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The man looked up as the door opened and shut, to admit a woman into the room. "Well?" he asked. "Have you thought of anything?"
A wide smile split across the woman's face in answer. "Yes. I believe I have found the perfect revenge; fitting, benign, and yet beautiful in its just simplicity." She pulled a cluster of small, purple flowers from a leather pouch at her waist and held them under the candlelight, the fire making them shimmer in near-iridescence. "Kelsior flowers. Ordinarily, we use them to cure a block in the flow of magic through young, unblooded children. They allow magic to flow freely without the need for fine control. In adults, their usefulness is limited, as they can cause magic to do unpredictable things, and considering that mature magic users can often follow the flow of their own magic without aid." Her smile grew as the fire flickered to light her eyes. "What few know is that, in greater doses, it can act as a catalyst, of sorts, and send magic completely out of control. In that form, it is on occasion used to awaken magic that has been sealed or hidden. Years ago, it was used to test for magic in bloodlines for specific tasks."
"What is your plan?" the man asked, though a glint in his eyes said that he had an idea of what it was.
"Why, we test for magic, of course. After this has been administered, the tested cannot help but display magic until the dose has run out of their system. The longer the path of their magic -- the greater the expanse of the magic possessed -- the longer the path of the dose." She smirked a little. "Also, for a great magic, the sudden release of control can be a bit painful. I've been warned that it feels rather like a blow to the chest, knocking the wind out of one's breast." The woman twirled the flowers under the light, the fire's light causing them to shimmer again. "Imagine how Uther would react, if his son were to be found with magic."
***
Merlin brought Arthur his dinner at the same time every night, barring feasts or other formal meals. A full meal, healthy with all types of nutrition, that Arthur would pick at, eating his meat, bread, and cheese and ignoring the rest. There was always a fine wine to go with the meal, and Arthur would drink that while they did their nightly dance around Arthur's eating habits.
"They're carrots, Arthur, not maggots. They taste just fine," Merlin said, rolling his eyes at the exiled portion of Arthur's plate, cut off from touching his meat by a firm breadth of space.
Arthur took another swallow of wine, ignoring Merlin's insulting demeanor. "If you like them so much, you eat them," he said, pushing the plate toward Merlin, who was reclining at the other side of the table. "Since you're not going to do anything more productive, obviously."
"I'd say keeping the crown prince from malnutrition is fairly productive," Merlin shot back, though the sharpness of his words was cut off a bit by his reaching out to take one of Arthur's carrots. Crunching, he continued, "These really are very good, Arthur. You're just stuck in a child's hatred of vegetables."
"Good, hm?" Arthur asked, with an expression that Merlin knew meant he was about to do something, well, prattish. Taking a quick swig of his wine, Arthur swallowed and pushed back from his chair to lean across the table, giving Merlin about half a second to puzzle out what was going to happen and not react violently. Accidentally punching Arthur in the side of the face had not been a fun enough event to make him want to repeat it anytime soon.
Tilting his head up for the kiss, Merlin found Arthur's lips pressed firmly against his own. A questioning swipe and Merlin opened his mouth for Arthur's tongue, obliging the prince's unique distraction from eating his vegetables. After a moment, Arthur pulled away and made a face. "On second thought, don't eat that," he said, pushing the plate and its uneaten carrots to the side. "You taste like carrots."
Merlin rolled his eyes again. "Well, you taste like wine," he said, ignoring Arthur's snort at his poor comeback.
"Yes, Merlin, but the wine is good," Arthur said dryly, pushing his chair back further and walking around the table to lean over Merlin in what Merlin assumed was supposed to be a threatening manner.
Whatever fear Arthur's menacing position might have imposed, once, was undercut by the way his smirk was slightly more indulgent than mocking, though Merlin would never have said that aloud. "Oh, I see," Merlin said, leaning back in his chair.
