentice instead. I won’t be out of a job; George can keep my old one.”

“Or you could say yes to Gwaine,” Gwen quipped, her concern seemingly starting to wane a little. “Ladies don’t need jobs.”

“Oh. Right. I hadn’t thought of that.”

She had not thought of marriage at all, truth be told. Before the curse, just being loved by Gwaine had seemed far-fetched, and marriage had been completely out of the question. For some reason, the idea had not crossed her mind even after they had agreed to go public with being in a committed relationship, which, in hindsight, might have been an oversight.

Gwen squeezed her hands and said, “Merlin, I’m so happy for you and Gwaine, and if being a woman is what brings you joy, then I am pleased for your sake. Just keep in mind that if you ever do change your mind about it, there’s probably some spell we could try to reverse it.”

All thoughts on the overwhelming subject of marriage fled her mind as she registered what Gwen had just said and she stiffened, feeling like someone had just thrown a bucket of ice-cold water over her.

“What?”

“If the curse could turn you female, there must be other magic that could turn you back, right?”

“Magic? You’re not suggesting we go behind Arthur’s back and…and try to find some sorcerer to perform the spell?”

“There would be no need to go behind his back,” Gwen said with a gentle smile. “Merlin, what I came here to tell you before I got distracted by the Gwaine thing was that Arthur’s curse also broke overnight. He told me over breakfast that he has come to a decision; he’s lifting the ban on magic.”

The words felt almost incomprehensible as they washed over her, and she found herself repeating a dumb, “What?”

“Obviously there’s a lot of paperwork to be done before it can be made official, but he called several other council members to his regular meeting with Gaius today to announce his decision and start drawing up plans to repeal the ban. They’re working on it as we speak.”

Merlin opened her mouth to say something—exactly what, she did not know—but no sound came out. She felt an irrational fear that whatever she did or said next would somehow jinx it and make Arthur change his mind again. Was that not what always happened whenever he came close to seeing the good in magic? Something coming along to ruin it, sometimes Merlin herself?

“Merlin? Are you all right?”

She could barely make sense of Gwen’s voice through the haze of hope and apprehension and joy and dread dampening her senses, but she felt her friend squeezing her hands—a tethering touch to which she clung on for dear life as she tried to find her voice again. Distantly, she was aware that she was trembling.

“Is…is this real?” she managed after a couple of false starts. “Is it really happening?”

The tears in her eyes made it hard to see Gwen’s expression, but she heard the sympathy in her voice as she said, “Oh, Merlin…” The next thing she knew, Gwen had drawn her into a tight hug. “It’s real.”

The confirmation and the grounding pressure of the embrace gradually succeeded in making hope win out over doubt, and a bone-deep relief flooded Merlin as she let herself believe that the day she had dreamt of for years might actually be here at last.

The trembling only worsened despite her limbs going limp and heavy as she slumped against Gwen, letting her head fall to her shoulder. A strangled sob escaped her, quickly followed by another, then another, until she was fully weeping, all restraints gone, frayed to the breaking point after years of setbacks and false hope.

Gwen, to her credit, held her close without so much as a complaint about the tears dripping onto the costly fabric of her dress, surely ruining the silk. All she uttered was a string of soothing nothings assuring her that everything was all right—that Merlin was all right.

It was impossible to say how long they sat like that, entwined in their embrace on the bench, but eventually the sobs subsided and Merlin regained enough presence of mind to really listen to what Gwen was murmuring.

“It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

“Why do you say that?” Merlin asked quietly, still fighting to get her breathing under control.

“Because I know, Merlin. I figured it out. You have magic, don’t you? It was you who cured my father.”

That shocked her out of the last dregs of her tears, and she drew back, releasing Gwen from their hug to look her in the eye. The compassion she found there, mingling with the glimmer of unshed tears, was enough to chase away the knee-jerk reaction to deny and deflect the accusation.

“I— I’m sorry.”

A crease appeared in Gwen’s brow. “Sorry? For what?”

“I almost got you killed. I didn’t think it through, and I—”

“Merlin…” She reached out and cradled Merlin’s head in her hands, wiping away at the tears with her thumbs. “You also saved me. You found the source of the plague, and rumour has it you went before Uther, looked him in the eye and told him you were a sorcerer, all to divert blame from me. I can’t imagine the courage that took. And in curing my father, you bought me precious time with him. I am eternally grateful to you for that.”

Choking up again, Merlin asked, “Have you known all this time?”

“No, though your blatant confession should probably have tipped me off back then, shouldn’t it?” Gwen chuckled. “I only truly started suspecting something this past year or so, especially after the Lamia incident, but I couldn’t be sure if you resisted her thrall because you were magic or because you just weren’t interested in women. When that ceiling collapsed and saved me from Morgana when we retook Camelot, only for you to pop up a second later and pretend like you had no idea how it happened, I was starting to lean towards magic as an explanation, and when you told us you were once in love with a druid girl the other day, I felt sure. A lot of things have started making sense since then.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never told you.”

Gwen’s hands dropped to land on her shoulders. “No, I’m sorry I never gave you reason to think that you could have told me without repercussion. I admit that I’ve been wary of magic in the past, but learning that you of all people had the gift would have been more than enough proof that it is not an evil. I could never think of you as anything other than goodness personified.”

“You haven’t told anyone else then?”

“No.”

“Not even Arthur?”

She shook her head. “Not even Arthur. That’s something he needs to hear from you, if you ever decide to tell him.”

Merlin wet her lips, looking down at her lap as she said, “I want to. God knows I’ve wanted to tell him a thousand times over the years, and now… If he’s really repealing the ban… Although, maybe I should wait until it’s official. He already hates me for lying about his father, I don’t want to risk affecting his deci—”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Gwen interrupted, squeezing her shoulders. “I won’t pretend he’s not angry, but he could never hate you.”

“He might, if he finds out about everything else I’ve lied to him about,” Merlin muttered morosely, then hurried to add, “Only because I had to, you understand. Only when magic was involved, or to protect someone innocent, or—”

“I know, I know. You would never do anything to hurt him, or any of us. I trust your judgement, Merlin.”

“I’m not sure you should. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and—”

“Who hasn’t? What matters is that your heart was in the right place, and that could never be in doubt.”

“Thank you,” Merlin said quietly, then leaned in to wrap her friend in another hug. “You have no idea how glad I am that you finally know. Your trust means the world to me.”

“Of course. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Merlin. Never forget that.”

She had to swallow back a fresh round of tears before she could say, “I love you, Gwen.”

“I love you too.”

Drawing back again, she cleared her throat and nodded to Gwen’s shoulder. “And as your friend, I’d like to offer to fix your dress for you. It would be terribly rude of me to borrow all your old clothes and ruin your new ones as thanks.”

Gwen craned her neck to look down at the water stains Merlin’s tears had left on the shoulder of her silk dress. “Oh. I’m sure the laundresses can do something about them. Don’t worry about it.”

“Or…I could use magic?” Merlin suggested cautiously. “If you wouldn’t mind, that is.”

“Oh! All right, then. I’ve been curious to see what you can do.”

“I can do a lot more than this, but it’s a very practical spell. It has helped me rid Arthur’s clothes from many a mysterious stain.” Hovering her palm over Gwen’s shoulder, she whispered, “Fordwin wamm.” When she removed her hand, the fabric looked as good as new.

“That’s amazing,” Gwen gasped. “I could have used that back when I waited on Morgana. You wouldn’t believe the state of the hems on her poor skirts… Would you show me something else?”

Smiling at the awe the simple spell had inspired, Merlin murmured, “Gewyrcan lif,” and summoned a yellow butterfly which flew over to land on the cuff of Gwen’s sleeve, contrasting beautifully against the purple silk. “It’s real,” she said, remembering Gwaine’s reaction at seeing her perform the same spell that morning.

“It’s beautiful…” Gwen raised her arm to study the butterfly closer, then laughed as it took flight and fluttered off. Returning her gaze to Merlin, she gave her a thoughtful look and said, “You could turn yourself male again if you really wanted, couldn’t you?”

“Easily,” Merlin confessed. The spell had truly been neither complicated nor strenuous.

“But you don’t want to.” When Merlin shook her head, Gwen smiled and said, “Then I suppose you might as well keep the dresses I lent you. I’m glad they’re finally getting some use again.”

“Thank you. You’re too kind, but I won’t say no. I really couldn’t afford to buy a completely new wardrobe all at once.”

“Well, you may have to let Gwaine add a few more costlier pieces to the collection if you’re going to be his lady…” Gwen said, wiggling her eyebrows as she teasingly drew out the last word.

The flush returned in full force as Merlin realised that she had momentarily forgotten about that little revelation. “Oh, God… Do you really think I should do it? Marry him?”

Gwen smiled and bumped her shoulder against Merlin’s. “Do you want to marry him?”

“I hadn’t thought that far!”

“But you love him?”

“Very much.”

“And he loves you?”

“Apparently enough to try to dupe Arthur into letting us marry.”

“As your queen, I obviously can’t approve of that bit, but, as your friend, I have to admire Gwaine’s guts,” Gwen laughed. “But trickery aside, why not marry him? I’m not saying you have to rush into it if you’re not entirely sure—he’d understand if you said you need time to think it over, or that you’d prefer a longer engagement before you actually marry—but if you feel like he’s the one for you, I say go for it. Life is short, love is precious, and you two make a good team. And, of course, I have a selfish reason to root for a yes…”

“What’s that?”

Gwen leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “The ladies at court are so stuck-up and snooty. It would be nice if there was at least one who didn’t secretly look down on me for being of common stock.”

“Ah, I see how it is. You just want another lowborn lady they can redirect some of their contempt onto,” Merlin joked.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Gwen huffed, giving her shoulder a playful shove. Sobering, she said, “I just think it would be nice to get to spend more time with you. Beyond those of us that sat at the round table, I don’t really have any true friends at court, and certainly no female ones. It gets lonely.”

Merlin smiled ruefully and said, “I know the feeling. I’ve been too busy to really make friends outside of our little group, and between working for Arthur and Gaius and secretly saving the kingdom from magical threats on a weekly basis, I fear I’ve neglected the few friends I do have—not to mention having to hide a huge part of myself from everyone. That gets lonely too.”

“Soon, you won’t have to hide anymore,” Gwen promised, grasping her hand. “Soon, you will be free to show everyone who you truly are.”

“Seems like it. I just hope it won’t lose me any friends…”

“Arthur will come around, in time.” Gwen sounded sure, but her choice of words was still worrying.

“But how much time?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. But the sooner you tell him, the sooner he’ll be able to come to terms with it.”

“I suppose…”

“And whatever happens, you have me in your corner. I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything rash if he reacts badly.”

“Thank you,” Merlin whispered, pressing her hand. “That means a lot. I— I’ll tell him. Soon. I just need to figure out how… Oh, and maybe don’t mention Gwaine’s little scheme before I get the chance to explain the situation myself? I don’t want him to think we’re trying to trick him or anything.”

“I won’t, but what about your curse? He needs to know that you’re not coming back to work for him.”

“I asked Gaius to tell him this morning. I don’t know if he’s gotten the chance yet, if their lesson was unexpectedly turned into a council meeting.”

“I’ll see to it that he knows. I should probably get back anyway; I’d like to catch the rest of that meeting.”

“Of course.” Merlin followed suit as Gwen rose from the bench, but she stopped her before she could turn to leave. “Gwen?”

“Yes?”

Stepping forward, Merlin drew her into a warm embrace and said, “Thank you. For everything. I couldn’t be luckier to have you as a friend.”

“Likewise, Merlin” Gwen replied, her smile audible in her voice. “Likewise.”

Chapter Text

Merlin had planned on staying in Gaius’ chambers while she waited for him to come back from the meeting with Arthur, but she started getting restless within minutes of Gwen’s departure. She knew that she ought to stay—someone needed to run the infirmary while Gaius was away in case a medical emergency arose, and as his apprentice she was supposed to use the time to study, and it was probably best that she fully processed all the revelations of the morning before she acted on them—but the more she thought it through, the more she felt like she needed to talk it through.

Before too long, she decided that she was unable to sit still a moment longer and wrote Gaius a quick note explaining that Gwen had told her “the news” and that she had gone to speak to Gwaine about it. Knowing that the knights’ morning training should just have ended, she immediately set off for the armoury, too impatient to wait for Gwaine in his room in case he hung back to chat a while or made a detour on his way there.

She found her pace quickening the closer she got to the armoury, and by the time she reached it, she was practically running. Slightly out of breath, she flung the door open, startling the gathering of knights in various states of undress milling about.

She quickly scanned the crowd for the face she was looking for, and upon spotting Gwaine standing by Leon, Elyan and Percival, she dove into the throng of sweaty men and made her way over there, barely giving Gwaine time to shrug out of the gambeson he had been in the process of removing before she grabbed him by the wrist and started tugging him towards the door.

“Woah, there!” he exclaimed, stumbling after her. “What’s the story?”

“Not here.”

“Oi, Gwaine!” Sir Caridoc called after them. “You in trouble or about to get lucky?”

Gwaine did not dignify this with a response beyond flicking him the two-fingered salute, and he waited until Merlin had dragged him out into the privacy of the corridor before he asked, “Am I in trouble?”

Merlin shot him a smile over her shoulder, shifting her grip to instead lead him by the hand. “No,” she reassured him, mentally adding, Not yet, at least, and not with me.

“That leaves getting lucky, then. For your sake, I hope you have a thing for sweat.”

She just laughed at this and pulled him through the first convenient door they reached, too eager to go all the way back to the knights’ quarters or the physician’s tower. They tumbled into a small storeroom where inexpensive equipment like archery targets and sundry polishing supplies were kept and Merlin closed the door behind them and locked it with magic. A second later, she threw herself at Gwaine, winding her arms around his neck.

“Have you heard the news?” she said excitedly.

“The news?” he asked, his arms rising automatically to wrap around her waist.

“It’s finally happening! Arthur is legalising magic!”

Gwaine drew his head back to look at her, his eyes wide. “Are you serious?”

“Gwen told me his curse broke this morning because he decided to repeal the ban.”

An astonished grin spread across Gwaine’s face. With a laugh, he tightened his arms around her waist and lifted her off her feet, twirling her around in the scant space between the crates and shelves crowding the storeroom. Heart soaring along with her billowing skirts, she joined in on the laughter.

“At last!” he said as he put her down again. “You’re free!”

“Not quite yet. It’ll take time to rewrite the laws, and when it’s done I still have to work out how to tell Arthur about my magic before I can go around using it willy-nilly.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Gwaine reassured her. “For now, let’s focus on celebrating, yeah? This is huge!”

She smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

She pulled him in for a giddy kiss, letting herself revel in the positives for a moment. There would be a difficult conversation with Arthur waiting for her in the future, but she would just have to cross that bridge when she got to it. Come to think of it, there was another tricky confession that needed to happen rather sooner, although the exact nature of it was yet to be determined…

Breaking the kiss, she cleared her throat and put on an attempt at an innocent expression as she asked, “Arthur didn’t mention the news when you saw him this morning?”

Gwaine immediately stiffened. “This morning?” he echoed with ill-feigned nonchalance.

“Gwen told me you dropped by to speak to him.”

“Aye, I did, so,” he admitted. A tad tentatively, he asked, “And…did she tell you what we talked about…?”

“You mean, did she mention the poor maid you got pregnant and will be marrying to save from ruin? Yes, she did.”

“I’m not—!” Gwaine spluttered. “I assure you, there’s no—!” Upon noticing the way her mouth twitched with a poorly restrained grin, he deflated and tipped his head back, groaning, “Oh, you bastard!”

“‘Bastard?’” Merlin gasped, retrieving her arms to theatrically lay her hands protectively over her belly. “I think you’ve got me confused with our love child, and I’ll thank you not to use such language in front of the precious little tyke. They say babies can hear you in the womb, you know.”

“You and I both know there’s nothing in there, and thank God for that,” Gwaine protested, looking amused despite himself.

“No, but Arthur sure thinks so—or he would if he knew you were talking about me. What on earth possessed you to go tell him all that?”

“Daft as it is, members of court need the king’s permission to marry, and I wasn’t sure he’d say yes if I told him the whole story. In my defence, I didn’t say anyone was with child—that’s on him for assuming.”

She shook her head in exasperated fondness. “Let me rephrase: what on earth possessed you to go ask for his permission before asking me?”

“I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t be making promises I couldn’t keep before I went and proposed. I didn’t think Gwen would spread the gossip before I had a chance to speak to you.” He smiled sheepishly and took her hands in his. “I swear I had something more romantic in mind than popping the question in a glorified cupboard. There was going to at least be a ring.”

Heart pounding, she asked, “And are you? Proposing?”

“Would you say yes if I were?” he retorted, looking somewhere between playful and tentative.

She wet her lips, noting how his eyes followed the motion of her tongue with rapt interest. “I…don’t know.” When this answer visibly disheartened Gwaine, she hurried to add, “It’s just— I guess I stopped thinking of marriage as something likely to happen to me a long time ago. The only girl I ever loved—or was beginning to fall in love with, at least—died a day after our first and only kiss, and since then my so-called love life has mostly just been pining after a certain someone I thought I had no chance with.

“Considering how much of myself I’ve been hiding from the world and the complete lack of spare time I’ve had up until recently—not to mention the fact that the object of my seemingly hopeless affections was a man—marriage simply didn’t seem to be in the books. It hadn’t even crossed my mind until Gwen brought it up just now.”

“Really? I thought our arrangement more or less implied that’s where we were heading.”

“How so?”

