Chapter Text
01 September
He felt his ridiculously large duffel bag clip someone on the shoulder as he pelted down the platform at Victoria Station.
“Sorry!” He called over his shoulder absently.
It had been one of those mornings where everything had gone wrong. His alarm hadn’t gone off – it had always been a bit temperamental, but that’s what you get for shopping at Poundland – and by the time his mum eventually twigged that he should have surfaced from the land of nod by half seven and woke him up, he was already an hour late. There wasn’t any time for breakfast and he hadn’t been able to double check his packing like he’d wanted to before the six hour drive into London from the sleepy Welsh village of Ealdor. There hadn’t even been time to swing by a McDonalds drive thru – not that his mum would have allowed him to eat such junk food anyway.
So here he was. He’d kissed his mother goodbye hastily and was dragging his luggage onto the front carriage just as the guard blew his whistle and the train door closed behind him. Merlin’s face was pulled tight as he bent over his knees panting. Someone cleared their throat loudly. He looked up at the first class carriage he found himself in and, staring back at him, was a sea of disapproving faces: old men grumbling, ladies tutting, business men with their heads already back in their laptops and, tucked into a corner, someone in a ratty grey hoodie. Whoever it was had their face hidden by the wide peak of a baseball cap. Merlin could just about make out some sort of crest on the dark blue fabric.
Flushed with embarrassment, he started making his way through the carriage, trying not to knock anyone with his three bags. As he got to the end of the aisle he felt long slim fingers wrap around his wrist. He followed the fingers with his eyes, up an arm clad in soft grey, to that blue baseball cap. From underneath the brim an elegant voice softly asked,
“Cambridge?”
“Uh,” he looked around stupidly, as if unsure she was speaking to him, which was stupid considering her hold on his wrist. “Yeah, yeah I’m going to Cambridge. How did you know?” He could almost feel the stranger roll their eyes and they inclined their head towards Merlin’s chest. He looked down. He was wearing his new hoodie with ‘Cambridge University’ emblazoned across the front, which his mum had gifted him the day before. She was incredibly proud of her little boy.
“And the size of your bags give you away as a student,” the mystery voice laughed. “Is this your first year?”
“Yeah.”
He was starting to get more disapproving looks and he just wanted to find his own seat on the train and plug into his ipod for the next forty five minutes.
“Me too. Would you like to join me?”
She was sitting around a small train table with two seats on either side. Merlin noticed for the first time that there was a bag on the seat opposite the stranger who was gesturing to the seat next to it.
“Oh, um. Thanks for the offer but I’ve got a seat in the cheap seats somewhere, I can’t really afford first class.” He always felt a bit awkward talking about money, but he supposed he was going to have to get used to feeling like the poor relation now that he would be spending three years at Cambridge.
“Don’t worry about it,” she was now using her grip on his wrist to physically pull him round the table towards the vacant seat, “I’ll pick up the extra when the ticket inspector comes around. I promise. Please, it’ll be nice to have some new company and a new friend before I even arrive.”
Merlin found himself lowering into the empty seat and trying to arrange his bags around his feet under the table.
“But at least let me see you face.”
The stranger nodded slightly and raised their face until she was facing Merlin. Because when she looked up, she was clearly a she. She was still wearing an oversized pair of sunglasses but from her high cheekbones and the wisp of long black hair across her cheek Merlin could tell she was a she, and a good looking one at that. In fact, what he could see of her looked familiar, almost as if he’d seen a photo of her face somewhere.
Merlin felt someone settle into the seat next to him. He glanced up at her through his eyelashes and felt as if he’d seen her in a photograph somewhere too. Or maybe not, he couldn’t be sure.
“Gwen! You are a goddess, thank you!” The dark haired women reached desperately for the cup of coffee held out to her. “Sit down and meet… Oh. I don’t know his name,” she cocked her head in Merlin’s direction.
“Merlin.” He suddenly felt incredibly outnumbered.
“Oh Gana, we should introduce him to your brother.”
“Oh god that would be hilarious,” she giggled whilst simultaneously inhaling her coffee. Merlin felt as if there was some joke he wasn’t privy too.
“I don’t think I caught your name either,” Merlin said.
“You’re hopeless,” Gwen laughed, “and you take off those stupid sunglasses. You’re safely tucked into the corner and you’ve definitely lost Morgause.” She turned to Merlin, “Hi. I’m Gwen, a first year at Cambridge University studying Geography and at Newnham College. And this is Morgana, also a first year but reading Law at St John’s. You?”
He opened his mouth, about to tell her he was doing Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse studies, but the words died on his lips. Morgana had taken off her sunglasses and removed her baseball cap and he suddenly knew why she was so familiar. She was only the bloody Duchess of York, the only daughter of King Uther, not to mention sister to one of Merlin’s top crushes. Read: wank bank. And, apparently, he would be at the same university as her for the next three years. The same college in fact.
Merlin felt pretty stupid for not recognising her earlier. His mum was a huge fan of the royal family, followed them religiously to the point she had even gone down to London and camped out on the Mall to see Queen Igraine’s funeral procession and pay her respects. Merlin had even talked to his mum about the rumours that the Princess Royal would be attending Cambridge this year, that after five years she had finally convinced her father that she needed and deserved a university education just as much as her younger brother. But Merlin had never once entertained that it might be more than just a rumour, surely he should have been sent a National Secrets Act form or something to sign. Yet here she was, Princess Morgana, real as anything and asking Merlin to sit with her no less! Maybe he had missed his alarm clock after all and was still asleep in sleepy north Wales. He pinched himself discretely but no, he was very much awake. His mum would scream when he told her. He struggled to find his voice again with this revelation.