Arthur snorted before he leaned in enough to kiss Merlin again, hooking one hand behind Merlin's head to hold it in place. It took only a little pressure on Merlin's part to pull Arthur down into his lap, which was a much more comfortable distance from which to kiss him.
More comfortable for Arthur, anyway. It only took a few minutes for Merlin's legs, embarrassingly scrawny as they were, to start to lose feeling under Arthur's heavier, more muscular weight. Pulling back, Merlin said, "I can't feel my legs," and waited through the few moments of Arthur's laughter that he had known were coming.
Instead of getting up, Arthur twisted to grab his wine and took another swallow, then held it out for Merlin. "Maybe you need a bit more meat in your diet, Merlin. Fewer carrots." Arthur smirked as Merlin took the wine, but stood and began moving around the table to the rest of the chamber.
"I think I'll ignore the inappropriateness of that comment," Merlin said from his seat, though he was smiling as the feeling slowly trickled back into his legs. He took a swig of the wine as he stood, swallowing as he set the rest down on the table and made his way to follow Arthur. He made it three steps before he stopped, dead in his tracks, as the air rushed out of his lungs and some invisible forced slammed into his solar plexus. Merlin was on the floor, one hand clutching his chest, when he felt his magic welling up inside of him.
Arthur had turned at the first exclamation Merlin made as his breath left him, and he had only had time to watch as Merlin dropped, all the color leaving his face. "Merlin, what--" he managed, before Merlin started to glow. He made it to the ground, one arm around Merlin's shoulders as he seemed to struggle to breathe. "What's going on?" Arthur said, forcing the words out.
"I don't," Merlin wheezed, clenching down on his magic with all his strength. "Arthur, I--" He swallowed bile, his head burning furiously from the pressure of magic trying to break free. The candles began to flicker. "I'm sorry," he bit out, desperately trying to funnel the magic that was going to escape, no matter how hard he fought to keep it in.
The first burst of magic sent the warm glow in the fireplace screaming up the chimney in an almost deafening crack. The second sent all the furniture away from him, crashing into pieces against the walls. The third pulled his body from Arthur's grasp and into the air, cushioned by a rapidly spiraling wind. Merlin had time to glimpse the look of horror on Arthur's face before the fourth burst sent him somewhere else altogether.
***
First Merlin had collapsed, and then the world had gone to hell, with Merlin disappearing into thin air. Arthur didn't know what to make of it, other than a feeling of dread, low in his stomach, and the startling realization that it was magic. It had been magic, and Merlin had--
"I'm sorry."
--apologized, which meant it must have been Merlin's magic. Arthur had very little time to consider this, however, before a furious pounding at his door let him know that the ruckus in his room hadn't gone unnoticed by the guard in the hall.
"Sire!" the guard yelled, through Arthur's door. "Prince Arthur, please answer!"
Getting to his feet, Arthur moved to unbolt the door, pointedly ignoring why it had been bolted in the first place and shoving part of his table out of the way in the process. Once he was able to get the door open, Arthur watched as the guard's face lost most of its panic, seeing that the prince was unharmed.
"Sire," the guard said, bowing quickly. "I heard a terrible noise from your room, as though the world had blown apart. Has something happened, or--" The guard's eyes traveled over Arthur's shoulder and into his destroyed room, stopping the guard's questioning in its tracks.
"I am fine," Arthur said calmly, "but I believe that someone has used sorcery in my chambers. Luckily, I do not believe that it did what it was intended to do." He nodded once, in a regally decisive manner, for both the guard and himself. "Please see that my father is informed that this has happened. I am going to dress, and I will meet him in the meeting hall shortly. Please also have the court physician summoned to the meeting hall."
If the guard had considered any of this to be strange, he did not indicate it, bowing again and saying, "Yes, sire!" before leaving to do as he had been bidden.