Gwaine looked genuinely confused by her confusion. “Well, there’s the staying-a-woman-permanently-to-be-together thing, and the going-public-as-in-a-committed-relationship thing. I know you’re not really a girl through and through, but in my experience women don’t usually like to announce to the world that they’re going steady with someone unless there’s a promise of marriage in the not-too-far future. People start keeping a very keen eye out for signs of bastards baking in the oven. Reputations have been ruined for less.”

“That’s— Right. Okay, that sort of makes sense, I suppose.”

Her reputation had been the furthest thing from her mind in all this. For most of her life, she had only cared that her reputation was “non-magical,” and over the last couple of years her standards had expanded only so far as to “non-magical and respectable enough not to make Arthur sack me out of embarrassment.” That last bit was apparently not a high bar to clear, considering that Arthur had kept her on despite thinking she spent half her time in the tavern. She had forgotten that women had a couple additional things to keep in mind as they navigated society.

“Also,” Gwaine continued, “during our little talk, Gaius heavily hinted that if you were going to stay a woman to be with me, I had better make an honest one out of you unless I wanted to find out just how many different recipes for poison he knows by heart. I’m guessing he didn’t mention that bit in your version of the talk.”

She groaned and shook her head. “He certainly did not! God, and I thought it was mortifying enough that he gave me that book…” A thought struck her. “Is that why you were in such a rush to propose? Because Gaius threatened you?”

Gwaine huffed and raised a hand to caress her cheek. “Aside from the pragmatic reasons to propose sooner rather than later—among which not being poisoned by the royal physician could be counted, yes—I also wanted to do it because I would very much like to marry you. Sure look, maybe it’s a bit sudden, but I’ve loved you for years, and I know in my soul that I will never love another like I do you. You’re it for me.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest as this profession washed over her, its profundity intensified by the look of utter adoration in Gwaine’s eyes as he looked at her like she was a gift sent from the gods.

“You really want to marry me,” she said, wonder in her voice.

“I do.”

“You want to marry me?”

“Yes.”

“You—”

“Let’s just assume that the answer will be yes no matter where you put the emphasis, shall we?” Gwaine chuckled. “You take your time to think about it though, there’s no rush. Though, I should probably mention that since we agreed to go public, I told the lads we’re together, and, uh, there’s a chance a couple of the other knights might have overheard. Sir Caridoc, for example…”

The dopey smile spreading across her face only grew wider. “And you didn’t think us telling everyone might interfere with your sneaky scheme to con Arthur into giving you carte blanche to marry?” she teased.

“Well, I— He gave me his word. He’s too honourable to go back on it now, is he not?”

“Maybe, but what do you imagine he will think when rumour of our relationship reaches him? And it will reach him. From his perspective—depending on whether he puts two and two together or not—you’re either tricking him into approving a marriage he might have otherwise opposed or you’re openly betraying your anonymous, pregnant bride-to-be by stringing me along in your infidelity. I have an inkling that he might not take very kindly to either option—you know, what with him being so honourable and all.”

Gwaine paled. “Fuck. All right, so maybe it wasn’t the most thought-out plan.”

“No,” she laughed. “No, it really wasn’t, but I can’t help but love you for going to such lengths for us, half-baked as the plan was.” Winding her arms around his neck, she smiled softly and said, “Such dedication makes it really hard to say no to marrying you.”

“I didn’t do it to pressure you! Look, I’ll speak to Arthur, sort things out and—”

“Too late; I’ve already made up my mind.”

Struck by a bolt of inspiration, she raised her hand to the blue ribbon still tying Gwaine’s hair up from training and undid it with a few deft tugs, then she released him from their embrace and took a step back. Coiling the ribbon up loosely, she held it out in the flat of her palm as she sank down to one knee.

“Sir Gwaine. I don’t have a ring either, but given that Arthur still gives his permission after we ask for it without pretence and skulduggery, will you marry me?”

At first, Gwaine just blinked at her in surprise, then a besotted smile started creeping onto his face. “You want to marry me?” he asked.

“Yes, with any emphasis you may put on the phrase,” she confirmed, grinning up at him.

“And you’re sure you don’t need more time to think about it?”

She shook her head. All the startled hesitation she had felt when Gwen had revealed Gwaine’s intentions earlier that morning had evaporated under the onslaught of love shining through in every word of her lover’s (mostly) sensible reasoning.

“I’m sure. You’re it for me too.”

“Then by all means, let’s get married,” he said, sticking out his arm for her.

His light-hearted tone of voice belied the glimmer of emotion in his eyes, and Merlin also felt the weight of the moment as she reached up to wind the blue ribbon around his wrist. A shiver ran down her spine as she tied it in place, and she could not resist taking his hand and brushing her lips first over his knuckles and then over the ribbon, infusing it with a light touch of magic to ensure that it would be protected from wear and tear and that it would not come undone by accident. She did not want him to lose this ribbon like she had lost his green one.

When she drew her head back, Gwaine gripped her hand tighter and pulled her up to her feet and into a kiss, their lips crashing together with fervent passion. Merlin poured everything she felt into it—the love her fiancé (!) inspired in her, the miracle of being loved so completely in return, the cautious joy of magic eventually returning to Camelot—and kissed him with euphoric abandon.

She barely noticed being backed up against a large crate until the back of her thighs hit it, and the next thing she knew Gwaine had hoisted her onto it, standing between her legs and pressing as close to her as her skirts allowed. Reaching behind her, he searched out the end of her plait and liberated the purple ribbon holding it together, then broke the kiss to kneel before her.

“If I may return the favour, in lieu of a proper ring?” he asked, gingerly wrapping a hand around her left wrist and holding the ribbon at the ready.

She nodded breathlessly, not caring in the least that she would need to procure yet another replacement ribbon for her hair. It felt only right that the courting gift should now be used to bind them together in betrothal.

After tying it in place, Gwaine mimicked her by pressing a kiss to the ribbon, then his mouth moved slightly lower, his lips lingering over the pulse point in her wrist and brushing against the sensitive skin there as he murmured, “I love you…”

“And I you,” she said softly, lifting her right hand to pet affectionately at his hair.

“I can hardly believe this is happening. You actually said yes.”

“Technically, I’m the one who asked,” she huffed fondly.

Gwaine laughed and let his head fall to the side to rest against the inside of her thigh, looking up at her like a lovestruck puppy. “Then I can’t believe you proposed,” he corrected himself.

“Well, Gwen made a good case for marrying into nobility…” she teased, winding a lock of his hair around her finger. “Who am I to disagree with royalty?”

“Usually the first in line,” he chuckled, “immediately followed by me, but I suppose it can’t hurt to have the queen on our side if we’re to have another go at gaining the king’s approval.”

“Mm. If she can talk him into legalising magic, then anything’s possible.” She shifted closer to the edge of the crate she was sitting on, saying, “I’ll go see if he’s willing to talk to me yet and explain the situation.”

“Now?” Gwaine asked, stopping her by laying his hands on her knees.

“Ah, you’re right. They’re probably still in their meeting.”

“Maybe. Either way, I sure wouldn’t mind taking the time to…celebrate our betrothal before going anywhere.” His hands crept a bit further up her thighs.

Merlin wet her lips, a frisson of arousal shooting through her as she took in Gwaine’s suggestive tone and position. “Here?” she asked. “Anyone walking by could hear us…”

It was not a no, and Gwaine clearly read how titillating she found the idea from the slight flush of her cheeks, for he smirked and slid his hands down her legs to creep under the hems of her skirts to fondle her hose-clad calves as he said, “Then we had better be quiet. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some practice in that area lately.”

She swallowed, considering the proposition. On the one hand she ought to be running the infirmary in Gaius’ absence, but on the other hand Gwaine looked really good on his knees, making it an easy choice.

Biting her lip, she nodded for him to go on and shuffled forward to sit at the very edge of the crate, letting her legs fall wider open. Gwaine grinned and ducked in under her skirts to start kissing his way up her bare thighs. She almost laughed at the sight of his head comically tenting the fabric of her dress, but then his mouth was on her and she had to focus on subduing the noises his clever tongue threatened to wring out of her as he set to work without further preamble.

Cock or cunt, Gwaine was a master at using his mouth, and Merlin soon found herself a trembling mess under his expert attentions. Leaning back against one arm, she used the other to tug her skirts up over her lover’s head so she could actually see him, bunching up the fabric over her stomach to keep it out of the way.

“Gwaine,” she panted, almost forgetting what she had been about to say when he looked up at her through his lashes, laving at her unceasingly as he waited for her to continue. “Your hands,” she finally remembered. “Need you inside me.”

“They’re filthy from training,” he murmured against her sex, dipping down to plunge his tongue inside her instead.

The feeling of the tapered muscle entering her drew a moan from her which she only just managed to turn into a quiet-ish sigh, but it was not nearly enough and she said, “Come up here and fuck me, then,” desperate to feel him deeper within.

“I’ll make a mess if I pull out here,” he pointed out, but even as he spoke he wiped his mouth against the sensitive inside of her thigh and clambered to his feet.

“Then don’t,” was her simple answer and she reached eagerly for the laces of his breeches. “First thing I did when I got back to my room this morning was ward myself up over my ears with contraceptive spells.”

“God, I love magic,” Gwaine grunted, surging in to kiss her.

It was fortunate that they seemed to be on the same page on this, Merlin reflected as she slid her hands round to Gwaine’s back and inside his waistband, palming appreciatively at his buttocks while pushing his breeches and smalls down to pool around his knees in one smooth motion. Most people would probably expect marriage to be closely followed by children, but considering the sort of life she led, that seemed like a horrible idea. Besides, her work with Gaius had taught her a thing or two about pregnancy, and she wanted no part of it, thank you very much. Actually, as sweet as they could be, children just seemed like a hassle in general, before and after being born.

She suspected Gwaine’s apparent reluctance to sire a child even within wedlock might, at least in part, have something to do with his being a knight. It would not be so strange for him not to want to risk going the way of his own father and leave behind yet another half-orphan to mourn not getting to know him—not that Merlin would let Gwaine fall in battle if she had any say in it, which she hopefully did. If magic was to be legalised soon, she might finally be able to try out some of the protective spells she had read about but which she had not yet dared use on anyone for fear of suspicion.

For now, she settled for having her magic make sure that the crate upon which she lounged was at the perfect height to align their hips, letting Gwaine push inside her easily. She muffled her moans against his mouth as best she could as he started thrusting into her in deep, languid strokes.

While she busied her hands kneading at his arse, he slid a hand into her hair, encouraging the plaits he had so carefully put in only a few hours earlier to unravel further now that the ribbon that had been holding everything together sat around her wrist instead. His fingers combed through her long tresses until they flowed freely down her back once more in a voluminous cascade.

Gwaine broke the kiss, drawing back slightly to drink in the sight of her as he fucked her. “Gorgeous,” he said, admiring her dark locks. “Long hair suits you.”

“Pull it?” she suggested, curious to see if she would like it as much as Gwaine did.

She did not have to ask twice. One of Gwaine’s hands settled on her waist while the other slid up her neck and into her hair, his fingers following the curve of the back of her head before tightening around the strands in a firm grip. She let out a gasp at the pleasant sting of her scalp, revelling in the feeling of the slight but tantalising pain enhancing the tingling of her loins.

“Good gasp or bad gasp?” he teased her, as if the way her eyes had fluttered shut and her lips parted was not answer enough.

“Gwaine…” was her only response, and it turned into a hushed moan as she let him tip her head back, baring her throat for his hungry lips to latch onto.

Melting under her lover’s attentions, Merlin had to throw an arm back to support herself against the top of the crate to keep herself relatively upright, and her other arm slid up Gwaine’s back to clutch at the fabric of his tunic, not caring in the least that it was still damp with sweat from training. If anything, the lingering musk of exertion added to the air of frantic desire permeating their furtive tryst, reminding her that they were separated from a frequently trafficked corridor by mere feet and a thin door.

“Merlin…” Gwaine whispered against her neck, his laboured breaths tickling over the sensitive skin. “Have you had the chance to use magic to get yourself off in this body yet?”

“What, between leaving your room this morning and now?” she panted. “No, there hasn’t really been time, believe it or not.”

“Would you try it now?”

Feeling her cunt throb with arousal at the thought, desperate for further stimulation, she nodded breathlessly and sent an exploratory tendril of magic down to prod at her sex. A second later, she yelped loudly, taken by surprise by the shock of white-hot pleasure that shot through her, verging on the painful.

“Shh,” Gwaine chuckled, playfully holding a finger in front of her lips.

“Sorry,” she gasped. “Overdid it.”

She had a lot of experience using magic to pleasure herself—perhaps an embarrassing amount, in truth—but that had been in her old body, and this one not only looked different but responded differently. Deciding to trust her intuition instead, she gave her magic freer reins and let it suffuse her body, gently searching out her most sensitive areas.

An unnatural heat pooled in her groin, making her feel like every hair on her body stood on end, and her nipples stiffened, rubbing tantalisingly against the inside of her shift with every jolt sent through her body by Gwaine’s pistoning hips.

Another moan slipped out of her, and when Gwaine laughingly hushed her again, her magic acted half of its own accord and pulled at his hand, making him clamp it tightly over her mouth to quell the sounds over which she had less and less control as she let the magic stimulating her gradually grow more intense.

His hand smelled like sweat and polishing oil and the leather of the sword hilt it had been wrapped around during training. It should not have been as appealing as it was, but she could not help savouring the heady scent, greedily drinking it in.

“Fuck, Merlin…” Gwaine groaned, staring slack-jawed at her, seemingly transfixed by the steady glow of gold in her eyes and the indentations of his fingers pressing into the supple flesh of her cheek. His other hand left her hair to instead clutch at her hip as her trembling arm gave way beneath her weight and she sank down to her elbows instead, barely having the mental wherewithal to prop herself up at all anymore.

As Gwaine sped up his thrusts, she allowed herself to get lost in the surge of sensation, letting loose the last restraints on her magic. Within moments, her orgasm swept through her, her vision threatening to white out as her entire being thrummed with magic and pleasure. She cried out against the palm covering her mouth, her back arching as her body went taut and her insides clenched down on Gwaine who fucked her through her climax, which seemed to just keep on going—on and on and on.

After a truly indeterminate period of time, she became vaguely aware of Gwaine saying something like, “Bloody hell, are you still…?” in a strangled voice, but when he removed his hand from her mouth, the most intelligent response she could come up with was, “Guh…!” and even that immediately morphed into an ecstatic whimper as her orgasm kept stretching on impossibly, her magic letting her float in that searing bliss indefinitely.

Through enormous exertion, she managed to at least hook a leg around the back of Gwaine’s thighs, weakly pulling him closer in a feeble attempt to communicate that he should keep going and chase his own high. He seemed to take the hint, for he cursed and gripped her hips with both hands, setting a punishing pace, both of them beyond caring all that much about muffling their noises at this point.

Though time had ceased to have any meaning under this onslaught of pleasure, she was fairly sure that it was not long before she felt Gwaine’s hips stutter in their rhythm. With a poorly stifled cry, he spent himself inside her, his fingers digging into her hips hard enough to bruise as her throbbing cunt milked every drop of seed from his pulsing cock.

Once he was completely wrung out, he slumped forward, bracing himself with his arms on either side of her as he pressed their brows together, breathlessly mumbling her name followed by a slew of endearments that were only barely coherent to begin with and nigh unintelligible to Merlin in her delirious state.

Not until she felt Gwaine’s softening cock slip out of her did her blissed-out mind succeed in convincing her magic that perhaps enough was enough and it was time to come down from her lofty peak. It took a great deal of concentration to regain control, but eventually she managed to dispel the magic, finally letting her blinding orgasm ebb out into natural aftershocks.

As she gradually returned to herself, she found that she was lying flat on her back on the crate, her boneless limbs dangling over the sides. Chest heaving, she gasped for air, drawing in lungful after lungful in an attempt to catch her breath. Exhaustion was starting to creep in as her body was allowed to fully relax after the surprisingly arduous ordeal of maintaining climax for so long.

“Back on earth?” Gwaine huffed, grinning as he brushed a lock of hair from her sweaty forehead.

“Mmf…” she grunted, then gulped down a deep breath and tried again. “I— Fuck…I bloody love this body.”

Gwaine laughed and gave her a firm peck on the lips. “That settles it; you have to turn me into a woman at some point and give me a taste of that.”

“Uh-huh…” she promised absently, her eyes slipping closed.

There was a rustling of clothes as Gwaine pulled up his breeches and tucked himself away, then a tender caress to her cheek made her open her eyes to see him looking down at her with amused affection, saying, “That cannot be comfortable. Come, my room is closest; let’s get you back there to recuperate in a real bed.”

“I need to get back to the infirmary,” she protested, but took his proffered hand and let him drag her up into sitting. “Gaius will give me a lecture if I’m not there when he gets back.”

“Think you can make it all the way there?”

“Of course,” she said confidently, but when she slid off the crate and tried to stand up, Gwaine had to catch her in his arms as her trembling legs gave out beneath her. “Well…maybe in a minute,” she amended, sitting back down again.

“All right,” Gwaine chuckled. “Here, I’ll redo your hair while you recover the use of your legs.”

It was rather relaxing to sit there and let Gwaine plait her hair to make her look presentable again while she got her strength back, and she used the time to clean them both up a bit with her magic, making sure there were no suspicious stains on their clothing.

“Pass me the ribbon?” Gwaine asked when he finished his plaiting.

“You’re mad if you think I’ll ever remove it,” was her answer, and she laid a protective hand over the purple ribbon he had tied around her wrist during the proposal.

“God, I love you. Got anything else I could use, then?”

Merlin looked around the tiny storeroom in search of a bit of twine or something, but then a thought struck her and she said, “Wait, I’m going to try something.”