“I’ll be at John’s too.”
He’d done some Cambridge related Googling and learned all the student nicknames for the various colleges; he wanted to fit in with all the students who had Cambridge running though their families.
“Brilliant!” Morgana smiled and, honest to god, clapped her hands in excitement.
It was clear that the real princess was quite different to the one his mum had cut pictures of out of a plethora of magazines. The real one seemed less polished and pristine in her approach to life. That seemed to extend to her look too. In her casual clothes for travelling, her hair up haphazardly in a pony tail and no make up on she still looked beautiful, but in an entirely different, more natural way. She looked ordinary.
“And I’m reading the truly nerdy subject of Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse studies,” he continued and ducked his head.
“Hey now,” Gwen placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, “there’s nothing nerdy about that.” “Yeah, Arthur would have loved to have read something history related if he’d had his way, but Uther thought PPE was the only degree appropriate for a future King and that Arthur studying his own ancestors was a particularly pointless affair. And Arthur will do anything in an attempt to please Uther, even if it means sacrificing what he truly wants from his own life. So be glad you get to study something you really enjoy and are interested in.”
It was surreal; she was talking about the King and Prince of Wales as if they were ordinary people which, Merlin supposed, they were to Morgana.
“All that matters anyway is what you think,” Gwen reassured him.
Merlin could already tell she was a sweet young woman eager to look out for others.
It seemed crazy to admit, but Merlin could already imagine becoming friends with these people, good friends. He’d gone from only having Will for a friend to making introductions to the Princess Royal and company! He’d known Cambridge would be full of new experiences but he certainly wasn’t expecting anything like this. He was even more surprised to find he was already starting to relax around them.
“So how do you know each other?”
Merlin finally relaxed into his seat (which was much more confortable than the one he’d paid for in second class, he was sure.)
“Well, Gwen’s father, Tom, is Uther’s tailor. Because he’s too masculine to have a stylist,” Morgana winked, “so she basically grew up at the palace and she was more fun to play big sister to than Arthur.” “And his Majesty was very generous when my mother died thirteen years ago and let my father put me in with Arthur and Morgana’s nanny while he worked.”
“So really, we grew up together.”
Merlin smiled.
“That must have been nice. It’s always been just me and mum. I love her, of course, but I always wished there was someone around all the time for me to play with and look out for in the playground, y’know?”
“You could have had Arthur; I never liked having him for a baby brother. He was even arrogant as a child, always knew he was going to be king one day and would lord it about above everyone else.” Gwen sighed as if this was a line of argument she heard often.
“He wasn’t that bad, Morgana. It’s just in the big sister handbook that you’re not supposed to like your brother, just love him unconditionally.” “Yeah yeah yeah. Let’s not start quoting Twilight. So I kind of love the idiot. Let’s move on.”
Merlin had so many questions he wanted to ask about Arthur, the royal family, growing up in palaces and the public eye but none of them seemed pertinent to ask, and he was sure several of them would be answered in the coming months anyway. Instead he asked about Morgana’s cap which had caught his eye. Up close he could recognise the gold stitching as the belted logo of Oxford University. He quirked an eyebrow at it,
“Pick up the wrong hat this morning?”
“Oh,” she laughed as she picked up the hat and twirled it in her slim fingers, “it’s Arthur’s idea of a good luck present. He was up to see me off this morning,”
“See, he loves you too,” Gwen smiled.
“and presented it to me with a flourish,” she continued as if uninterrupted. “He thinks he’s funny, so I’m humouring him. I think he just wants to make sure I know where his allegiance lies! And now,” she slapped her hands down on the small train table, “you’ll have to excuse me while I’m really anti-social and plug into my iPod for one last moment of calm before the hectic life of a university student can begin.” Gwen was already pulling a book out of her bag and Merlin nodded in agreement; he could do with a bit of time to process everything and who was he to say no to royalty anyway. Maybe he could slyly text his mum too.
***
45 minutes later the train pulled into a very busy Cambridge station. Morgana once again donned her disguise, which didn’t seem so effective now Merlin knew it was her. They spilled onto the platform busting with students. Somehow Morgana led them through the crowds and out of the station altogether. There they came face to face with a truly terrifying woman. She looked to be somewhere in her thirties, but Merlin couldn’t be sure, with leather trousers that looked painted on, suspiciously pointy looking heeled boots and Merlin could clearly see the outline of a gun under her jacket. Stood in front of a black Rolls Royce with her arms folded over her chest she looked like the poster for a spy film. And she didn’t look happy.
“You highness,” she moved to open the passenger door, “his majesty is not aware that you slipped your protection again this morning, but once again I was not impressed.” Even her voice seemed sharp and crisp, like the lines of her silhouette as created by her tight outfit.
“Nothing’s ever happened to me, Morgause.”
“Yet.”
Morgana just smiled as she slid elegantly into the car and motioned Gwen and Merlin to follow her as Morgause climbed behind the wheel.
“Can we drop Gwen off first? Then Merlin’s with me at John’s.”
***
Merlin’s room at college was amazing. And huge. It may not have been in the beautiful, historic part of the college, but it did have incredible floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the river Cam and polished wooden floorboards that reminded Merlin of home. The room was even big enough to have a corner Merlin could turn where he found an alcove with a desk and there was enough room, despite the double bed, to lie completely spread out on the floor. And it got even better. Rooms were divided into mini corridors of two rooms with a shared bathroom and kitchenette. Merlin’s corridor neighbour was Morgana.
He leaned against the huge window and watched as his breath fogged up the glass and receded again as he took it all in.
It was going to be one hell of a year.