Arthur quickly pulled his jacket and boots back on, thankful that they were all he had removed, and set himself off down the hall at a quick pace. He did not head toward the meeting hall where he had told the guard he intended to meet with his father, but toward the stair that linked the hall between his own chambers and Morgana's. He knew that there was no chance Morgana had sat through all of that unaware, when he considered how close their chambers were to one another, and his suspicions were confirmed when Morgana appeared on the staircase before Arthur had a chance to begin to ascend.
Gwen was trailing Morgana, looking worried, but Arthur was far more concerned by the stricken look Morgana was wearing. "Arthur!" Morgana exclaimed, opening her mouth to say more.
Cutting her off, Arthur said, "In a minute. The guard noticed the commotion and my father is being informed. I'll tell you as soon as I've made up something for him." He ignored the blatant confusion in Gwen's face and set his jaw, waiting for Morgana's response.
To his surprise, Morgana merely met his eyes and nodded. "All right," she said. "I expect you to fully explain this as soon as we are through with the king."
Arthur nodded grimly, and set off down the hall, unsurprised when Morgana followed him, Gwen at her heels.
A stair away from the hall, Gwen asked, "Where's Merlin?" Arthur kept walking.
***
Every time Merlin blinked, he was someplace new, the burning sensation in his chest only growing as he came and went from woods, mountains, cities, valleys, oceans, fields, and deserts. He could feel the magic within him moving, doing things he'd never known he could do, as things and times changed before him.
When the burning finally eased and Merlin's release of magic dumped him painfully on the ground, it was years or hours later, and he felt like he'd just tumbled headfirst down a rocky, thorn-covered hill. He simply lay on the ground, panting, for several minutes, before he even tried to get to his feet. If he reached for it, Merlin could feel his magic within him, but it didn't seem to be trying to break free anymore, so he dismissed that paranoia.
Looking around once he got to his feet, Merlin didn't have any more luck figuring out where, precisely, he was. "Great. Now what sort of mess have I got myself into?" He grumbled under his breath for a few moments longer before he closed his eyes and concentrated.
Merlin had never tried it before, but he had read a spell of finding once. If he closed his eyes and thought hard enough, the general idea was that he'd know which direction to go to find it. He focused on Camelot first, then inevitably Arthur. All he felt was a small tug in the direction behind his right elbow.
A quick trial and Merlin hadn't moved an inch: he had no idea how to simply magic himself home, though he knew that he had the ability, thanks to whatever had just happened. Sighing melodramatically, even though there was no one around to hear, Merlin began walking in the direction of the inkling he'd felt earlier. Hopefully, he wasn't mistaken.
Maybe if he thought enough about that, he'd forget to panic.
***
Explaining to his father that some sort of sorcerer had attacked his room worked about as well as Arthur had hoped. That is, it worked perfectly if what Arthur hoped for was his father to send every guard in the castle on a search for suspicious persons and to dismiss the curiosity of the attack doing no real damage, Arthur's furniture notwithstanding, altogether. Really, it was surefire.
Unfortunately, the same did not work for either Morgana or Gaius, and Arthur rather expected it didn't work too well on Gwen, either, but she was far too polite to tell him so. Most of the time.
"What really happened, Arthur?" Morgana demanded once they had descended to the neutral ground of Gaius' workshop. "It sounded as though a cannon had hit the castle, and Merlin is nowhere to be seen." She sounded oddly accusing, but Arthur tried to ignore that.
He grit his teeth once before he convinced himself to just get on with it, and began, "I think it might have been a spell. Or the carrots." At Morgana's blatantly incredulous look, he hurried to continue, "Merlin was trying to convince me to eat my carrots, which he failed at, and then settled for eating them himself. I gave him a swig of wine to wash the blasted things down -- wine that I'd been drinking all meal -- and then he looked like he'd had the wind knocked out of him and collapsed. Right after he collapsed, he apologized, and then things started exploding. The fire in the chimney, my furniture, and then Merlin himself vanished into thin air." Arthur stopped for breath, realizing that, somewhere along the line, he'd fixed his vision on a blank spot on the wall, rather than keep eye contact with Morgana. He chanced a look in her direction and immediately wished he hadn't.