Closing her eyes, she whispered a location spell she had once been forced to use after misplacing Arthur’s favourite belt—well, Arthur had misplaced it and then blamed her. To her delight, it worked, and she gathered her concentration to pull off the tricky part. Cupping her hands in front of her, she cast a summoning spell, and when she opened her eyes again a green ribbon lay coiled in her hands.

“Is that…?” Gwaine asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Yeah.” She smiled as she ran the ribbon Gwaine had gifted her at the picnic through her fingers, expending a tiny bit of magic to clean it of dirt.

“Where was it?”

“In a crack between two flagstones in the courtyard. We’d never have found it if we’d gone looking the traditional way.”

He plucked it from her hands, a grin audible in his voice as he wove it into her hair and said, “How fortunate, then, that I’m betrothed to the most powerful, resourceful and beautiful sorcerer in the world.”

“You flatterer, you,” Merlin huffed, but she made no attempt at disguising the warm smile on her face as Gwaine finished tying off the ribbon and rounded the crate, holding out his hands for her to take, which she did. Her legs were a bit steadier as she stood up this time around.

“Guilty as charged, and I’m not ashamed of it. In my experience, flattery gets you everywhere.” He squeezed her hands and leaned in to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “Into your heart, for example.”

She laughed and turned her head to kiss him properly. “Actually,” she said when they parted, “your blunt honesty was one of the things that first attracted me.”

“ Luckily, when it comes to complimenting you, flattery and honesty are one and the same.”

“You’re incurable,” she snorted.

“You love it.”

“Yeah, I do. Come on, let’s get out of here. Walk me to the infirmary?”

“Gladly.” Gwaine stuck out his arm for her. “My lady-to-be.”

She took his arm, grateful for the support as the reminder of their shared future made her even weaker in the knees than she was already. “Why, thank you, husband-to-be.”

They snuck out of the storeroom only after having first made sure that the coast was clear in the corridor outside, but they walked arm in arm as they made their way to the physician’s tower, not caring whether they were perceived as a couple by the people they passed. If the rumour was already spreading amongst the knights, then it was as good as officially announced. Merlin only hoped that she would be able to speak to Arthur about it before the news reached him.

Gaius was still not back when they reached the infirmary, and Gwaine had to take his leave of her as well, bemoaning the fact that he could not stay to keep her company as he had to go wash up and then find Leon to receive further details on the guard duty he was assigned that night.

He had been gone for all of two minutes before he burst back into Gaius’ chambers, looking out of breath with excitement.

“Forgot something?” Merlin asked him, turning around on the bench she was sitting on.

“Yeah, something really obvious.” He skidded to a stop before her and sank down to one knee again. “I just remembered I do have a proper ring for you!”

“What—?” she started, then her eyes widened as Gwaine removed his necklace and slipped the ring on it off the chain. “No, I can’t take that; it was your father’s!”

He just smiled and put the necklace back on, now adorned only by the crescent pendant. “I want you to have it,” he said, holding out the ring. “I’ve kept it close all my life, and as I intend to keep close to you for the rest of it, you may as well carry it, don’t you think?”

Merlin found she could make no argument against this—in fact, it was all she could do not to tear up at the overwhelming affection she felt for her friend-come-lover-come-betrothed, and so she just stuck her left hand out and said, “I’ll try to make sure you’re never far away from it for long,” in a slightly choked voice.

Gwaine’s smile was blinding in its radiance as he took her hand and slipped the ring onto the appropriate finger, where it unfortunately sat rather loosely. “Hm, it’s a man’s ring,” he said thoughtfully, “maybe it would fit better on your thumb?”

“I could use magic to make sure it fits whatever form I’m in,” she suggested in turn. “That is, if you don’t mind me altering it?”

He shook his head. “Go ahead. It’s yours now.”

With a flash of her eyes, the ring shrunk until it sat perfectly snugly around her finger, feeling like it belonged there. Seemingly mesmerised by the sight, Gwaine rubbed his thumb over it before pressing a kiss to it, then he rose to his feet and cupped her face in his hands, bending down to give her a fervent kiss which was over all too soon.

“Sorry, I really have to go,” he murmured, contradicting his words by kissing her again. “I’ll see if I can drop by before my watch tonight, yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ll try to talk to Arthur before then.”

“Good luck.”

After another ardent kiss, Gwaine was gone and Merlin was left to her medical tomes once more. Trying to get any studying done proved difficult, however, as she kept getting distracted by the ring on her finger and the ribbon around her wrist every time she turned a page.

What a wonderful problem to have.

Chapter Text

The peace of the wee hours of the morning was broken by the sound of someone banging on the door to Gaius’ chambers. Merlin groaned as she sat up in her bed, suddenly wishing that she had chosen to spend the night in Gwaine’s room despite his being away on guard duty for most of it. Alas, there was nothing for it but to rise and see if Gaius needed any assistance with whatever was going on.

Rolling out of bed, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders to make herself slightly more presentable than she would be walking about in just her shift. Gaius could be heard stirring in the other room and she padded over to her door to join him just in time to see him open the door to the infirmary.

The guard standing outside with his fist raised to knock again wasted no time in saying, “The queen requests your presence in the royal bedchamber immediately. Something ails the king.”

“Did she say what?” Gaius asked.

“No, only that it was urgent.”

Merlin was already pushing past the guard as he finished the sentence, calling, “I’ll go on ahead!” back over her shoulder, her bare feet slapping against the cold stone floor as she broke into a run.

She made it to the royal chambers in record time despite her lack of shoes and the fact that she had to hug her chest as she ran to hold the blanket in place and to obviate the discomfort of her bouncing bosom, but she was held up by the remaining guard outside the chambers as she made for the door.

“Halt, miss!” he said, blocking the way. “No one enters without Their Majesties’ permission!”

“For fuck’s sake, Tegyn, let me through! It’s just me!”

The guard squinted in the dim light of the corridor, then he relaxed and said, “Oh, Merlin! Sorry, mate, I didn’t recognise you. Forgot you’re a lass these days. What’s that even like?”

Merlin fully ignored him and darted around him to wrench open the door. She rushed inside to find Gwen sitting on the bed beside Arthur, who was tossing and turning beneath the covers, letting out pained whines and grunts.

“Gaius is on his way.” Merlin said, hurrying over to the bed. “What’s happening? Poison? Another curse?”

“I don’t know,” Gwen said, her voice brittle with worry. “At first I thought it was just a nightmare, but he won’t wake up, no matter what I do.”

Merlin reached out to touch the inside of her wrist to Arthur’s forehead. It was a bit sweaty, but did not feel feverishly warm. “Try to hold him still for me?” she asked Gwen

As her friend did her best to press her husband’s writhing body into the mattress, Merlin forced one of Arthur’s eyelids open. Satisfied that his pupil contracted as the light from the candle on the bedside table hit it, she let him go and motioned for Gwen to do the same so as to avoid anyone getting hurt by restricting Arthur’s movements unnecessarily.

“Can you do anything for him?” Gwen asked. “And I mean anything.” The pointed look she gave her drove her point home all the more firmly.

“I’m not sure,” Merlin confessed. “Without knowing what’s wrong… Though I may have a way to find out?”

Gwen nodded for her to go ahead without hesitation. Merlin, however, felt a little tentative as she held out a hand over Arthur’s body and tried to recall the spell she needed. When she was sure she had it, she kept her voice low, whispering the words just in case Arthur was somehow able to hear her.

The magic flowing from her ran through Arthur, looking for any injuries, poisons, enchanted amulets or other evidence of sorcery, but it yielded little in the way of results.

“I think he’s just dreaming; I can’t really find anything else,” she said, looking up at Gwen. “Nothing truly malicious, that is, but there’s a trace of what feels like our curse left in him still. I thought you said it broke?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“Has the curse made anything like this happen before?”

“I don’t know; this is the first night he felt it safe enough for us to sleep in the same bed again. He never said anything about bad dreams.”

Merlin frowned, thinking back to that first morning after getting cursed, before Arthur had dismissed her. Had he not woken up from a nightmare then too? But he had woken up.

Another distressed whimper from Arthur prompted Gwen to ask, “Please, Merlin, is there nothing you can do to wake him?”

“I…I could try, but can’t guarantee he won’t notice…”

Understanding dawned in Gwen’s eyes and she bit her lip before saying, “I hope you know that I will always do everything in my power to protect you, come what may.” There was a silent plea in her eyes, and Merlin found herself powerless to resist it.

“All right, I’ll—”

She was interrupted by the door opening, admitting Gaius who made his way over to the bed, carrying his medicine bag. “What seems to be the problem?” He listened intently to Merlin’s account of what little she had been able to ascertain, nodding grimly as she told him of her theory about the lingering curse. “Very well. Let’s see if this will wake him.” From his bag, he withdrew a phial of smelling salts, and this he uncorked and held under Arthur’s nose.

To Merlin’s relief, the effect was immediate, saving her from having to resort to magic. Arthur came to, snorting and sputtering and shying away from the source of the offending smell, pushing himself up to sitting. He blinked groggily as his senses returned to him, and after a bout of violent sneezing, he was lucid enough to ask, “What’s going on?”

“You had a nightmare,” Gwen replied, shuffling closer on the bed to take his hand.

“So you called in the cavalry?” He glanced furtively at Gaius and Merlin, ill-concealed embarrassment colouring his cheeks. “I hardly think a bad dream constitutes a medical emergency.”

“It is if you cannot be woken from it by regular means,” Gaius said gravely, putting away the phial again.

“And they’re not just dreams, are they?” Merlin asked, starting to feel more and more certain of her theory.

Her suspicions were all but confirmed when Arthur looked away guiltily, avoiding making eye contact with anyone in the room as he said, “Of course they are; what else would they be?”

“Remnants of the curse. Have you had nightmares every night since the cave?”

“It’s been a trying time; it’s not that strange that it should affect my sleep. Besides, the curse is already broken. The magic is gone.”

Gaius hummed and said, “It is not impossible that such a curse would manifest in more than one way—that you must learn some additional lesson before being rid of it entirely.”

Merlin was grateful that he had chosen to phrase it in such a way as to not expose her as having been proof of this.

“Is there anything special about these dreams that could tell us more?” Gwen asked gently, laying her hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

The fight and denial visibly seeped out of Arthur, and he slumped forward slightly, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. They seem so…real? Almost like they’re memories, but of things that I was not there to see, or things that have not yet come to pass. When you told me of your accident falling out of the tree, I realised I remembered dreaming of something like it the night before.”

“They’re prophetic?” Merlin asked.

“Like Morgana’s…” Gwen sat back, wringing her hands in her lap. “She would sometimes be difficult to rouse as well when she was deep in a nightmare.”

“You think the curse gave me my sister’s visions?”

“It is possible,” Gaius said. “Perhaps telling us what you dreamt of tonight might help elucidate the situation—that is, if you remember?”

Arthur huffed. “I wish I could forget.” He pinched wearily at the bridge of his nose and sighed. “All right. It was mostly fragments and flashes, but I saw Morgana sneaking into some stronghold, then she was speaking with someone vaguely familiar—a king or warlord, I believe. He showed her a creature in chains, then she too was in chains, imprisoned in an oubliette, almost completely bereft of light.” A shadow of pain crossed over his face at the memory. “God, it was torture. She looked emaciated—tormented to the limits of sanity… The creature was her only company, imprisoned alongside her. A long time must have passed, for the creature grew until it was too big for the tiny cell, becoming more and more deformed and stunted as time went on.”

“What sort of creature?” Gwen asked.

“If I had to guess, maybe an albino wyvern?”

The blood turned to ice in Merlin’s veins upon hearing this. “It was white?” she breathed, heart in her throat. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, though it became sort of a drab, pinkish grey over time.”

“Could it have been a dragon?”

“I suppose,” Arthur said, “but it was quite small to begin with, and I was under the impression that the Great Dragon was the last of its kind.”

“No. No, there are two that I know of. One of which is a white youngling.”

Gaius exchanged a worried look with Merlin before saying, “Then it seems the dreams may very well be prophetic in nature.”

“Great,” Arthur muttered, rubbing at his eyes. “That’s just perfect.”

Merlin listened with only half an ear as the others discussed how the adverse effects of the dreams might be mitigated with sleeping draughts until such a time as Arthur learned the last of his lessons. She was preoccupied with thoughts of Aithusa, wondering what might have happened—or might come to happen—to bring her and Morgana together. Who was this king who was about to capture them both, or were they already in his custody? And why?

She only returned to the present when Gaius touched her arm and said, “Come, there is nothing more we can do here tonight.”

“No, I need to speak to Arthur,” she protested.

Arthur groaned and slid back down under the covers. “Merlin, it’s the middle of the night. Piss off and let me sleep.”

“It’s important.”

“So is sleep. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow.”

“And will you actually let me see you tomorrow? Only, I came by thrice today to speak to you and was told that you were either out or busy.”

“Because I was. Being king comes with a few responsibilities, you know.”

“You—”

Gwen interrupted their squabbling by saying, “He will see you first thing in the morning.”

“I will?” Arthur asked, but when Gwen pointedly raised an eyebrow at him, he amended this to, “I will. After breakfast. But don’t be too late; I mean to lead training again now that I won’t risk magically flinging the knights across the grounds if I try to spar with them.”

Deciding that this was the best deal she was likely to get, Merlin nodded and bowed her head. “Thank you, sire. I’ll see you on the morrow.” She sent Gwen a grateful look and bowed her head to her as well before turning to leave with Gaius.

They made their way back to the infirmary in silence, both deep in thought. By the time they reached their destination, Merlin had formed an idea of what to do next, and she ducked into her room to get dressed. She had pulled a dress over her shift and was hastily tying the garters around her legs to keep her hose up when Gaius poked his head in and cleared his throat.

“I hope you’re not thinking of doing anything rash and inadvisable?”

She turned her head to look at him, smiling wryly. “Inadvisable? Maybe. But I’ll try to be cautious about it.” She moved on to buckling her boots. “I’m not going far tonight; just to speak to Kilgharrah to see what he knows. Before I make any plans to help Aithusa, I need to know whether I’ll be trying to prevent her capture or save her from it.”

Gaius sighed but nodded. “Very well. I know better than to stand between a Dragonlord and their wards. Just…be careful?”

“Aren’t I always?” she quipped, wrapping a cloak around herself and sweeping out of the room.

Chapter Text

Whenever Merlin left Camelot under cover of night, she usually tried to sneak past the guards at the gate in the city walls—not because being out and about at night was prohibited in times when no curfew was in effect, but simply to avoid giving rise to any rumours as to why she did it so often.

Tonight, however, she decided against relying on stealth and distractions, seeing as she spotted Gwaine hanging around the gate, talking to the two guards there as part of his rounds. Abandoning the shadows she had been sticking to, she walked into the middle of the street and approached the gates openly.

“Who goes there?” a guard called out as he spotted her.

Gwaine turned around to look as well, and when she lowered the hood of her cloak and stepped into the circle of torchlight, he gestured for the men to stand down and walked up to meet her halfway.

“What brings you out here at this time of night?” he asked, an easy smile on his face but a hint of concern in his eyes.

She stopped in front of him, returning his smile. Conscious of their being close enough to be overheard by the guards, she said, “I just need to pop out for a moment to pick a certain herb for Gaius. Unfortunately for me, it blooms only at night. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it to you; it’s called Kilgharrah draconis…?” She punctuated this statement with a pointed glance to the guards behind Gwaine as a silent apology for not speaking candidly.

Thankfully catching on quickly, Gwaine said, “Aye, you have. I don’t envy you your chores when they keep you working at such a late hour, though I suppose I’m not much luckier on this particular night. Still, it means I’m available to accompany you as you look for this herb, if you’re in need of an escort?”

She hesitated at this. It had not been her intention to involve Gwaine in this quite yet. The only reason she had not created some diversion and snuck out like usual was because it would have meant indirectly deceiving Gwaine as well for no good reason—not exactly the best start to an engagement.

“You really don’t have to. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

“Maybe I just want to see this herb for myself,” Gwaine quipped. “I’m imagining it to be quite something.”

Merlin could not help chuckling at this, but she said, “You’re on duty, though. You can’t just go wandering off willy-nilly to look at flowers.”

“I’m sure ensuring safe passage through the woods for the apprentice of the Royal Physician as she forages for vital ingredients can be seen as an extension of that duty.”

“I can handle myself,” she protested, more in jest than with any true bite to it.

“I’m well aware,” Gwaine said soberly, “and if you don’t want the company, that’s fine, but I thought I’d offer.”

Her playful smile turned fond, and it was easy to come to a decision in the face of Gwaine’s earnestness. “All right, then,” she said. “If you think they can spare you. It shouldn’t take too terribly long. I know the path well.”

Gwaine was a beautiful sight to behold as he lit up at her acquiescence. “Grand so. Lead the way.” He liberated a torch on their way through the gate and followed her as she set off towards the woods. Not until they were well out of hearing range of the guards did he say, “I hope I didn’t bully you into letting me tag along back there?”

“No, you might as well come with; I would be relaying everything to you as soon as possible anyway,” she assured him. “I hope you realise that those guards are sure to think we’re going for a quick shag in the woods after all that talk about flowers?”

Gwaine threw his head back and laughed. “Aye, I’m sure, but better that than thinking we’re going to have a chat with a dragon, which I assume we are?”

“Yep.”

“Any particular reason for this nighttime chat? I assume there’s more to it than just meeting the draconic side of your family to announce the betrothal.”

“I’ll explain everything when Kilgharrah gets here, I promise.”

They quickly made their way through the woods, and as they neared the clearing Merlin usually met Kilgharrah in, she had Gwaine extinguish the torch just in case it would draw unwanted attention. It was hardly necessary, anyway, for the moon shone bright in a cloudless sky, providing ample light by which to navigate the forest.

“Won’t a great big dragon flying this close to the city be spotted immediately?” Gwaine asked when she stopped just past the treeline of the glade and announced that they had arrived.

“It’s never been an issue. I think dragons may have a gift for passing unnoticed when they so wish.”

“Handy. So, is he on his way, or…?”

“Not until I call him.”

She took a half-step forward and closed her eyes, focusing on her bond to Kilgharrah and Aithusa alike as she tried to draw on her Dragonlord powers, hoping that they were not actually tied to the sex of her body. She would burst every seam in her dress if she had to change form just to access the gift.

Fortunately, she found her voice easily and it rang out with just as much depth and gravitas as always as she called for the dragons to come to her if physically possible, wary of issuing a command that could not be followed in case Aithusa was already captive. She would not have her injure herself from trying to escape her restraints, were that the case.

Gwaine stared at her with a strange expression as the echo of the last syllable faded away, and she raised an eyebrow a little self-consciously and asked, “What?”

“I have no idea what you just said, but I think it goes without saying that that voice was bloody hot, don’t you?”

“I’m starting to suspect that you think everything I do is hot.”

“Now you’re starting to catch on,” he said with a wide grin, darting in to brush a kiss against her flushed cheek. “So. How long will we have to wait before th—”

The beating of wings interrupted him mid-sentence, and he looked up in awe as Kilgharrah swept in overhead and circled the clearing before coming in for a landing, the earth shaking under his weight as he touched down. Gwaine’s hand twitched instinctively in the direction of his sword, but fell back again as he made a visible effort to relax, glancing at Merlin for reassurance that this was, indeed, a friendly encounter.

“Greetings, Emrys,” Kilgharrah said in his booming voice. “To what do I owe the pleasure of such a specifically worded summoning?”

She swallowed down a surge of anxiety as she realised that there was no sign of Aithusa joining them and said, “Well met, Kilgharrah. I’d like you to meet Sir Gwaine. He’s my, um—”

“Your Strength, I know. That his path and yours lie together was written long ago.”

These words were something of a comfort to Merlin, who chose to interpret them as meaning that destiny was not planning on tearing them apart.

Coming out of his awestruck paralysis, Gwaine stepped forward and said, “Merlin told me about that prophecy. Good to know that it’s my muscles that will live on in legend. My bet would have been on Percival for that honour.”

Kilgharrah turned his golden gaze on Gwaine. “The prophecies allude not only to your physical prowess, Sir Knight, but to the strength of your conviction and, above all, your devotion. This is what sets you apart, and why you are needed to complete the trio with Courage and Magic.”

“Right so. Guess I can live with that, though I have some alternate epithets in mind for Arthur that are a better fit, in my humble opinion.”

Merlin quelled a snort at this and tried to get back on topic by taking Gwaine’s hand and saying, “I thought you should know that Gwaine and I are betrothed. It’s, um, part of why I look like this at the moment, if you were wondering. You see, there was this curse, and—”

“Merlin, I hope you did not call me here to gossip about your love life. I care little for the mating rituals of humans, nor does the physical form you favour at any given moment concern me. All humans look much the same to my eyes. Now, was there anything of actual import you wished to speak of?”

Though somewhat taken aback, Merlin shook off the surprise of Kilgharrah’s indifference and said, “Yes, there is. When was the last time you saw Aithusa?”

“The day you named her, why?”

“You haven’t kept in touch with her?”

“No. Have you? You are the one who brought her into this world, after all.”

“I— No,” she admitted, guilt shooting through her. “I wanted to, but I thought she would be safer far away from Camelot, and…well, I guess I hoped that you’d take her under your wing.”

“She had no need for my guardianship; that is not how things are done.”

“Be that as it may, I think she might be in trouble. I have reason to believe that she has been captured, and that Morgana may be involved, somehow.”

“The witch has captured her? That is grave news indeed.”

Merlin shook her head. “No, I think they may be captured together—or they will be. I cannot be sure of how much of Arthur’s vision has yet come to pass, but I suspect Aithusa has been caught already.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur’s vision?” Gwaine asked.

“Yeah, turns out there was more to his curse.” She looked to Kilgharrah as she explained, “We were under a morality curse for a time. Arthur got saddled with my magic for over a week, and though it’s back with me now, it appears he was also cursed with Morgana’s visions, which linger still. Tonight, he dreamt of her and Aithusa. I fear their captor means to use Aithusa as bait to snare Morgana, if he has not already.”

“Then we must act quickly,” Kilgharrah said grimly. “I will not see her kept prisoner as I was, and we must not allow her to fall under Morgana’s thrall.”

Merlin nodded. “I will speak with Arthur and see if he remembers any details that could help us locate her; he may have recognised the man who took her. If I meet you here tomorrow, will you take me where I need to go? I know you don’t want to be treated like a horse, but it sounds like Aithusa may be held beyond the borders of Camelot, and it will take me too long to travel by mundane means.”

“I think you mean ‘we’ and ‘us,’” Gwaine corrected her before Kilgharrah could give his answer.

A part of Merlin wanted to protest—to tell Gwaine that it was too dangerous and that the responsibility was hers alone—but it melted under the steady look he gave her, reminding her that they were in this together from now on. They were a team, meant to share each other’s burdens and strengthen one another.

She squeezed his hand tighter and gave him a grateful smile. “All right. Together. Kilgharrah, will you help us?”

“I will,” the dragon said. “Find out what you can and call me here at sundown tomorrow.”

“Thank you, old friend.”

Kilgharrah bowed his head to her, then took a step back, making to leave.

“Oh, and one more thing,” she said, making him pause and look back at her. She took a deep breath. “Arthur is legalising magic. He announced it to the council this morning.”

His sharp teeth were bared in a grin as he said, “Yes, I’ve sensed the shift in the land already. This is the moment we have waited for.”

“Then you think it’ll really happen this time?” she asked hopefully. “He won’t back out for some reason or other?”

“You know his mind better than I, but I have a feeling the time of Albion is almost upon us, at long last. Your destiny may be fulfilled yet!”

His optimism made a bit of tension seep out of Merlin’s shoulders as she watched him take off and fly away. Gaius’ account of the council meeting had made the decision seem final, but until the ban was officially lifted and the law rewritten, she feared that she would not be able to fully believe that it would last.

“He’s got a bit of an attitude, doesn’t he?” Gwaine observed, staring after the dragon as he disappeared into the night sky.

Huffing a small laugh she shrugged and said, “Probably comes with being the size of a house. Come on, let’s head back. We’ll need all the sleep we can get; looks like it’s going to be a long night tomorrow.”

“Aye,” he agreed, keeping his hold on her hand as they started making their way back through the woods. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you have a secret daughter named Aithusa, or have I wildly misunderstood the situation?”

Chapter Text

“Enter.”

As Merlin opened the door to the royal chambers, she reflected that it still felt a bit foreign to have to knock instead of just barging in as she pleased (as had been her wont in the past, whether Arthur liked it or not). She supposed she would have to get used to it from now on.

Upon entering, she found Arthur sitting alone at the head of the dinner table, which was cleared of dishes and documents alike for once. Gwen was nowhere to be seen, presumably having left after breakfast to let them speak alone, though Merlin found herself half wishing that she had been there to temper Arthur’s mood. He was always more civil with her around.

“Good morning, sire,” she said, walking up to hover restlessly by the opposite end of the table.

He glanced up at her only briefly before he went back to staring into the middle distance again, his elbows on the table and his chin resting against his clasped hands. “Merlin. You wished to speak to me.”

“Yes. I need to ask you about the dream you had last night.”

This was not why she had originally sought an audience yesterday, but the situation with Aithusa had to take precedence over her love life at the moment.

“Right. And here I was thinking perhaps you were here to apologise.”

“I— Yes. That too. I am sorry. How are you…holding up?”

Arthur huffed and let his clasped hands fall to the table, studiously avoiding looking at Merlin as he said, “As well as can be expected after coming to the realisation that the legacy I was left by my father is that of a genocidal hypocrite rather than a just and righteous ruler and that I have innocent blood on my hands that will never wash off. My sleeping hours are plagued by constant nightmares, and only half of them can be blamed on the curse. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Not really,” she replied quietly, though in many ways it was heartening to hear Arthur denounce Uther so vehemently. “For what it’s worth, you are doing the right thing in trying to atone for the past.”

“It won’t change what happened.”

“No, but it will prevent it from happening again. Sometimes that’s all we can do.”

“Just…ask me what you came here to ask,” Arthur sighed, rubbing wearily at his eyes.

She almost protested against his changing the topic, but in the end she let the urgency of finding out more about Aithusa win out, and she said, “You say you saw someone you recognised in the dream. Can you remember who he was?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if it can tell us where he may be keeping the dragon.”

Arthur finally looked up at her then, a furrow in his brow as he started asking, “Why—?” before his eyes widened. “Tell me you’re not planning on rescuing the damned thing.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to lie to you.”

“No. You’re not rescuing it. Absolutely out of the question!”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t afford to start a war with Amata over a bloody dragon!”

“So it was Sarrum of Amata you saw?” she asked eagerly. “Did you recognise the stronghold? Where in Amata might it be?”

Arthur cursed his slip-up and fixed her with a grim look. “Merlin, I’m serious. You cannot save it.”

“I can and I will.” When Arthur made to protest, she continued, “Arthur, I have to do this. It’s my duty as a Dragonlord, and, more importantly, I feel responsible for her. I helped hatch her from her egg but I was too scared that she would be discovered if she stayed near me, and so she had to fend for herself. I need to be there for her now; I cannot fail her again.”

“I don’t suppose this egg you speak of has anything to do with the one we set out to find in the Tomb of Ashkanar?” Arthur asked, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “The one you said had perished in the collapse?”

“You would have destroyed it,” Merlin said simply. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

Arthur shook his head in exasperation, then a thought seemed to strike him. “Did you poison that stew to get rid of us so you could go after the egg?”

“No!” she exclaimed in affront. “That was Borden, and I’ll have you know that I likely saved all your lives by treating you the best I could before I set off after him! I’m not totally useless—nor heartless. I saved both you and Aithusa’s egg, and I intend to save her again.”

“Merlin, I appreciate that you have formed some sort of attachment to this creature, but it’s—”

“You speak of her as if she were some mindless animal, but dragons are intelligent, sentient beings. She is not a creature, nor a beast; she is a child. Moreover, she is my ward and she is in trouble. You would do the same in my shoes.”

A muscle jumped in Arthur’s jaw as he considered this. After a moment, he said, “I understand why you feel the need to do this—believe me, I do—but I cannot help you. We have no peace treaty with Amata, and if I know the Sarrum no amount of negotiation could make him hand over such a prize as a dragon even if we did. To try to liberate it by force would take a small army, and it would be seen as an unequivocal act of aggression. I will not plunge the kingdom into war by lending my forces to such an effort.”

“Nor am I asking you to. I am just telling you that I’m going. Camelot need not be officially involved.”

“It’s suicide.”

“Not if I’m cunning enough, and if all else fails I have a fully-grown dragon at my beck and call. I’m sure that’s equivalent to a medium-sized army, at least.”

“You’re mad.”

“Perhaps, but I would rather die than let Aithusa rot away in captivity like Kilgharrah before her. If I act quickly, I may be able to reach her before Morgana gets involved.”

For a long moment, they just stared at each other, Arthur with a glint of warning in his eyes and Merlin with defiant determination. Arthur was the first one to break, shaking his head with a resigned sigh.

“There is nothing I can say to dissuade you from this, is there?”

“I’m afraid not, sire.”

“Then by all means, throw your life away.”

“I wasn’t planning on it. I can do this—I know I can—though I would prefer not to do it entirely alone. I’m asking for one man only, that’s all.”

Arthur scoffed. “If you can find anyone insane enough to follow you, you have my leave to take him, but I won’t be ordering anyone to join this suicide mission.”

“Thank you, sire,” Merlin said, bowing her head to hide the way the corners of her mouth twitched. “Gwaine and I will be leaving at sundown.”

“Not Gwaine,” Arthur hurried to say. “He may very well be mad enough, but you’ll have to find someone else.”

“What? Why?”

“He is to be married. I won’t let you drag him to his death and leave behind a poor girl depending on him to save her from ruin.”

Ah.

Drawing a deep breath, Merlin said, “As luck would have it, the ‘poor girl’ would be coming along,” and held up her left hand to show off the ring on her finger.

Arthur just looked confused. “I thought you said you were only bringing one person? And I don’t see what use a pregnant serving girl would be on your quest.”

Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes, she pointed more explicitly to the ring and said, “Arthur, I am the pregnant serving girl— Well, no I’m not actually pregnant, but I’m the one Gwaine wants to marry. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about yesterday.”

He stared blankly at her for a couple of seconds, then a shadow fell across his face and he rose abruptly from his chair to step over to the window overlooking the courtyard, turning his back to her in the process.

When it became clear that Arthur was not going to speak anytime soon, Merlin tentatively said, “Look, I’m sorry Gwaine didn’t tell you the whole story when he asked for your permission to marry. He got a bit overexcited, and…well, he hadn’t actually asked me yet, and he didn’t want anyone to spoil the surprise, and—”

“You do realise how this looks, don’t you?” Arthur bit out.

“Of course, which is why I told him that we would have to ask you properly before we make it official. I never wanted it to look like we were trying to trick you into letting us marry.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“You—!” Interrupting himself, he dragged a hand down his face in obvious frustration. He turned half towards her but did not meet her eyes as he ground out, “Merlin. I am trying so hard to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but you seem dead set on making it as difficult as possible!”

She was feeling more and more lost by the second. “Doubt about what? What looks like what?”

“The second you realised I was changing my mind about magic, you quit my service and seduced the knight most easily swayed by a pair of batting eyelashes! What am I supposed to take away from that but that you decided that you would rather insinuate yourself amongst the nobility than continue to play the servant now that your goal has been achieved?”

“What?!” she sputtered. “Seduce—? If anything, we seduced each other! And I didn’t quit to become a noble; you’re the one who said you couldn’t keep a maid, and since I’m stuck like this—”

“And you’re still lying to me!” he cried, anger in his eyes as he finally looked at her. “You’re not stuck as a woman!”

She paled. “How would you know that?”

“Because I’ve seen it.” Arthur exhaled forcefully and turned back to the window. “In my dreams of the future, I have seen you look both like a man and a woman alternately, although sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

It was a struggle to deliver her next words without her voice wavering. “But how could that be?”

“I’m sure it’s child’s play for a sorcerer like you.”

It felt as if she had fallen through the ice of a frozen lake and been plunged into the frigid waters below. Her heart stuttered in her chest, her limbs felt cold and numb, and there was not sufficient air to support speech.

“At least you have the courtesy of not denying it,” Arthur huffed after waiting in vain for her to respond for some time.

Forcing herself to take a faint breath—and another one after that when it proved not to be enough—she choked out, “Have…have you seen that too?”

Arthur’s voice was flat and dispassionate as he said, “There may have been some clues in the dreams, but I did not need them to figure it out. You practically told me, after all.”

“I did?”

“You said you weren’t sure if your father had magic because he was a Dragonlord or if it was a separate gift. Logically, it follows that you not only have magic yourself but that you must have been a sorcerer before becoming a Dragonlord, or you would have noticed suddenly gaining that gift along with the power to command dragons.”

“Oh,” was all she could say to this.

Feeling rather light-headed, she reached out with a heavy arm, groping for the backrest of the nearest chair and leaning heavily against it once she found it. What a time for Arthur to finally develop a knack for deductive reasoning.

Arthur turned around again, leaning his back against the wall beside the window. They looked at each other in tense silence for what felt like an eternity before Arthur finally said, “So. You practise magic.” His expression was carefully neutral, but Merlin knew him well enough to see the agitation in his bearing and the hurt in his eyes.

“I was born with it,” she replied, her voice barely audible. “I was using it before I could crawl.”

“Gaius tells me that’s highly unusual.”

“I’m a highly unusual sorcerer. I never asked for this power or the responsibilities that come with it. Nevertheless, I have tried my best to wield it for good.”

Arthur chewed on this for a moment before asking, “Could you have lifted the curse this entire time?”

“No, I lost my magic as part of it. I only got it back when you lost yours yesterday.”

“Why did you never tell me?”

“I wanted to, but how could I? When was I supposed to be sure that revealing myself would achieve anything but earning me a place on the pyre?”

Arthur’s tight restraint on his emotions slipped a little and he exclaimed, “I don’t know, maybe when I showed you that I was willing to kill my own father to bring justice to your people?! Instead you protected him!”

She flinched and hung her head. “I know. That was a mistake. I see that now.”

“Yes, it bloody well was,” Arthur grunted, running a hand through his hair. “Why did you even come to Camelot?”

“To learn to control my magic. To find a purpose for my gifts.”

“By infiltrating the court in the hopes of manipulating me into eventually lifting the ban?”

She swallowed back a lump in her throat. “Is that really what you think of me?”

“Is it not what you have been doing?”

“Obviously I hoped you would lift the ban one day, but would you call it manipulation to help someone get over their fear of horses by trying to show them that having once been kicked by one does not make the entire species inherently evil? All I’ve ever wanted is to help you create a better world, for magical and non-magical people alike.”

He hummed wryly. “I suppose if some covert resistance movement had wanted to indoctrinate me, they’d have sent someone more competent.”