"Vanished," Morgana echoed, voice matching the shocked expression that had her eyebrows approaching her hairline. Thinking for a moment about what he'd just said, Arthur allowed that, yes, it did seem sort of incredible. Or, really, completely impossible. Before he could think himself in any more circles, Morgana continued, "And you think it was a spell?"
"Or the carrots," Arthur replied, though he felt sort of ridiculous doing so.
"That wouldn't explain why he apologized," Morgana said slowly, letting her eyebrows descend from what had to be an uncomfortable height to instead furrow in thought. "Unless he knew it was going to happen. You said he collapsed; did he look like he was in pain?"
"I said he looked like he'd gotten the wind knocked out of him. He was having trouble breathing, so I would assume that it hurt, yes," Arthur said, feeling somewhat annoyed. "And I had figured that that's what the apology meant, thank you. What I want to know is what did it, and how Merlin knew it was going to happen."
At this, Gaius cleared his throat. "I think a better question would be that, if someone caused this, why you were uninjured in the process. If this magic destroyed most of your room, how did you leave without so much as a bruise?"
Arthur hadn't thought about that, but it didn't leave him as confused as it left Gaius: of course Merlin wouldn't hurt him. If it had, in fact, been Merlin causing his room to be torn to pieces, and Arthur couldn't think of anyone else it could have been. Anyone else's sorcery would have targeted him in the first place.
"Describe what you saw become of Merlin in greater detail, please," Gaius said slowly, staring at his workbench in thought.
"He was fine, then he was on the floor, clutching his chest and being unable to breathe. He looked confused, then had some trouble getting words out since it looked like he was clenching his jaw, and then things started exploding. After my furniture exploded, Merlin was floating on top of a really strong wind, and then he disappeared." He paused. "He stopped clenching his jaw as soon as things started exploding, I think. A lot less rigid."
Morgana inhaled sharply, turning Arthur's attention on her. "Did it look like he was holding on to something?" When Arthur nodded, she continued, "The magic. If Merlin was trying to keep the magic from exploding, that would explain why he apologized when it did." She looked worried, and continued more slowly. "But how did he know the magic was going to explode? Unless it was his magic."
"Which would mean that Merlin is a sorcerer," Gwen said quietly, finishing Morgana's train of thought. Arthur hadn't put it in so many words, but he was both comforted and thrown by someone else coming to the same conclusion that he had.
"Yes," Morgana said, fixing her gaze on Arthur. "That would explain why Arthur was unhurt, as well. What I don't understand is why it happened in the first place. If Merlin's a sorcerer, he's kept it very hidden until now. Why let it out in such an extreme way?"
"Obviously he didn't want to," Arthur said, keeping his voice at a safe level and not growling as he wanted. "Which is why I said a spell or the damn carrots."
"Or the wine," Gaius said slowly, walking over to a shelf of jars.
Arthur grit his teeth. "But I had the wine, as well. If it was in there, I would have been affected, too."
"Perhaps," Gaius said, calmly taking a jar off the shelf. "But did you not say that it was the last thing Merlin had before he collapsed? I can think of one thing that may have caused this, and it is perfectly reasonable for it to have not affected you at all." He held the jar out for Arthur to take.
Arthur took the jar, holding it at eye level to inspect the small flower inside, dried with age. "What is it?" he asked.
"The Kelsior flower, sire. Years ago, it was used to test for magic in a young child's blood. In higher doses, with someone already awakened in their magic, it can cause magic to flare out of control." Gaius was speaking as though the words themselves were heavy, and Arthur looked from the flower to the old physician. "I am afraid that is how it would have affected Merlin."
"How long?" Arthur asked, then rephrased. "How long will the magic flare out of control?"