A startled chuckle escaped Merlin at that. “I’d pretend to be offended by that, but considering what a botched-up job I’ve made of it over the years, I’m not sure I have a leg to stand on. I didn’t even consider that being made your manservant might make it easier to fulfil my destiny until after I’d already been saddled with the position against my will; if your father hadn’t been the king, I would’ve told him exactly where he could stick his so-called reward.”

“Your destiny?”

“Yes. There are prophecies about you, Arthur—about how you will one day grow into the greatest king this land has ever known and unite Albion in peace and prosperity, bringing back magic to the realm. I’d barely been in Camelot a minute before I was told that I had a part to play in this destiny as well.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, frowning.

“Protecting you so you actually live to pull it off. Let me tell you; it’s a full-time job with all the trouble you attract.”

Arthur pushed himself off the wall and started pacing slowly back and forth as he digested this, his arms crossed over his chest. “So that’s why you stayed, even though you didn’t want the position? Because destiny dictated it?”

“Maybe at first,” she admitted, absentmindedly tracing the carved pattern in the wood beneath her hand, no longer feeling quite as much like she was in risk of keeling over if she did not cling on tightly to the chair. “I thought you were a prat of the highest order in the beginning, but soon I started to catch glimpses of the real you—who is still a prat, don’t get me wrong—and it gave me hope that maybe the prophecies were onto something. Before I knew it, I found that I didn’t just want to protect you because it seemed like a worthwhile purpose for my gifts or because it was foretold, but because somehow you had turned into a friend, try as you might to deny it.”

He threw her a pained glance as he passed her, but kept pacing. “How could a born sorcerer possibly want to be my friend after all I’ve done?”

“I didn’t understand it either at first, and maybe some of my peers would think me mad or a traitor to our kind, but here we are. You’re my friend. You’re also the son and accomplice of the man who slaughtered thousands of my kin—human and draconic. You’ve arrested me for sorcery when I was innocent of it, and you’ve saved me from execution when I was actually guilty. You have no idea how much I’ve sacrificed to save your life a hundred times over, and yet you’ve repaid the favour time and time again. You’re the reason I’ve had to live in fear even after Uther died, and you’re the reason I have hope that I may not have to do so forever. It is what it is: complicated and simple all at once.”

Arthur’s jaw worked in silence for a moment, then he asked, “So what changed? Why jump ship all of a sudden? Why this convoluted scheme of pretending to be stuck as a woman and marrying? And why Gwaine?”

“Arthur, I wasn’t planning on abandoning you. But I— Part of what this curse wanted me to learn was that I’ve been working myself to the bone running around after you and Gaius and fighting magical assassins in the dead of night all these years. I was exhausted—beyond exhausted. I thought if I were Gaius’ apprentice instead of your servant, I could better dedicate my time and energy to the keeping-you-safe bit of my destiny. I didn’t even think about marriage until I heard about Gwaine’s plan to propose yesterday. As for why him… Well, why does anyone marry? Because they’re in love.”

He stopped in his tracks, giving her a rather sceptical look. “Which you are? With Gwaine, of all people?”

She could not stop herself from rolling her eyes as she said, “Don’t sound so surprised; we’ve always been close.”

“It’s just— Are you sure? I mean, I can see why you’d need a husband if you really want to be a woman, but surely you could have your pick of men? You may be a commoner, but you’re…well…not uncomely as a woman, I guess. You could go for someone richer like Leon, or someone with better connections like Elyan, or someone handsomer—”

“Are you kidding me?” she snorted. “More handsome than Gwaine?! You’re lucky you’re into women, because your taste in men must be appalling.” She let out a proper laugh at Arthur’s offended grimace. “Arthur, I’m not looking to marry a man because I want to stay a woman; I’m staying a woman because I want to marry a man—Gwaine, specifically, because I love him and he loves me. It’s that simple. The question is if you’ll let us.”

Arthur looked away, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “You do realise that you’re asking to join the ranks of the aristocracy fresh off the revelation that you’ve been committing high treason during the entirety of our acquaintance, don’t you?”

All levity fled Merlin in an instant. “Yes. Yes, I suppose I am. Should I be asking for a head start before you send for the guards instead?”

He shook his head in resignation. “Despite everything, I believe you when you say you did not join my service for sinister reasons. I can even understand why you never told me of your magic, but knowing that you would lie to me about something like my father’s crimes… I just don’t know how I’m supposed to trust you after this. How can I be certain you won’t do something like this again?”

“You can’t,” Merlin said quietly, a slight tremor in her voice. When Arthur shot her a somewhat surprised look, she swallowed and added, “You can’t be sure I’ll never make mistakes again—nor can I. All you can do is decide whether you trust me to make them with the best of intentions.”

Arthur sighed and leaned his forearms against the backrest of his favoured chair on the opposite side of the table from Merlin, his head hanging low as he stared unseeingly down at the floor. He stood like this in contemplative silence for an excruciatingly long time before finally looking up with a sombre expression, saying, “I suppose the point is moot until we know whether you’re even coming back from Amata.” After another second’s pause, he added, “The stronghold sits at a fork in a great river. Based on the terrain, I would guess it’s located near their south-western border.”

Ideally, she would have liked to hear Arthur proclaim his undying trust in her rather than evading the question like this, but she supposed it was the best response that she had any right to ask for under the circumstances, and so she pushed down on her disappointment and said, “Thank you, sire. That is a great help.”

“Remember, you’re on your own in this. You’ll wear no Camelot colours, and if you are captured, there is precious little I can do for you. If Lord Sarrum’s reputation is to be believed, there wouldn’t be much left to rescue by the time help arrived anyway.”

“We’ll just have to make it back on our own then,” Merlin quipped, making an effort to sound more chipper than she truly was. She too had heard the stories of the Sarrum’s cruelty, especially towards sorcerers.

“See that you do.” Arthur nodded with finality, signalling that the audience was over, and Merlin bowed her head and turned to leave, but she was stopped with her hand on the doorknob when he called, “Merlin?”

She looked back over her shoulder. “Yes, sire?”

He looked at her in pensive solemnity for a second before saying, “Godspeed.”

She nodded, the faintest smile on her lips as she said, “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Chapter Text

“There, that has to be it,” Gwaine called, voice raised to carry over the bitter wind that enveloped them this high in the air.

Merlin looked down at the building he was pointing at. Even in the moonlight it was plain to see that it matched Arthur’s description and their research. Between naps to recover from their escapades last night, they had spent the better part of the day pouring over maps to try to determine which stronghold the Sarrum might be keeping Aithusa in, and this fortress had been the prime suspect.

Well, it might be more accurate to say that Gwaine had studied the maps, comparing them to his memories from his travelling days. Merlin had spent quite a lot of her waking time obsessively going through her spell books and casting every protective spell she could find on Gwaine and his armour. Arthur had not been entirely wrong to call their plan insane, and she did feel slightly apprehensive about dragging him along into danger.

“She is here,” Kilgharrah confirmed. They could feel his powerful voice rumbling through his chest from where they were sat on his back. “I hear her crying out in my mind.”

“As do I,” Merlin said.

Her heart was breaking for Aithusa at the faint impression of pain and fear coming through their bond, and she did her best to send back a sense of comfort, trying to convey to her that they were on their way.

They circled the stronghold a few times to get the lay of the land, Kilgharrah reassuring them that they would remain unseen even at this relatively close distance. Unfortunately, the fortress looked to be well guarded, as suspected, and they could detect no easy points of entry.

“Kilgharrah, can you sense Morgana’s presence?”

“I cannot.”

“So we’re still going with plan A, then?” Gwaine asked.

“Seems the best way,” she replied.

Plan A was, perhaps, the most audacious out of all the approaches they had come up with, but it should (hopefully) get them all the way to the Sarrum without having to rely on their ability to sneak undetected into an unfamiliar stronghold full of soldiers who would, presumably, kill intruders on sight.

“Grand, this’ll be fun!”

At Merlin’s request, Kilgharrah set down in a clearing a little ways away from the fortress and lowered himself close to the ground to allow them to slide off his back, their cloaks billowing around them as they did so (neither of them red nor bearing the Pendragon crest).

“Thank you for the ride,” Merlin told him. “Stay close, we may need your assistance before long.”

“Believe it or not, but I did not forget the plan during the journey,” he replied wryly. “I shall be right above you, awaiting your call.”

“Good.”

“And, Merlin? I need not remind you that Sarrum of Amata is as much an enemy of magic as was Uther. If you get the chance to rid the land of his tyranny, I suggest you take it.”

Merlin gave him a non-committal nod and watched as he took off into the sky once more.

“Tell you to assassinate heads of states often, does he?” Gwaine asked.

“Every now and then, yes,” she huffed.

“Hm, he may be growing on me…”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Come on, let’s get into character.”

A couple of spells later, both they and their clothes looked like they had spent a good few nights out in the open, with Merlin making sure that she looked especially rough. She had opted for magically adjusting her old masculine clothes to fit her new body—reasoning that the mobility of breeches was to be preferred on a mission like this—and she had also used a spell to dye her whole outfit black to better suit the role she was about to play.

“I really hope you have a spell to reverse this after we’re done,” Gwaine muttered, looking rather dismayed by the condition of his hauberk, which was now considerably less shiny than before, though not actually structurally affected by its apparent disrepair. In fact, the mail was stronger than ever thanks to all the magic Merlin had been infusing it with over the course of the day.

“Don’t worry, I do,” she promised, rubbing her hands over her hair to ensure that it looked appropriately messy while still being held relatively securely in its plait. Reaching for a bulky pouch at her belt, she said, “Here, put these on me.”

Gwaine took the manacles she was holding out for him. “We’re using these?” he asked sceptically, running the length of rope which was attached to the chain connecting the shackles between his fingers.

“Yeah? I nicked them from the dungeons; it has to look real, doesn’t it?”

“Aye, but these are too real. You won’t be able to get out of them on your own or use magic.”

“Of course I will,” she scoffed dismissively.

“Merls, they’re cold iron. Look, they even have magic-suppressing runes inscribed on them.”

“Oh, do they?” she asked, peering curiously at the metal. “I never noticed that; no wonder they tickle a bit.” Seeing the incredulous look Gwaine gave her at this, she held out her arms and said, “Go on, it’s not my first time wearing them. I promise they’re no match for me.”

Shaking his head, he reluctantly did as she asked, clasping them securely around her outstretched wrists. His apprehension dissipated when she immediately summoned a flame in each of her palms, then gave her magic a little push to open the manacles and let them fall to the ground.

“All right, all right,” Gwaine laughed as he bent down to pick them up. “I’m sorry I ever doubted the might of the Great Emrys.”

She grinned as she let him chain her up again. “I’m really not just tooting my own horn when I say I may be the most powerful sorcerer alive, you know.”

“No, you never were one for bragging,” he agreed. Giving her a last looking over he asked, “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” She handed the other end of the rope to Gwaine as they started walking in the direction of the fortress. “Remember, we need to be convincing. If you need to toss me around or rough me up a bit, don’t hesitate.”

“I’d really rather not.”

“I know, but you may have to.” She sent him a wink and said, “Think of it as foreplay.”

He snorted. “Fine, but you tell me if I accidentally go too far, yeah?”

“You realise that I’m going to have to protest against your treatment of me the entire time, right? But if it will ease your mind, I’ll…I’ll call you a brute if I actually need you to back off. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They continued their trek through the woods and soon the trees started thinning out, giving them a view of the stronghold looming on the bank of the nearby river. Before they emerged from the treeline, Gwaine stopped her with a hand on her arm and pulled her in for a crushing kiss which she returned with equal fervour.

“Be careful in there,” he murmured as they parted, leaning his forehead against hers.

“You too, and please remember what Leon said about self-preservation in combat. I’m leaving with both you and Aithusa in tow, or not at all.”

He grinned and pressed another kiss to her lips. “Of course. Can’t give Arthur the satisfaction of either of us dying before we can force him to give a speech at our wedding, can we?”

“Then let’s go liberate a dragon so we can get back to bullying him into letting the wedding happen in the first place.”

“Aye, let’s.”

“Declare yourselves!” one of three guards cried as they approached the gate to the fortress.

“Gareth, bounty hunter extraordinaire, at your service,” Gwaine called back, playing up his Caerleon accent.

“What’s your business here?” another guard asked, staring suspiciously at Merlin, who glared back with all the vitriol she could muster from where she trailed after Gwaine at the end of the rope tied to her manacles.

“I was hoping to seek shelter here for the night, seeing as my charge here scared off my horse in her last escape attempt and with it my stuff—bedroll and all.”

“We’re not an inn,” came the curt reply.

“‘Course not, but as you’re the Sarrum’s men, I thought I’d try my chances. I’m headed for the capital, see, and I’m sure your liege lord would appreciate you facilitating my journey there. I understand he’s rather keen on getting his hands on this particular quarry of mine.”

“That so? And who is she to warrant the attention of the Sarrum himself?”

“None other than the Lady Morgana of Camelot.” Gwaine gave the rope a light tug, making Merlin take a stumbling step forward. “Why don’t you show these good people some respect and curtsy, my lady?”

Merlin’s response to this was to square her shoulders and spit on the ground between Gwaine and the guards. Gwaine had been right; this was rather fun.

“Ach, no manners, these royals,” Gwaine quipped.

The guards exchanged a look of surprised scepticism.

“This is the witch Morgana?” one asked.

“She is, so, though she’ll not be doing much witchery with those pretty bracelets on. She’s harmless as a lamb at the moment, I assure you—that is, as long as you don’t get within biting distance. Learned that the hard way, so I did.”

After another bout of unspoken communication between the guards, one of them said, “We’ll need to take this to our superiors. Stay here.”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and marched off out of sight, leaving them with the remaining two guards.

Merlin assumed a look of disdainful boredom as they settled in to wait while Gwaine tried to strike up casual conversation with the guards to little success. It seemed they were a mistrustful bunch—and rightly so, in all fairness.

After some time, the third guard returned in the company of a fourth one, both following in the wake of a man wearing slightly costlier garb. Wearing an expression of dispassionate haughtiness, the man gave Merlin and Gwaine a scrutinising once-over before saying, “I hear you claim to have captured the sorceress Morgana.”

“Aye, so I have,” Gwaine replied with an easy smile. “This is herself, and they call me Gareth. To whom do I have the honour of speaking?”

“I am the steward of this place, and that’s all you need to know. You say you intend to hand her over to Lord Sarrum?”

“I do, though ‘hand her over’ sounds a bit altruistic to me. Sure, but I’m rather hoping for a handsome reward after all the trouble she’s put me through. That’s assuming we make it all the way to the capital without her figuring out a way to murder me in my sleep.”

“Hm. Well, you’re in luck. The Sarrum is currently in residence here. You may present her at once.”

“Grand so! Saves me a fair bit of time, that does.” Gwaine turned his grin on Merlin. “Hear that, sweetheart? Finally a bit of luck! Well, lucky for me. Seems you’ll have the misfortune to part from my pretty bake a bit sooner than expected.”

It was all she could do not to laugh at his antics, though she did make a mental note of instructing him never to call her sweetheart ever again; the word was quickly getting tainted by the dismissive way men had taken to addressing her with it since she had assumed her feminine form.

Exerting herself to stay in character, she muttered, “Something’s good’s come out of this, then,” Looking to the steward, she drew herself up straight and met his eyes with regal contempt. “Let us get this over with, shall we? Whatever the butcher you serve has planned for me can’t be worse than spending another minute tied to this jester.”

The sort-of-joke-that-was-not-really-that-funny left a bad taste in her mouth, but she had faith that Gwaine had learned his lesson well enough to know that she would never mean it—in or out of character.

“Such a sharp tongue for such a fair lass,” Gwaine lamented, unperturbed as he started following the steward and his guard into the fortress, dragging Merlin behind him on her leash. “I must admit, I’ll miss our battles of wits when all this is over. Been a while since I’ve had someone give me such a thorough and creative tongue-lashing.”

“Oh, I’ll give you another lashing yet,” she bit back, turning the amused smile threatening to break through into a malevolent smirk instead. “The moment I get free, I’ll string you up and show you exactly what I think of you. I’ll have you begging for mercy long before I grant it by putting you out of your misery.”

“Anyone else getting a little hot under the collar?” Gwaine asked the others, looking over his shoulder and throwing her a salacious wink, a glint of genuine arousal in his eyes.

“Can’t you shut her up?” was the only response he got from the steward.

“Now, why on earth would I do that? It’s the only form of entertainment I’ve had access to for days.”

Luckily for the steward, they reached their destination fairly quickly and he was able to leave them outside a room guarded by yet another pair of guards, bidding them wait as he slipped through the doors ahead of them. It was not long before he returned, opening the doors and gesturing for them to enter.

They stepped into a hall roughly the size of Camelot’s council chambers to find a balding man a few years younger than Gaius sitting in a spartan throne at the head of the room, flanked by a couple of guards. He had a cruel twist to his lips as he watched them approach, and Merlin could not help feeling a tad nervous, though she did her best not to let it on.

They came to a stop a respectful distance from the throne, with the steward taking up position at the right-hand side of it, leaving Merlin and Gwaine to face the Sarrum alone, the guard who had accompanied them posted some paces behind them and the men at the door now guarding it from the inside.

“Lord Sarrum,” Gwaine said, bowing more politely than Merlin had ever seen him do before, “it’s an honour.”

“I understand you have something for me,” Sarrum said, cutting to the chase. His calculating gaze never left Merlin for a second.

“I do. May I present the Lady Morgana? I hear you’ve been looking for her.”

Merlin met the Sarrum’s eyes with her head held high. She needed not feign her contempt as she bared her teeth in a sneer. Kilgharrah had not exaggerated when he had called the man an enemy of magic, and if rumour was to be believed, his cruelty outmatched even Uther’s.

“The Lady Morgana, you say… How very interesting.”

“Where is the dragon?” Merlin asked, taking a step forward. “What have you done with her?”

Sticking commendably to his part, Gwaine gave the rope a tug to rein her in a bit, saying, “Apologies, my lord. She’s gone a bit feral, so she has. Forgotten all courtly manners, like.”

Merlin pretended to ignore him and spat out, “If you have harmed a single scale on her body, I swear I will bring the full wrath of the Triple Goddess down upon you.” The threat required no acting on her part.

“I assume you speak of this dragon?”

Sarrum made a gesture and a soldier standing guard by a door at the far end of the room disappeared through the door, only to reappear along with another guard, each holding a chain and pulling something behind them.

A reluctant Aithusa was dragged into the hall, whining pitifully as the chains wrapped around her tightened whenever she tried to resist the guards, crushing her wings against her body. There was some irritation of the delicate membrane of her wings where the chains dug into it and the young dragon was limping slightly.

“Aithusa!” Merlin breathed, her heart clenching at the sight of her ward tied up thusly.

Without thinking, she made to rush to Aithusa’s side, but Gwaine had the presence of mind to keep hold of the rope, and so all she got for her trouble was the beginnings of some nasty bruising around her wrists as she was jerked back. For a split second, she actually felt angry at Gwaine for stopping her and their code word hovered on the tip of her tongue, but then she took a deep breath and reminded herself that he was just playing his part and that the Sarrum was the one who truly deserved her ire.

Aithusa clearly recognised her, for she made a start towards Merlin in return. Her excited chirp turned into a squeal of pain as the guards held her back by the chains, struggling somewhat as she was quite strong despite still not being much bigger than a large hound.

“Huh. The beast seems to know you, and you know its name,” Sarrum commented, leaning forward in his seat with an intrigued gleam in his eyes. “That makes the situation even more interesting…”

Though the man’s reaction was a bit puzzling, Merlin found it hard to focus on that when all she wanted was to rip his head off, but before she could decide whether to hurl an insult or a fireball at the Sarrum, Gwaine spoke up.

“‘Interesting,’ my lord? How so?”

“It just so happens that this is the second Morgana I’ve had the pleasure of meeting today.”

Sarrum snapped his fingers and the steward left through the same door Aithusa had been brought through, re-emerging a second later leading a gagged woman, shackled in much the same way as Merlin.

Well, fuck. So much for Kilgharrah’s reassurance that he had not sensed Morgana’s presence. The manacles around her wrists must have been doing a better job of containing her magic than the ones Merlin wore.

Though she looked even rougher than Merlin—traces of blood smeared on her face and her hair resembling nothing so much as a bird’s nest—there was no mistaking her for anyone other than the real Morgana.

Her gaze swept around the room as she stumbled in after the steward, filling with surprise and hatred as it stopped on Merlin. She looked equally displeased to see Gwaine as her eyes briefly flitted over to him, but then she looked back to Merlin, a crease forming in her brow. Cocking her head, she looked her over with baffled curiosity, no doubt taking in her long hair and the novel ways her slight curves filled out her old clothes.

The steward dragged Morgana over to stand in front of the throne as well, at a safe distance from both the dragon and Merlin and Gwaine.

Merlin could do little but stare at her old friend with a sinking feeling in her gut as she tried to calculate the seemingly abysmal odds of their getting out of there without her being forced to reveal her magic to Morgana.

Gwaine, however, seemed to compose himself admirably quickly. “My lord,” he stammered, looking between the Sarrum and the two witches, “I’m confused. To the best of my knowledge, this is Morgana. If I have made a mistake, I can only apologise and assure you that it was an honest one.”

“Were it not for the fact that your prisoner seems as acquainted with the creature as mine, I would hang you as a swindler, but as it stands, both of their identities seem to be in question. Why don’t we let the ladies speak for themselves? I am eager to hear what they have to say.”

The steward untied the gag and ripped it from Morgana’s mouth, and she brought her manacled hands up to rub gingerly at her face.

“Well?” Sarrum asked. “Which one of you is the real Morgana?”

“She is,” they both said in chorus.

Merlin raised a questioning eyebrow, but Morgana just smirked and turned to Sarrum, saying, “You’ve found me out, my lord. I was just hoping to steal away with the dragon before the real Morgana showed up to claim her. Seeing as my plan was foiled with no real harm done, you might as well let me go?”

“Enough, Morgana,” Merlin sighed, resigning herself to her fate. Drawing herself up to her full height, she fixed the Sarrum with a stony look. “I may not be Morgana, but she and I share a common goal, for I too am here to demand that you set this young dragon free.”

“‘Demand,’ eh?” Sarrum scoffed. “I don’t think so, no matter who you are.”

“Very well, you may consider it an order if you prefer.”

“And with what authority do you presume to give me orders?”

Though she would have much preferred for Morgana not to be in the room for this, she had little choice but to go ahead with their plan. “With the authority of a Dragonlord. Aithusa is under my protection.”

The Sarrum burst out laughing at that and his men quickly joined in, but out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Morgana stiffening.

“Oh, that’s a good one!” Sarrum chuckled—a dark, cruel sound. “You have guts, I’ll give you that, but you can’t pull the wool over my eyes with a story that implausible. The Dragonlords were driven to extinction by myself and the late King Uther, and even if one slipped through our net and produced an heir, it would not be you, lassie.”

“I suspected you might need some convincing,” Merlin said coolly, “so I’ve prepared a little demonstration.” Looking him unblinkingly in the eye, she lowered her voice into a guttural growl and called for Kilgharrah.

A second later, an answering roar from outside made the windowpanes rattle in their frames, and it was followed by the unmistakable glow of fire as Kilgharrah swept down over the fortress, spewing flame over a distant part of the stronghold.

Sarrum shot up from his throne as shouts of panic filtered in from the courtyard, staring wildly at Merlin. “How?!” he cried. “This must be some trick! You’re a woman; you cannot be a Dragonlord!”

“Wrong, wrong and wrong. This is no trick, and I am neither woman nor man nor Morgana. I am someone much worse.”

“Who are you?!”

She could not help the smirk tugging at her lips, savouring the fear in the Sarrum’s eyes as another plume of fire lit up the night outside and bathed the hall in orange light and stark shadows. It was quite possible that she had never looked as much like Morgana as in that moment.

“I, Sarrum of Amata—” She let her magic whip up a wind inside the hall, making her black cloak billow dramatically around her as she took a step forward. With a flash of her eyes, her manacles started glowing, singeing the cuffs of her sleeves but leaving her skin and the purple ribbon tied around her wrist unmarred as the metal melted and dripped into a smouldering puddle on the floor. “—am Emrys.”

Somewhere at her side, she was vaguely aware of Morgana gasping and backing away, but she paid her no mind, instead advancing another step towards Sarrum.

“I am the most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the earth—the one destined to bring the land of Albion into a new age of magic—and I am the last Dragonlord. I will see my ward released, or I shall bring down such devastation upon your head that there will be no rubble left to show that this spot of land was ever settled upon. The choice is yours: free her or perish.”

To his credit, the Sarrum stood his ground, but he could not entirely mask the dread in his eyes as he snarled and said, “I don’t care who you are; I do not negotiate with sorcerers! If you raise a hand against me, there will be one less dragon in the world for you to lord over, so I would call off the attack if I were you.”

The guards holding onto Aithusa’s chains sprang to action when Sarrum snapped his fingers, though they looked terrified as they drew their swords and pointed them threateningly at the cowering dragon.

Her veins burning with ice-hot fury, she raised her chin and slipped into Draconic, saying, “Aithusa, defend yourself at will.”

Her magic shot out and melted the chains off Aithusa, affecting her scaly hide not in the slightest but making her guards scream in agony as their hands were seared by the molten metal of both the links of the chains and their swords. Unarmed and mad with pain, they fell on their knees, and a second later Aithusa was upon them, clawing and biting at them with predatory glee.

Apparently, this was the last drop for the Sarrum, for he cried, “Kill them!” and drew his sword even as he backed away from Merlin, skittishly looking for an escape route.

Trusting Gwaine to have her back, she reached out a hand and made the Sarrum’s sword fly out of his hand and into hers, then she let her magic wrap itself around the man’s body and drag him back to his throne, pinning him to it.

“So you have chosen the hard way,” she said. “Then sit back and enjoy the show.”

She turned a deaf ear to his panicked insults and oaths, her magic keeping him glued to the seat of the throne as she looked around to see where else her talents might be needed.

Behind her, Gwaine was fighting two guards, having already brought down a third. He seemed to be handling them with ease, and so Merlin looked over at Morgana, who was wrestling with the steward, having somehow wound the chain attached to her manacles around his neck and doing her level best to strangle him.

As Merlin watched, a guard leapt at the struggling pair, toppling the three of them over. Morgana’s head thumped hard against the stone floor as they hit the ground, disorienting her to the point that she could put up no defence as the guard grabbed her by the hair and knocked her head against the floor again.

He was prevented from repeating the motion by a flurry of shining white scales as Aithusa threw herself at him, knocking him back and ripping into him. The damage was already done, however, and Morgana’s eyes rolled back in her head as she succumbed to unconsciousness.

Taking advantage of her vulnerability and of Aithusa’s preoccupied state, the steward pushed himself to his knees and drew a dagger from his belt, raising it over Morgana’s defenceless body, but he was blasted clean across the room by Merlin’s magic before she had even made the conscious decision to protect her friend come enemy.

As the steward hit the wall several yards away and crumpled to the floor never to rise again, Merlin turned back to Gwaine just in time to see him dispatch another guard. He twirled around to swing his sword at the last man standing, but Merlin beat him to it, flinging him into a wall as well.

Coming out of his combat stance, Gwaine grinned and tossed his hair out of his face. “Cheers, love. You know, y—” She never found out what she was supposed to know, for his eyes widened as he looked over her shoulder and he cried, “Watch out!”

She spun around on her heel to face the throne. Though the Sarrum was still pinned to it, his arm was poised to throw a dagger at her. Instinctively, she raised an arm to shield herself, pulling at her magic for protection, but before the dagger could even leave the Sarrum’s hand, Aithusa pounced on him and sank her fangs into his neck.

The dagger clattered to the floor harmlessly as the man let out a gruesome gurgle, ineffectually trying to push the young dragon away, but she was relentless and soon his arms fell to his sides, limp and lifeless.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Merlin lowered her defences and said, “Aithusa, enough. He’s dead.”

She tore herself from the corpse with obvious reluctance and jumped off the blood-stained throne.

“Well, there goes our chance of not making this a major political incident,” Gwaine huffed.

He walked up to Merlin’s side and reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder, but immediately snatched it back when Aithusa growled at him.

“It’s all right, Aithusa! He’s a friend,” Merlin hurried to say, stepping in front of Gwaine for good measure. When the dragon looked questioningly at the singed rope that had been tied to Merlin’s manacles, she added, “It was just pretend. He came with me to help save you. He won’t hurt either of us. He’s my, uh, mate.” She repeated that last bit in Draconic just to be safe, though Aithusa seemed to understand human speech perfectly well despite not yet being able to replicate it.

Aithusa lowered her hackles immediately and bounded over to Morgana, nudging her unconscious body with her snout with a concerned whine.

Ignoring the problem of Morgana for a second, Merlin looked Gwaine over for signs of injuries, but found him seemingly hale and hearty. “You all right?” she asked anyway.

“Aye, and you?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Feeling some tension finally seeping out of her for the first time since Arthur had told her of his dream, Merlin pulled Gwaine in for a one-armed hug, letting the sword she had stolen from the Sarrum dangle at her side. “I can’t believe we did it.”

“Don’t count your dragon hatchlings quite yet,” Gwaine chuckled, squeezing her tightly in return and pressing a kiss to her cheek. “We still have to make it out.”

“Right.” She released him and looked out of the high windows along the side of the hall. It was hard to see much more than the night sky through them, but said sky was increasingly cloaked in smoke and the glow of fire. “At least we have Kilgharrah covering us. With any luck, everyone will be too busy trying to save themselves and the fortress from the flames to pay attention to us.”

“Let’s hope so. What about her?” He nodded to Morgana. “Do we just leave her?”

Aithusa was now breathing a stream of healing energy over Morgana’s body. It was not quite enough to wake her up, but Merlin sensed that it had at least stabilised her.

“The fire is spreading; if we leave her here she’ll die.”

“Is that…not what we want?” Gwaine asked tentatively, his voice hushed so as not to worry Aithusa.

“I— I don’t know. I had hoped we’d get here before her to avoid having to make this decision…”

“Considering all she’s done and the threat she still poses, wouldn’t it be better if she died?”

Merlin worried at her bottom lip, staring unseeingly at Morgana as she wrestled with her emotions.

The part of her mind that sounded suspiciously like Kilgharrah was screaming at her to end this now while she had the chance—to prevent the prophecies of Arthur’s death from playing out once and for all. However, there was another part of her that she had still not managed to silence even after all these years which felt acute anguish at the thought of letting her former friend die.

What if…? it said, as it always had. What if she was not beyond saving? She had been so kind once, what if she could yet be swayed away from hatred? What if the legalisation of magic in Camelot would be enough to persuade her to give up her feud with Arthur?

A distraught whimper from Aithusa made her focus her gaze again. The young dragon had gingerly caught one of Morgana’s sleeves between her teeth and was attempting to drag her towards Merlin and Gwaine, looking pleadingly at them.

Her heart twinging in conflicted sympathy, Merlin made a decision, saying, “I don’t know what to do with her, but no one deserves to die like this. If she’s anything like me, she’ll have had enough nightmares about the pyre. I can’t leave her to burn alive.”

Gwaine looked like he couldn’t quite decide whether he wanted to argue against this, but in the end he just sighed heavily and sheathed his sword. “Right so. Never thought I’d find myself saving Morgana’s life, but here we are. Help me get her up and I’ll carry her out. We can figure out what to do with her when we’ve gotten somewhere safe.”

Shooting him a grateful smile, Merlin moved to Morgana’s side, once again reassuring Aithusa that they were only trying to help when she got agitated by their starting to manhandle the unconscious body. Before long, they had her slung over Gwaine’s shoulders.

“This all right?” Merlin asked. “Can you make it all the way out?”

“Sure, she’s all skin and bone,” Gwaine huffed. “Won’t be much use fighting though, so I’ll leave that in your capable hands. And Aithusa’s capable, uh, paws?”

She chuckled and picked up the sword she had temporarily put down—not that she was planning on using it as her primary mode of defence, but it did not hurt to be armed with more than magic, and it was a sword fit for a king. It would be a shame to just leave it.

“All right, Aithusa. Are you ready to get out of here?”

Aithusa let out an eager chirp in affirmation.

“Then let’s go.”

Chapter Text

“Hi there, how’s your head feeling?”

Morgana’s eyes fluttered open accompanied by a groan. It took a while before they were able to focus on Merlin in the dim moonlight filtering through the forest canopy, but when they did she hurriedly pushed herself off the ground and shied away.

Well, she tried to, at least. It was no easy feat with her hands still shackled, and she only got halfway to sitting before she seemed to get hit by a bout of vertigo and had to stop to be sick.

“You shouldn’t be moving yet,” Merlin said, unable to keep a hint of concern out of her voice as she waved a hand and let her magic clear away the vomit. “Aithusa and I have done our best to speed up your healing, but your body still needs time to recuperate.”

Only then did Morgana appear to realise that Aithusa was curled up by her side, her body providing her with a source of heat in lieu of their lighting a campfire that might give their position away to any refugees from the still besieged and burning fortress.

Seemingly somewhat reassured by Aithusa’s presence, Morgana settled for half reclining on the ground, propped up by an elbow. She cleared her mouth of some residual bile before spitting out words that were just as acrid. “You healed me? Why?”

“Good question,” Merlin said. “Maybe I’ve gone soft. Quite possibly in the head.”

“More like you’re too kind-hearted for your own good,” Gwaine corrected her from where he was sat on the ground just beside her, his shoulder a comforting presence where it was pressed up against hers.

Morgana huffed wryly. “Right. And I suppose it was kindness that made Merlin poison me back in the day? Or have you not told your pet knight about that little adventure of ours, old friend?”

“You know, judging by the cracking time I had being your prisoner and prizefighter, I’m just gonna go ahead and assume she had her reasons.”

“Oh, so it is ‘she’ now?” Morgana asked, raising a pointed eyebrow as she regarded Merlin with reluctant curiosity. “I assumed it was just a poor attempt at disguising yourself as me.”

“It’s whatever,” Merlin said dismissively. “There was this curse— It doesn’t matter. The real question is what we should do with you.”

“Well, you should kill me, obviously. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do all along, Emrys?”

Merlin pursed her lips and cast her eyes down to the ground. “I never wanted to hurt you, Morgana. I’ve had so many chances to kill you or let you die, and yet I never seem to be able to go through with it. I bartered your life for the safety of Camelot and practically delivered you into Morgause’s clutches. I healed you after you fell down those stairs despite knowing you were plotting against us, and I stayed my hand after knocking you out when we fought over the fomorroh. I should probably have left you to burn tonight, yet here I am again, dragging you from the jaws of death against my better judgement. I don’t know why, given that you’ve shown no sign of ever giving up on this vindictive quest of yours.”

“Why should I?” she asked. “The throne is rightfully mine, after all.”

Gwaine snorted. “Oh, catch yourself on! You’re the bastard daughter of a man who seized the kingdom as spoils of war. You have no legal claim, and neither did he before he robbed the crown for himself and killed everyone who dared question his rule. No king—not even Arthur—rules by right but by show of force. You’ve obviously done your best to follow in your da’s bloody footsteps, but you’re still entitled to bugger all. Just admit that you want the throne for the sake of power and be done with it.”