"The flower's effects will run a full course of the sorcerer's power, then be gone from the blood. The length of the effects depends entirely on the sorcerer dosed. I can have no way of knowing how long Merlin's magic may be out of control, though it is possible that it has already ceased." Gaius turned, upon saying this, and sat down on the work bench behind him. "As no more damage can be done, I believe I can make a guess as to the extent of Merlin's magic, and the length of his flare."
At Gaius' words, Morgana turned to face the physician. "You mean to say you knew of Merlin's magic?" she asked, disbelief laced strongly through her words. Gwen moved to touch Morgana's elbow, and Morgana did not shrug away.
Gaius nodded respectfully to Morgana, and then to Arthur. "It is treason, but yes, I did."
"Why did you say nothing?" Arthur asked, fighting to keep his voice level.
"While I understand the king's hatred of magic, I know that not all magic is evil. Its use depends upon its user." Gaius sighed, then continued, "I also understood that Merlin did not have a choice. He did not choose his magic, though God only knows he's the only man I've ever seen to possess magic of that kind. Merlin could no more cease to have magic than he could cease to breathe." The old man's eyes met Arthur's, and Gaius smiled in a fatherly way. "I did not wish to see him executed, sire."
It occurred to Arthur, then, that the focus of this conversation had shifted, and someone very important to it was conspicuously absent. He almost smiled when he realized that it was just like Merlin to somehow miss the most important discussion of his life. Realizing that Gaius seemed to be waiting for him to respond, Arthur said slowly, "I do not wish to see that, either." He felt Morgana's silence and looked to her.
She smiled a little at him, before saying, "I do not think that magic is something to be feared, simply because it is. Neither do I think that Merlin is an evil sorcerer. He is far too modest and kind."
"Not to mention inept," Arthur continued dryly, rolling his eyes. "Trust Merlin the sorcerer to only come close to killing me on accident." He smirked a little. "In fact, he didn't even get close when it wasn't in his control. That might be the worst evil sorcerer I've ever seen."
"True enough," Gaius said with his own grin. "I can only imagine that the flower was meant to reveal some unknown magic in you, sire, and that Merlin received it by mistake."
"A perfect excuse to stop letting him steal my food," Arthur said, nodding at Gaius through his words. Arthur wasn't sure how he felt about this secret having been kept from him, but he did know he wasn't going to take it out on Gaius. This would be a conversation he had with Merlin, once they had found him. "Though that won't be an issue if we never see him again." He crossed his arms, attempting to physically bring himself back to the conversation.
Gwen's voice nearly startled him out of his reserve, and Arthur was forced to admit that he had mostly forgotten she was there. "You were saying, Gaius, that you might have an idea how long Merlin's magic might be out of control?" she asked, still standing at Morgana's elbow.
"Yes," Gaius said, folding his hands together. "Ordinarily, it would travel through the blood very quickly, exhausting the magical potential within the sorcerer in quick time. Merlin, however, has a great deal more magic than most. If it began an hour ago, I would expect it to cease sometime in the next thirty minutes. It could be longer than that, but I doubt it would be less."
Arthur put that piece of startling information -- that not only was Merlin a sorcerer, he was apparently a very powerful sorcerer, as if things couldn't get any stranger -- away to be thought of later, or not at all, and asked, "So we just wait for him to show back up?"
"I wish it were that simple," Gaius said. "If Merlin disappeared, that means it's within his power to move over space without physical boundaries. He could reappear anywhere at all, and we have no way of knowing whether or not he knows how to control that particular ability. He may show up across the sea and have no means by which to bring himself back."
Gaius' sense for the theatrical delivery certainly didn't need any work, in Arthur's opinion, as the room remained almost deathly quiet after that announcement. Before Arthur had really rediscovered how to breathe properly, Morgana said, "So what can we do?"
"Very little, I'm afraid. We can hope we find whoever is responsible for the Kelsior flower and, in the mean time, pray that Merlin is able to come back on his own." Gaius looked very heavily at Arthur, then continued, "I have not seen anything best Merlin yet that he could not eventually overcome. We must put our faith in that, and put out a notice for anyone to report immediately if they find him."
"My father would likely believe that he had been kidnapped in the process of someone trying to kill me," Arthur said, coming back to the present. "I suppose that will have to do."
***
It took Merlin approximately three hours of walking to stumble upon the fact that this was a magnificently stupid idea, and about four seconds after that to devolve into a panicked sort of hyperventilating. Fifteen minutes of that and his better sense, or at least some part of his mind that sounded oddly like Gaius, told him to snap out of it and think up some sort of way out of this mess.
This, of course, led to another fifteen minutes of hyperventilating.
Once Merlin was fairly sure he had exhausted his hyperventilating, he started thinking about other spells that he knew that might be able to help him.
Finding things. So long as Merlin could generally sense the direction he needed to go in order to find Arthur, and assuming he hadn't accidentally magicked Arthur somewhere completely unhelpful, he would know where he was headed. He spared not a minute to considering that he might not be sensing Arthur at all.
Talking to people. He had read a spell that let the caster communicate without speaking aloud, much as Mordred had done, but Merlin had never tried it, and he wasn't entirely sure it worked over however far away he had thrown himself.
Summoning. He could summon other things to him, and while he hadn't tried it over whatever distance this was, it might have the added bonus of at least telling whoever he was summoning what direction he'd gone in. Supposing that Arthur actually wanted to find Merlin, and this whole thing wasn't going to end in him getting executed, which Merlin wasn't really going to bet on.
Really, the only helpful thing Merlin could think of was the spell that had gotten him out here to begin with. If he'd done it, he had to be able to do it. That was pretty simple logic. If there was an incantation, he was well and truly doomed, but Merlin had been able to do things without their incantations for most of his life, and he was positive he hadn't said anything the hundred or so times he'd been and gone while his magic was going haywire.
Three more failed tries and one headache were all it took for Merlin to simply do a summon on Arthur, hoping that he wouldn't physically harm the prince in any way. At least if he got executed, he wouldn't be stuck God-knows-where with no one for company. He gave it about another hour before he started talking to himself.
Then he started walking again.
***
After a hassle that Arthur was pretty sure was going to give the lord chamberlain a heart attack, Arthur found himself in a fairly nice guest chamber under orders from Gaius to get some rest. When he considered that his sitting and worrying would only accomplish his truly becoming a giant girl, and not in any way bring Merlin back, Arthur gave in to the intelligence of getting some sleep.
Sleep, however, did not seem to be Arthur's friend. He was relatively sure it was approaching dawn by the time he got himself settled into bed, and then he started thinking about things, which was never conducive to falling asleep. Of course, when he reflected on the day's events, Arthur knew it wasn't a wonder that he couldn't stop thinking, but that didn't make him think any less.
There was the why didn't Merlin tell me? thought, the where on earth could he be? thought, a few different variations on who did this? and I am going to kill someone, which brought him painfully to the what am I going to do when Merlin gets back here? thought. Somewhere very close to total exhaustion found Arthur thinking, Here I am, wondering what to do about my sorcerer manservant, and he isn't even around to be tortured by wondering what it is that I'm thinking. Somehow, this feels like some sort of passive aggressive and idiotic way of telling me the truth. The least he could do is be here to fret about it as much as I am!
Arthur had just finished mentally cursing Merlin for being idiotic enough to be a sorcerer when he felt an odd pull at his center. His sleep-deprived brain insisted he physically check to make sure someone hadn't hooked anything around himself before it occurred to him that it was probably magic of some sort. The annoying manner in which it was incessantly tugging him was what got Arthur to figuring out that it was probably Merlin doing, well, something.
He muttered, "Can't you even effectively get me to find you?" before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and pretending like adrenaline would be plenty to get him through the next day.