Rankled by the comparison with Uther, Morgana hissed, “I want it for the sake of my people—to liberate magic and end the genocide my father started.”

“Great, then you’ll be happy to swear off your vendetta now that Arthur is legalising magic, right?” Merlin said with forced cheerfulness.

Morgana blinked. “He’s what?”

“He’s lifting the ban. Started the process yesterday morning, as a matter of fact. Told the council and everything.”

Her eyes flitted uncertainly between the two of them before she sneered and said, “Right, I’m sure,” her words dripping with sarcasm.

“No, really, he is,” Gwaine confirmed.

“Forgive me if I sound a bit sceptical, but why should I believe that the son of Uther would ever do such a thing?”

“Because he has finally opened his eyes to his father’s sins,” Merlin said. “He knows now that Uther’s persecution was based on a lie covering his own guilt, and he knows what it’s like to live with gifts like ours.”

Morgana scoffed. “No, he doesn’t. Even if what you say is true and he is changing the law, what’s to stop him from changing his mind again at a whim? He could never understand what it’s like to have powers like ours thrust upon you.”

“Oh, but he can. The same curse that changed my appearance gave him my magic and your nightmares. For the past week and change, he’s had to learn to live with magic in his veins and prophetic visions plaguing his every dream—that’s how we found you and Aithusa, actually. It’s not the same as having lived a lifetime with these gifts like we have, sure, but it has at least given him a taste of what it’s like to be frightened of your own power and having to overcome that fear.”

Morgana just stared at Merlin for a good moment before she burst out laughing—a cold, cruel sound. “Arthur has magic? Oh, this is too good! Our father must be turning in his grave!”

“He had magic. It left him when the curse decided he had learned his lesson by choosing to change the law. He still has your dreams, though.”

“And what lesson is he supposed to learn from that?”

“Sympathy with your experience, perhaps? Or maybe something to do with destiny. I’m not really sure.”

Morgana carefully pushed herself up to sit up properly, leaning her back against the solid flank of Aithusa, who wound her neck around her waist to place her head in her lap. She petted the young dragon’s head in contemplative silence for a moment before asking, “Why are you telling me all this? If you think I’m going to forgive my brother just because he’s finally decided to stop slaughtering my kind, then you have another thing coming.”

“I’m not asking you to.” Merlin bit her lip, then sighed and said, “You don’t need to forgive him. In fact, it’s very possible that I have forgiven him for more than I really should, but then again there are things I’ve done that he will have to forgive if we are ever to be friends again… I’m telling you this to let you know that if you keep pursuing the throne, you’ll be doing it solely out of lust for power. Our people are now free under Arthur’s rule. Another war will bring nothing but unnecessary suffering.”

“And what of my suffering?! Am I supposed to just bow my head and blithely accept my exile while the man who continued Uther’s genocide gets to just change his mind and keep his crown?”

“Yes!” Merlin exclaimed. “Yes, you are! Maybe the circumstances that brought us to this point weren’t exactly fair, but you’ve lost and it’s time to move on! Go somewhere no one remembers you opening fire on civilians and burning their crops! Go to Helva where you can practise magic freely and start a new life, or somewhere where our people do actually still need your help standing up to tyranny! Who knows, with the Sarrum dead, there could be an opportunity to accomplish some actual good here in Amata. Just give up this childish dream of revenge on Arthur, for revenge is all that it is at this point!”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Morgana asked bitterly, but Merlin wondered if there was not the tiniest glimmer of doubt in her eyes as she said it.

“Yes, I would! Believe it or not, but I’d love nothing more than not being forced to kill you!”

“You say that, yet I have been informed that Emrys is foretold to be my doom.”

“And you’re foretold to play a part in Arthur’s, but it doesn’t have to go that way,” Merlin pleaded. “If you leave Camelot alone, I’ll leave you alone. Doesn’t that sound better than a path of hatred and mutual destruction?”

Morgana visibly bit back a sharp retort, and after a moment she said, “Destinies are not so easily thwarted. I’ve found that out the hard way.” A shadow of unspeakable grief flickered in her eyes before she was able to school her features into a cool mask once more.

“As have I, but what we accomplished here today has proven to me that all prophecies need not come true. We can forge our own way.”

“What do you mean?”

Gwaine spoke up for the first time in a while then, having listened to the debate in grim silence. “If it were not for Merlin, you would have been looking at a very long imprisonment.”

“I’m sure I would have thought of something,” Morgana said haughtily. “I’m a High Priestess, these chains cannot hold me indefinitely.”

“And yet Merlin slipped out of hers—yes, those were real—with nothing more than a thought while you’re still bound. According to Arthur’s vision, you were going to spend years isolated in the Sarrum’s dungeons.”

“Aithusa as well,” Merlin added, “becoming crippled as a result. That’s the fate we saved you from.”

Aithusa let out a quiet whine at this revelation, and Morgana immediately went to stroke her head. There was true affection in her eyes as she made a soft shushing sound to comfort the dragon—a genuine, warm feeling such as Merlin had not seen in her in years.

When she looked up at them again, she said, “I suppose you’re waiting for me to thank you for saving me?”

“I mean, a wee bit of gratitude wouldn’t hurt,” Gwaine drawled.

“You really love her, don’t you?” was all Merlin said, nodding to Aithusa.

“She has been my sole companion this past year,” Morgana replied cautiously, protectively slinging an arm around Aithusa’s neck and receiving a soft sigh of content from the dragon in return.

“I know; she shared some memories with me while you were out. She cares for you too, truly.” Merlin considered the touching scene before her, an idea starting to take form in the back of her mind. “You know, I could command her never to see you again…” she mused.

Both Morgana and Aithusa looked at her with alarm at that, with Morgana hissing, “Don’t you—!”

“…but I won’t. Instead I’m going to offer you a choice. From what I’ve seen in Aithusa’s memories, she’s a good influence on you. You may stay with her as long as you keep away from Camelot. If you cross the border or start plotting against us again, however, I will be forced to command her to leave you. Does that sound fair?”

“Fair?!” Morgana sputtered. “I—!”

“I was asking Aithusa.”

The dragon looked between her friend and her Dragonlord, looking uncertain. In an effort to come across as less harsh, Merlin reopened the connection between them and tried to convey a wordless impression of what Morgana had been like before their mutual betrayal, her own sorrow and regret over their falling out, and her hopes of her old friend finding her way back to a path of joy and kindness once more.

Understanding dawned in Aithusa’s eyes, and she bowed her head in acquiescence.

“Thank you, Aithusa. I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch with you. From now on, I will call on you every now and then to make sure you’re doing well and to ensure Morgana is holding up her end of the bargain.”

“I haven’t agreed to anything!” Morgana protested.

“You don’t have to,” Merlin replied, getting to her feet and giving her clothes a perfunctory brush-down. Gwaine followed suit at her side. “I leave you to ponder this at your leisure. It’s up to you to decide whether exacting revenge on Arthur is worth more to you than Aithusa’s companionship. That is your choice: hatred or love. Choose wisely, for if you ever hurt me or mine again, you may find that I have finally run out of second chances.”

Ignoring the venomous glare Morgana shot her as she silently ground her teeth, Merlin turned to Aithusa again and switched to Draconic.

“Please excuse the need for a formal command, but you must come find me and tell me if Morgana ever does break the rules I have set up for her. I hope she does not, for I would not begrudge you your friendship unless it presented a danger to others. Do you see why this is necessary?”

Aithusa nodded and unwound herself from Morgana to trot over to Merlin, nudging her snout against her hand in affection. She smiled and bent down to rub her hand over the smooth scales on her neck.

“Thank you, my girl. I must leave now, but I will see you soon. I have thought of you often.”

Straightening up again, she switched back to the human tongue and said, “Goodbye, Morgana. Let’s hope this is the last time our paths cross. Oh, and speaking as a physician I would recommend taking it easy for a few days. Head injuries are no joke—with or without healing magic.”

A complex series of emotions warred in Morgana’s expression as she looked back at Merlin, but at long last she simply raised her chin and coolly said, “Goodbye, Emrys.”

Giving Aithusa a last nod, Merlin caught Gwaine’s eyes before turning to trudge off through the forest in the direction of the clearing Kilgharrah had set them down in.

They both walked in silence until they were well out of hearing range of Morgana. Only then did Gwaine speak up, saying, “That was…very magnanimous of you.”

“I suppose. I just— I…” Emotion rose in her chest and she slowed to a stop as a wave of fear swept over her. “Have I made a huge mistake? Should I have just taken the chance to be rid of her once and for all?”

He stepped closer and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, yet his words were less reassuring than his touch. “I don’t know.”

“I keep doing this—letting her live—and it always comes back to haunt me. Am I a fool to think that she can change after everything she’s done? I mean, just think of what she put you through with the fighting ring…”

“Nothing I haven’t been through before, love,” Gwaine said with a stoic smile that was only a little brittle around the edges, “though I’ll admit Jarl fed me marginally better.”

“Still, I would understand if you resented me for denying you your shot at revenge.”

Gwaine sighed and pulled her into a tight hug, effectively grounding her trembling body. “If you hadn’t been here, I may well have left her to burn and only felt a little bit like a twat about it, but that’s me. I don’t have the same history with her that you do, and, let’s face it, you’re a better ma— person than me. I can’t resent you for that.”

“I really don’t think that’s true,” Merlin protested, but she let herself melt into the embrace nevertheless, lending strength from his steady presence.

“You’re the bigger person out of the two of us, then. You followed your heart back there, and in doing so you put up a fail-safe in the form of a dragon spy to warn us if she becomes a threat. That’s miles more than we had before tonight, so I’d say we’re grand.”

Merlin nodded against the side of his neck and blinked back the tears that threatened to form in her eyes. “Thank you,” she mumbled before taking a few steadying breaths and pulling away. “We’ll just have to hope our whole destiny-changing streak holds up, then.”

“That’s the spirit!” he said with a bright grin. “And after your performance tonight, I bet she’ll think twice about crossing you again. Believe me when I say you were terrifying in there—and that’s a compliment. Sure, but if I’d been the Sarrum I’d have pissed myself when you called for Kilgharrah! Oh, and that trick with the melting manacles? That was inspired, I tell you. The whole thing was insanely—”

“Let me guess: ‘hot?’” she asked, a smile tugging at her lips despite her lingering anxiety.

“Hotter than dragonfire,” Gwaine agreed with an impish twinkle in his eye.

“I’ll take your word for it. Speaking of, I should probably call off Kilgharrah, or there really won’t be anything left of the fortress but a pile of ashes. I just have to figure out how to tell him that I spared Morgana’s life yet again.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Somehow I doubt that…”

Chapter Text

To say that Kilgharrah was understanding of Merlin’s choice to spare Morgana would have been a grave exaggeration. In fact, he was so opposed to the choice that he took off into the sky again without so much as a goodbye, leaving them stranded in a forest on the border of Amata and Lot’s kingdom.

In the end, Merlin decided against calling the dragon back and commanding him to give them a ride home, instead going for the diplomatic choice of letting him sulk in peace. Unfortunately, this meant making their way back on foot with no camping equipment to speak of. It was a true testament to the depth of Gwaine’s love for her that he accepted this decision with only moderate complaining.

Around a week and a half later, the citadel of Camelot finally came into view, and it was an immense relief to finally be riding into the city. Merlin’s magic had been of great help on the journey when it came to keeping them warm at night and procuring food and means to pay for a pair of horses, but there was nothing quite like sleeping in your own bed, safe in the knowledge that you would not have to spend all of next day on horseback.

They were held up for a moment longer than expected arguing with the stablehand they tried to pass their horses over to who instead dragged them into a debate on whether the royal stables really was the best place for two (admittedly rather shabby) horses they had picked up in a foreign land that could have God knew what diseases, but in the end the matter was resolved by Gwaine finally shedding his laid-back servants-should-be-treated-just-as-well-as-nobles-if-not-better-actually attitude and exasperatedly put on his I’m-a-knight-so-do-as-I-say voice (which he very rarely utilised) and commanded him to just take the bloody horses, boy.

“Don’t let me make a habit out of that,” he muttered to Merlin as they wearily dragged their feet across the courtyard.

“Duly noted, but I was about three seconds away from hexing him myself, to be honest, so really I should be thanking you for putting an end to it when you did.”

“Well, now I wish I hadn’t. What would you have gone for? I have to say, I would’ve loved to see him turned into a toad.”

“Hm, I was probably just going to give him the runs to incentivise him to hurry the fuck up.”

“Ah, subtle yet vindictive. I like it!”

They made their way through the entrance to the citadel, but before they could decide whose room they should head to first or whether they should split up, they were interrupted by the sight of the king and queen rounding a corner and rushing down a corridor in their direction.

The moment Arthur spotted them he slowed down to a much more casual pace, trying his best to look like he had never gone faster than one might for a stroll around the castle grounds, but Gwen kept running right up to them and threw herself at Merlin with such force that they nearly toppled over.

“You’re back!” she cried, her arms wrapped tightly around her neck.

Merlin returned the embrace with a light chuckle. “So we are. Did you miss us?”

“Terribly.” Gwen released her and gave Gwaine a hug as well, though a somewhat more dignified one. “We saw you from our window and—”

“Where have you been?” Arthur interrupted as soon as he got close enough not to have to raise his voice, though he did so anyway. “What on earth kept you so long? Gaius said he expected you back within the day! Two, at most.”

“I sent word to him that our return got delayed. Didn’t he tell you?” Merlin replied, suddenly anxious that the spell she had used to send the message had failed after all. She had not been certain she remembered it correctly, but she had been reasonably confident that it had worked.

“He did, but I didn’t think you’d be gone this long, and then the news reached us that Morgana had apparently assassinated the Sarrum and burnt down an Amatan fortress and there was still no sign of you, and I— That is to say we—”

“Aw, did you worry about us, sire?” Gwaine teased.

“Of course not,” came Arthur’s immediate and thoroughly unconvincing answer, made even less believable by Gwen talking over him, saying, “Of course we did.”

A flicker of hope lit up within Merlin upon discerning the very real concern Arthur was trying to conceal. It could not but bode well for the survival of their friendship.

“I’m sorry we didn’t specify when we expected to arrive, but we weren’t sure ourselves,” she said. “We couldn’t find any horses until day three, and seeing as we were travelling through Lot’s kingdom we took the opportunity to stop in Ealdor on the way.”

“Bad enough form to get betrothed without having met one’s future mother-in-law,” Gwaine grinned, “so we thought we had better pop by before actually getting married. Hunith is very interested in setting a date for the wedding, by the way, but we told her we were still waiting for the go-ahead from you. Any progress on that decision by any chance…?”

Arthur just huffed at Gwaine’s shameless angling and said, “How about you two give a full report of your little adventure before I decide whether you deserve to be rewarded? According to the reports, Amata has been thrown into a power vacuum and I’d very much like to know if there’s any risk of Camelot being implicated in the situation.”

“That was not a ‘no,’” Gwaine stage whispered to Merlin.

Suppressing a smile, Merlin said, “We’ll tell you everything, but could it wait until tomorrow? We’ve been on the road forever and have a double date planned with a bath and a bed.”

Arthur crossed his arms over his chest. “I think you’ve kept me waiting long enough already, don’t you?”

“Why don’t you tell us over dinner in our chambers?” Gwen suggested, like the saint that she was. “That should give you a bit of time to wash up and catch your breath beforehand.”

Arthur looked like he was less than thrilled by the thought of having to wait another couple of hours for answers, but Merlin pounced on the offer with no small measure of relief, sending Gwen a look of gratitude.

“Deal.”

“…and that’s when I turned around to see Sarrum aiming to throw a dagger at me, but Aithusa was quicker. She leapt at him and took him down, and that was the end of it. Getting out of the fortress was child’s play in the chaos caused by the fire.”

“So it wasn’t actually Morgana who killed the Sarrum, it was you?” Arthur asked, leaning against an elbow placed next to his half-empty dinner plate and pinching wearily at the bridge of his nose.

“No, Aithusa killed him. Having achieved what we came for, I was probably going to spare him.”

“I’d say siccing your pet dragon on him counts.”

“She’s not a pet, and all I asked her to do was defend herself. It was her choice to defend me as well.”

“It sounds like she saved Merlin’s life,” Gwen chipped in, “and I for one think we should be grateful for it.”

Merlin nodded her agreement, though secretly she was fairly confident that she had been warned in time to avert the Sarrum’s attack with magic even without Aithusa’s assistance.

Gwaine raised his goblet of watered wine and said, “Hear hear! Besides, I’d say that if you’re ballsy enough to try to imprison and torture a dragon, you can’t really act surprised when it tries to bite your head off.”

Looking to Arthur, Merlin said, “Look, if it’s any consolation, anyone who interacted with us would know us only as a potentially fake Morgana and a Caerleonite bounty hunter. For all they know, this was the work of Morgana—a known enemy of yours. There is absolutely no reason for them to suspect that Camelot was involved in any way, I promise.”

“I have to give you that much, I suppose,” Arthur sighed.

“This may, in fact, be a good thing,” Gwen mused. “Lord Sarrum was always going to present an obstacle to achieving peace in the Five Kingdoms. He had a reputation of executing his enemies in the most gruesome manners and assassinating his friends; a peace treaty would mean little to him, and with Camelot about to announce an end to the ban on magic, he would never have agreed to sign one in the first place. Perhaps his successor will prove less troublesome.”

A besotted smile played on Arthur’s lips as he said, “You’re as wise as you are beautiful, my love.”