***
Merlin had thought that he should probably have been more worried when, while trudging dejectedly along in the middle of nowhere, Merlin's summoning spell started summoning back. Then he'd remembered that Arthur was the most demanding person Merlin knew, so of course trying to summon him would work in the same way.
He tried not to think that knowing this probably made him more than a little insane.
***
Knocking three times, Arthur burst into Gaius' workshop, ignoring the fact that he was positive Gaius ought to be asleep. Which Gaius had been, until the knocking, at which point he was painfully awake.
"What does it feel like to have a spell put on you?" Arthur asked, thinking only after the fact that, generally, preamble was required when asking completely random questions.
Gaius' first response was a confused look. His second, however, was, "It depends on the spell, sire."
Arthur ignored Gaius' placating tone said instead, "It feels like I'm being pulled. What kind of spell would do that?"
"I am sure I don't know, sire," Gaius said. "Perhaps one of summoning?"
"If it's summoning, why am I not going anywhere?" Arthur asked, beginning to pace.
Gaius decided that redundancy was perhaps not the best way to deal with Arthur and said, "I believe that your free will, as a sentient being, may prevent you from being drawn away against your choosing." He paused, then added, "Or your own will is stronger than that of the sorcerer casting the spell, which is hindering its general purpose."
Arthur "hmm'd" quietly, continuing to pace, then decided, "I suppose I'll just have to follow it." He turned and left Gaius' chambers to do precisely that.
***
Gaius sighed once, then again for good measure, before walking into the hall to summon a page to waken the Lady Morgana. Arthur was not in the best shape to go off gallivanting to god-knew-where, and Morgana was a highly grounding force.
That, and she was allowed to hit and insult the prince, which Gaius was not and rather sorely desired to do.
Sometimes, Gaius wondered if he could petition the king to raise his salary on account of babysitting.
***
Merlin had taken to singing shanties while walking. He found it passed the time much more quickly, and it had the added bonus of frightening of the larger, possibly more dangerous, wildlife. Not that Merlin knew what, exactly, some of these creatures were, but his survival instincts warned against getting any more acquainted.
He decided that singing was in no way the same as talking to himself, and granted himself a very large success. Which he did not do aloud.
As he continued walking, Merlin realized that, if he stopped thinking about his location so much, instead focusing on what he was singing and following the line of his spell of finding, he seemed to cover distances much faster than was really plausible. When he ended a song to find himself on the far side of a lake that he hadn't actually seen at all, he realized that his subconscious was magicking him along in ways he didn't consciously know how to use.
While this was definitely a good thing for getting back to Camelot in this lifetime, Merlin was mildly annoyed that his subconscious was apparently a better sorcerer than he was.
***
As Arthur followed the strange, magical pull around his abdomen, he did not do anything so time-consuming as singing. It would have been very embarrassing, and was something that princes didn't do. Especially princes who were trying their hardest to pretend like they weren't being tailed by manly women.
One manly woman, anyway. Gwen was polite and ladylike, and did not deserve to be put in the same category as Morgana. A part of Arthur had realized that his walking would be more interesting if he would simply give in and walk with the ladies, but a larger part submitted to his own manly pride to walk alone.
That part unchivalrously changed sides when the ladies gave up all pretense of secret tailing and started chatting and laughing amongst themselves. Arthur sighed and dropped back to join them.
"I assume Gaius put you up to this," he said.
Morgana smiled charmingly. "Of course. He was worried that you'd walk yourself off a cliff because you weren't awake enough to pay attention." She patted his arm comfortingly. "We're here to make sure that at least someone knows where you walked yourself off a cliff."
***
The climate changed around the time Merlin ran out of shanties and started singing children's rhymes. Merlin had not been sure how far a person had to go before the climate changed, and decided very forcefully that that was a fact he would not look up so long as he lived. Or, at the very least, until this whole event became an embarrassing memory.
The colder the air became, the stronger the mix of pull and push that was leading Merlin toward Arthur became. It was not comfortable, but was strangely comforting.