Merlin and Gwaine exchanged a look of amusement across the table, both struggling not to snigger audibly at the sickeningly sweet display. It truly was like night and day how Arthur spoke to Gwen as compared to literally anyone else.

Gwen blushed and ducked her head with a small smile of her own but quickly composed herself and looked up at Merlin. “What of Morgana? You said she was knocked unconscious; what happened to her after that?”

The levity melted away from Merlin’s expression as she considered how best to explain the situation to the two people who had been hurt most by Morgana’s betrayal.

“I… The fire was spreading through the stronghold. I couldn’t leave her to burn, so we carried her out and I— I, um, healed her.”

“You…healed her,” Arthur said slowly, his expression uncharacteristically inscrutable.

Merlin nodded and cleared her throat nervously. “I didn’t know what to do with her, and I thought… I felt like I needed to speak with her to figure out my next move. So I healed her, though we kept her bound to restrain her magic.”

“And what did she have to say?” Gwen asked tentatively.

“Well, she hurled abuse at me for some time while I tried to reason with her and make her give up on her quest for the throne now that magic is to be free in Camelot once more. I can’t say I trust that it completely changed her mind, but I have hope that bits and pieces may have gone through to her.”

“And then, what? You just let her go?” Arthur asked.

She shook her head. “I realised that there was a way for me to both keep an eye on her and discourage her from further plotting against Camelot. She and Aithusa had become attached to one another, and I told Morgana that if she ever moves against us again or so much as crosses into the kingdom, I will command Aithusa to leave her for good, and that I will check in with Aithusa regularly to make sure she follows these stipulations. Then I let her go.”

“And now Morgana is on the loose with her very own dragon?”

“With our spy,” Gwaine corrected him. “The dragon is young but obviously intelligent and she owes allegiance to Merlin, who has commanded her to report on any suspicious activity. If this gambit doesn’t pay off we’ll be the first to know, and we’ll be able to find Morgana and foil her plans before she becomes a real threat again.”

“Would you rather I had killed her?” Merlin asked quietly.

Arthur’s gaze fell to the table and his jaw worked silently for a moment before he deflated and said, “Perhaps I should want her dead after all that has passed between us, and yet… She is my sister. I know not how to reconcile the cruelty in her with the goodness of the person I remember from our childhood. I—” He bit his lip, fiddling with the ring around his thumb. “I often wonder if I could have done something—if I could have prevented her from going down this route. If I had killed Uther that day and lifted the ban, would she still have desired the throne for herself, or would she be here today—eating with us, laughing with us, and advising me in matters of magic?”

Merlin had to swallow down a lump in her throat before she was able to confess, “I wonder the same. I fear I failed her. Perhaps if I had told her of my magic she would not have felt so alone and turned to Morgause. It is one of my biggest regrets.”

As Arthur’s eyes met hers, both of them recognised a kindred guilt in one another which—at least for a moment—felt like it bridged the distance that had been growing between them lately.

“Aithusa shared some memories with me,” Merlin continued. “This past year with her seems to have been good for Morgana. From what I can tell, she has been too busy figuring out how to communicate with Aithusa and exploring with her to do much plotting against Camelot. It is my hope that this will hold true and that learning to love someone again will set her on a brighter path.”

“Let us hope so,” said Gwen, her eyes betraying the same sorrow that weighed on Merlin and Arthur’s hearts. “Despite all that she has done… Nothing can undo the past, but if there’s a chance that she can turn from hatred and start anew somewhere else, then I would rather have it be so than see her dead.”

Arthur nodded slowly. “Yes, I think— Yes. In my dream, I saw her chained and kept like an animal, wasting away in darkness and madness for years. It pained me to see her like that, and I am…grateful that you saved her from that fate. Thank you.”

Warmth bloomed in Merlin’s chest at the gratitude and recognition she so rarely received for her troubles—and almost never from Arthur. That was not why she did the things she did, of course, but there was no denying it felt good to be appreciated for a change.

“My pleasure.”

“It seems there’s at least a chance this might be the end of our troubles with her, then,” Gwen said. “And all’s well that ends well.”

“Well said,” replied Gwaine, winking at her over his goblet. “You really are as wise as you are beautiful, Your Majesty.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “I think I speak for both myself and Merlin when I ask that you spare us having to sit here and listen to you flirt with my wife.”

“Ah, you know, I would save the compliments for my own wife,” Gwaine said innocently, “if only I had one. But you see, I’m still waiting on permission to marry, so in the meantime I suppose I’ll just have to make do…”

Merlin and Gwen had to fight not to crack up as Arthur rolled his eyes and grumbled about the audacity of certain knights.

“Oh, let’s just tell them already, Arthur,” Gwen said as soon as she regained control over her facial muscles. Looking to Merlin and Gwaine, she revealed, “You do have permission to marry. He decided as much days ago.”

“She’s been badgering me about it constantly since you two left,” Arthur muttered, but upon seeing the bright smiles the news put on their faces, he let the gruff act slip a little and said, “I’ve spoken extensively with Gaius in your absence. It would seem I owe you more than I could possibly have imagined, Merlin, as does the kingdom. A title seems a paltry reward for all you’ve done for me, considering.”

Merlin knew not whether to laugh or cry. Before leaving, she had given Gaius permission to speak freely, should Arthur have any questions about her secret double life, and it seemed that had been a good call. She hoped to be able to share more details of her past with Arthur in person now that she was back.

“Thank you, sire,” she choked out, her voice coming out a bit wobbly. Gwaine’s leg found hers beneath the table, offering quiet reassurance by pressing their ankles together. “But though I will gladly take you up on the permission to marry, I don’t really care about titles and rewards. Being free to live without having to hide who I am is all I’ve ever wanted.”

“And so you shall, from this day on,” Arthur said solemnly. “I don’t want you to hide your true self; I want you to always be you.” His eyes flickered over to Gwen momentarily as she seemed to be communicating something to him with a pointed look. “And on that topic, I should probably mention that Gaius also explained to us about the, uh, felis…?”

“Velites,” Gwen supplied.

“Right, those. Can’t say I completely understood everything, but I want you to know that you should consider yourself welcome to take whatever, um, form you wish without worrying about jeopardising the validity of your marriage, or whatever your concerns may be in that regard.”

“Oh,” was all Merlin could think to say at first, and she blinked dumbly as she processed this. She had not expected Gaius to include that little detail in his explanation, and she had definitely not expected Arthur of all people to take it to heart. It had been nerve-racking enough to explain it to her mother, though Hunith had ended up taking it rather well and with less surprise than might have been expected. In retrospect, there had apparently been “signs” during her childhood.

Gwaine recuperated from his surprise over Arthur’s proclamation faster than Merlin did and said, “You hear that, love? If you wanted, you could be my…spouse or something instead of my wife!”

“Yeah, I guess so,” she replied, a smile slowly spreading across her face. “Thank you, Arthur. I’ll…think about what I want to do about that.”

“There will be a lot more than that to think about in the coming days,” Gwen said eagerly. “We have a wedding to plan!”

There was a gleam in her eye that made Merlin instantly give up on her vague idea of just paying a quick visit to Geoffrey and having him say the required words to get it over and done with, or even eloping to avoid making a big spectacle of it, but the way Gwen was practically vibrating in her seat made her suspect that they were looking at a ceremony in the Great Hall at the very least.

“Remind me to set up a scrying session between you and my mother,” she said weakly. Maybe it would not be too bad if she could at least delegate all the planning to someone else.

Meeting Gwaine’s eyes made any apprehension about the whole thing melt away, however, for he was beaming at her with so much love and warmth in his eyes that it was impossible to feel anything but thrilled excitement at the prospect of getting to marry him, and she returned his smile without reservation.

“Oh, Arthur! Could we have a—?” Gwen started, but he stopped her by holding up a hand.

“As long as I don’t have to be involved in the planning, you can do whatever you want. Now, if we could get back to the matter at hand, I’d rather talk about why it is that the journey to Amata took mere hours and the return weeks.”

Gwaine laughed. “Well, you see, our Merlin here was hit by an inconvenient bout of excessive tact…” he said, then launched into the story of Kilgharrah’s little temper tantrum with the joviality of a man who had not just been forced to travel across the entirety of Lot’s kingdom on foot and horseback as a result, rather than traversing it in a couple of hours as the dragon flies.

It felt almost surreal to be sitting there, openly discussing dragons and magic with three of the most important people in her life. To think that less than a month ago she had thought that she might never work up the courage to show them her true self, and now here they were, each of them having figured her out on their own at different points.

There was a sense of profound hope brewing within Merlin as she watched her king, queen, and fiancé discuss Kilgharrah’s theatrics and their subsequent journey. Everything was changing. All of her dreams were coming true—albeit in ways she could never have foreseen—and for the first time in many years she felt like the future was yet to be written and that she might actually have a modicum of control over the coming chapters of her own story.

As a tension unravelled in Merlin that had been there since the day she had first set foot in Camelot, it was perhaps not all that surprising that she found herself nodding off in her chair, though she did not realise as much until Gwaine was suddenly beside her, helping her to her feet and giving their excuses to their amused hosts, making jokes about having looked forward to a real bed for so long that a chair was starting to look like the next best thing.

Lying in bed within Gwaine’s embrace that night was, quite possibly, the most peaceful she had felt in her life, and a deep, restful sleep quickly claimed her.

Unbeknownst to her, she would wake up the next morning to the news that Arthur’s sleep had been likewise tranquil and free from pesky prophetic dreams for the first time in weeks, thus officially putting an end to the curse that had proven itself a blessing in disguise.

Chapter Text

Merlin had been staring blindly at the book open on the desk in front of them for quite a while by the time someone dragged it away and closed it.

“Oi, I was reading that,” they protested, blinking owlishly as they refocused their gaze and looked up at the person intruding on their research hours.

Gwaine was standing beside them, leaning his hip against the desk and peering down at Merlin with a cheeky smile. “Sure you were. You probably remember what you were reading about and everything, don’t you?”

“The…magical properties of amethysts?” they guessed, trying to sound more sure than they really were.

“Amber. Close, but not close enough to trick me into thinking you’re not overdue for a break.” When Merlin made a noise of complaint, Gwaine reached out and laid a finger across their lips, saying, “Now, you were the one who impressed the importance of being able to maintain a decent work–life balance on Arthur before you accepted this position. I’m not about to stand by and watch you work yourself into an early grave anyway.”

Recognising their defeat, Merlin slumped back in their chair and sighed. “I know. There’s just so much I feel like I need to catch up on—so much knowledge I’m almost embarrassed not to possess already. Every time I meet with a druid delegation, I worry that they’ll find their revered Emrys to be a disappointment, and this upcoming one is important. Rumour has it that Ruadan is not yet convinced that Arthur is any different from his father despite magic having been legal for over a year now, and it would be a boon to be able to count him amongst our allies rather than our enemies.”

“And I’m sure you’ll make a better impression on him if he doesn’t find you looking dead on your feet when he arrives. Wouldn’t want him to think the King of Camelot mistreats his Court Mage, now would we?”

“Perish the thought, especially not when Arthur hasn’t dared throw anything at me in months for fear of waking up bald again.”

“Then no more books for the evening. Deal?”

Catching a hint of hope in Gwaine’s voice, Merlin fixed him with a knowing look and asked, “Could it be that you’re so keen for me to clear my schedule for the evening out of something other than altruistic concern for my well-being?”

“Whyever would you say that?” Gwaine shot back, but his smile grew sultry and the way his eyes raked down Merlin’s figure was more than answer enough.

“Well, after a year of marriage, I like to think that I know my husband fairly well, and there’s this unmistakable glint in your eye that tells me that you have plans for us tonight. Also, I’m at eye-level with your crotch, and it seems a certain appendage of yours is rather excited at the prospect of being involved in the aforementioned plans.”

Gwaine laughed, shamelessly bringing a hand to palm at the outline of his half-hard cock through his breeches. “You’ve figured me out, save for the detail about my ‘appendage,’ as you so charmingly clinically call it. I was thinking we might take that out of the equation tonight, as a matter of fact. Been a while since we last switched it up, don’t you think?”

Their interest piqued, Merlin straightened up in their chair and wet their lips. “Oh yeah? I’m listening.”

“I was hoping you’d do more than listen,” Gwaine said and bent down to claim their lips in a hungry kiss.

Merlin kissed back with gusto, feeling the first stirrings of arousal in their loins as Gwaine climbed onto their lap and burrowed his hands in their hair. The messy locks were about chin-length at the moment, as it often was these days. It was easier to maintain than the length they had worn in the immediate aftermath of the curse, but still long enough to be pulled—a fact which Gwaine frequently exploited to Merlin’s great delight.

Merlin got lost in the pleasure of sliding tongues and grabby hands for a long moment before they remembered that Gwaine was waiting for them to cast a spell. Pulling back a mere hairsbreadth, they stroked their hands up along the outside of his thighs and asked, “Ready?”

“Oh yes,” he breathed, kissing a trail across their cheek before latching on to a spot right below their ear.

“And how do you want me?”

“I’ve been dreaming of your cock all day, but the rest is up to you,” he murmured, lips brushing tantalisingly over their skin.

That was more or less the reply Merlin had expected. They did not use this spell very often, but when they did Gwaine usually wanted to be thoroughly fucked.

Weaving the necessary magic around them came as easy as breathing after a year of practice. In fact, Merlin sometimes woke up to find that they had gone through a transformation in their sleep out of some unconscious preference to look a certain way the next day.

At the moment, their physical form was primarily feminine-leaning, and they opted for letting most of it stay that way while their cunt was magically exchanged for a cock, already half erect and filling quickly under the onslaught of Gwaine’s mouth on their neck and the expectation of what was to come.

Their magic then reached out to perform some significantly more extensive work on Gwaine’s body, skewing every part of it towards the what-if scenario of his having been born female while also making sure that his clothes adapted themselves to accommodate the changes.

Gwaine gasped as his body rearranged itself, filling out in some areas while narrowing in others. “God, but I’ll never get used to that feeling,” he said, drawing back to look down at himself. His voice was now a shade higher in pitch, though still on the deeper end for a woman—a pleasant alto lilt that was music to Merlin’s ears.

The sight of him was just as pleasing. Like this, he was considerably curvier than Merlin was in any of their natural guises, and still far more muscular. The powerful thighs that bracketed Merlin’s hips on the chair led up to fairly wide hips which in turn narrowed into a trim waist. A pair of full breasts tented the fabric of his grey tunic, and the rolled-up sleeves revealed forearms that were just as toned as before but a little less noticeably hairy.

“Still feels ‘wrong?’” Merlin asked, greedily drinking in the vision before them.

“Very,” Gwaine replied, reaching up to touch one of his breasts with the same novel curiosity of all the previous times they had tried this. “But fuck, if it isn’t a turn on all the same…”

Merlin smiled. If they had ever needed proof that they truly did experience gender differently than most people, then the first time they had turned Gwaine female would have more than sufficed. It had taken ages before he had been able to stop staring at himself with horrified fascination in the mirror, and even longer before he stopped flinching every time either he or Merlin touched him between his legs and reminded him of the apparently disconcerting absence of his cock.

Eventually, however, he had settled into his temporary body and become comfortable enough to very much appreciate the ways it could be brought to pleasure, something which Merlin had helped him explore with great enthusiasm.

“I’m inclined to agree; you’re gorgeous,” they sighed, smoothing their palms up over Gwaine’s hips to land at his waist and leaning forward to press a feather-light kiss to the mound of one of his breasts, thrilled to feel the nipple stiffen under the brush of their lips. They could not resist nipping lightly at the pert nub poking through the fine linen of the tunic, delighting in the gasp this wrung out of Gwaine.

“I don’t know; you make a much prettier not-quite-girl,” Gwaine mused, eyes dark with arousal as he watched Merlin continue to mouth at his breasts.

“Speak for yourself. You look like a bloody Amazon warrior.”

It was true; there was nothing delicate about Gwaine’s female form, instead its beauty lay in the alluring juxtaposition of supple flesh and solid muscle. The swell of his breasts complemented the swell of his biceps, and warm doe-eyes contrasted beautifully against a strong jaw that was only marginally softened by the flowing tresses of hair, which was just as lush and lustrous as always.

“You have to admit that you always look more like yourself than I do when I change, though.”

“That’s just because of the beard,” Merlin said, moving to unbuckle the belt around Gwaine’s waist. “If you suddenly shaved it all off one day, that would also take a minute to get used to, even if nothing else changed.”

Gwaine grinned and brushed a lock of hair from Merlin’s forehead. “Why do I even try to argue when I know my spouse has the cleverest tongue in the land?”

“Good question.” Merlin disposed of the belt on the floor beside them. “I would’ve thought you had better plans for my tongue tonight.”

Gwaine’s retort was nipped in the bud when Merlin’s hands slipped beneath his tunic to fondle his breasts, one softly massaging a more than ample handful and the other pinching at a nipple. Instead of speaking, he moaned and returned the favour, fondling Merlin’s breasts as he rolled his hips against theirs, drawing a similar sound from them as his clothed cunt rubbed at their hard cock through the layers of their knee-length blue tunic and the breeches they wore beneath it.

Their teasing flirtation put aside for the moment being, their mouths found their way back to one another, and for a good while they let their bodies do the speaking for them. By the time one of them found their voice again, Gwaine’s tunic had joined his belt on the floor and the ties of his breeches were loosened.

“Come to bed?” he panted, and Merlin wasted no time in nodding their assent.

Gwaine slid off their lap and held out a hand to help pull Merlin up from the chair before dragging them along towards the door that connected the Court Mage’s workshop to their shared bedchamber.

Merlin followed happily. This was undoubtedly a better way to spend the evening than staring at some dusty old tome.