***
Arthur stopped short when the pull suddenly increased. If he didn't think hard enough about it, he would find himself moving forward without his own say-so. "I think we're getting close," he said.
"How can you tell?" Morgana asked. "Unless of course you 'just know,' in which case shut up and keep walking."
"Thanks for that," Arthur said, rolling his eyes. "The pull is a lot stronger. Like I might get pulled off my feet, if I let it go."
Morgana raised an eyebrow at that, but said, "You ought to let it. Then Gwen and I could just follow you, and I bet we'd find him a lot faster." She did not add, And I'd be able to tease you about flying through the air for all of time.
Arthur sighed, which turned out to be a bad choice, as the spell used Arthur's distraction to give an extra tug and make Arthur forcibly follow Morgana's advice. He put his arms in front of his face as the spell dragged him through a pair of bushes -- straight lines were efficient, but not always best -- and managed to hear, "What? Oh, no--" before colliding bodily with something far more boney than was comfortable.
"Ouch" was all Arthur was able to say before Morgana and Gwen appeared, having luckily gone around the bushes, and exclaimed, "Merlin!" and "We found you!" respectively.
Morgana put a hand around Arthur's arm and tugged him to his feet sharply, so Gwen could hold out a hand to Merlin and do the same, minus the sharpness. Once Merlin was on his feet, Gwen said, "We were so worried!" and flung her arms around him, which unfortunately knocked both of them back onto the ground.
"Well, er, I'm fine?" Merlin guessed as he patted Gwen on the back in what was intended to be a comforting gesture.
"Lucky thing, too," Morgana said, "that you didn't end up much farther away!" She smiled at Merlin as she helped both he and Gwen to their feet.
"Er, right." Merlin stared at them all for a moment before continuing, "Do you know what happened?" in an indecisive voice.
"Sort of," Arthur said, having finally regained his wits enough to think. The adrenaline had apparently decided the situation was remedied and Arthur no longer needed it. Arthur respectfully disagreed. "Gaius said it might have been some flower, and he's probably right, that makes--"
"--magic go out of control," Morgana finished firmly from where Arthur's voice had begun to trail off. She glanced at Arthur out of the corner of her eyes, but said nothing to him. Instead she continued, "Gaius thinks it might have been in Arthur's wine, though he didn't say why he thought that, other than it being the last thing you consumed before you vanished. If he's right, it didn't affect Arthur because he's got no magic whatsoever."
There was a pause before Merlin said, "Oh," very softly. He ducked his head, not meeting Morgana's eyes though she was still smiling at him, and what little verbal check Arthur had possessed abandoned him.
"I'm sorry, I am far too tired to continue this hedging," Arthur said, throwing his hands in the air for a moment before he realized how dramatic that gesture had been. "We were rather startlingly shown your magic, have accepted it, and as evidenced by the lack of guards around our search party are obviously not going to have you immediately executed. Now, can we go back to the castle, sleep, and continue hedging later?"
"Yes?" Merlin guessed. To Arthur's credit, he no longer looked like he wanted to seep into the ground.
"Good," Arthur said. "We've got at least an hour's walk back to the castle, so I suggest we start now."
Ten minutes later, Arthur stood at the outskirts of the castle, squinting. "That was not an hour."
"No," Merlin agreed. Morgana giggled, which caused Gwen to look fairly concerned until the hour and the amount of sleep they'd all had reoccurred to her.
Arthur blinked at Merlin, from somewhere with a half-awake haze. "Could you always do that?"
"I don't think so," Merlin said, his eyebrows coming together.
Arthur intoned, "Hm," before setting off toward the castle. He made it halfway to his chambers before remembering that his chambers had been destroyed and turned around, heading for the room he had been given until his chambers were more livable.
In the half a second between laying down and being completely unconscious, Arthur thought, "I'm sure there's something I'm forgetting."