Hey Folks!

It's been a bit. Quarantine does wild things to motivation, as I'm sure many of you have experienced. Nothing quite like a global pandemic to put a damper on creating things.

I've also spent the last month educating myself on systemic racism. There's a lot that I still don't know, but I recommend that if you haven't been following the protests in the US, you look into them. Racism has been present for the entire duration of US history. It is something that has been constantly brushed under the rug. The Black Lives Matter movement is incredibly important, and even if you think you know what's going on, there's always more to learn. The first step in addressing this problem is to become aware of it. As a white person, I've had the privilege of ignorance. I've always considered myself aware of my own privilege, but the truth is, I have learned so much more in the last month because I have actually put the effort into recognizing my ways of thinking. I am working to lose my fragility and truly listen to the voices of POC.

I'm still learning, but if anybody has any questions or confusions about the state of this movement, or my vocabulary, or if you want resources, or anything else, I'd be more than happy to try to send you information.

I'm also open for criticisms.

To my BIPOC and POC readers- I see you. I hear you. I am sorry it has taken this long for your experiences to be recognized and validated by white people.

To my white readers- Do your research, please. Educate yourselves. Do not wait for POC to explain their experiences to you. That is not their job. Sign petitions. Attend protests if you are able. Donate to bail funds and nonprofits if you are able. Take an active role in your allyship. It is not enough to simply not be racist. You must be actively anti-racist.

I hope you enjoy this next chapter, and again, do not fear reaching out to me.

~Ra1n

Previously...

"I missed you, too, Merlin," she said quietly. "And I don't think you deserved any of it."

He nodded silently, biting his cheek, breathing through his stuffed-up nose. He hadn't missed the mourning cloths on the windows. He knew they'd thought he was dead. But he hadn't given himself the time to think about the implications of that. He wasn't sure he could take it.

But he could see it now, in Gwen's eyes. The grief buried there. She'd missed him. She'd missed him in a way without hope. Even after she knew about the magic, even after she knew what he'd done and what he was.

And that mattered. That mattered so damn much.

"Forbaernan!"

Somewhere to the left of Gaius's head, a tapestry burst into flame. Gaius gasped, dodged to the side, seized a bucket of water from the long line of buckets against the wall, and tossed the contents onto the flames. They hissed and crackled and went out.

Gaius turned to look at Merlin, who was standing with his weight leaning heavily on the back of a chair. His breaths were loud and shallow, his hand still extended in front of him. His eyes were wide with surprise and desperation.

He lowered his hand.

"I'm sorry, Gaius," he said between breaths. Gaius placed the now-empty bucket on the floor— beside an ever-growing pile of empty buckets— and took a few deep breaths of his own. In hindsight, maybe a fire-spell hadn't been the best practice choice.

The throne room's walls and floors were littered with scorch-marks. Some were small and inconsequential, like on the tapestry, while others were large— there was one man-sized spot near the center of the throne room where the floorboards had not only been blackened, but had actually warped and crumbled, spewing tufts of white ash into the air. That one was still steaming with the water thrown on it. Gaius suspected it would remain hot to the touch for another few hours, at the very least.

The only thing untouched was the target— a torch placed in a bucket of water in the middle of the floor.

"It is quite alright, my boy," Gaius murmured, shuffling over to him. He placed a gentle hand on Merlin's shoulder. "But perhaps it is time to take a break."

Merlin allowed himself to be guided into the chair, but his eyes were fixed on the smoldering tapestry. "It's like it's having a goddamn temper tantrum," he muttered as he sat down. He pressed his face into his hands. "This is going to take ages."

Gaius dragged a (marginally less burnt) chair over from the pile of chairs in the corner of the room and sat down, too.

"This is only your first day, Merlin. You need to give yourself some time."

"I don't have time, Gaius!" Merlin snapped. His shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry."

Gaius sighed, looking around the throne room. Merlin had wanted to start practicing right away- the moment Gaius had returned from preparing the throne room- but Gaius had insisted that he wait until the next day before doing anything. He could barely stand, for goodness' sake, and there'd been enough excitement already.

Merlin didn't have a good argument.

And Gaius had been right, of course; once the Druids had helped sweep the wall debris into a neat pile and Gaius had cleared off the beds (with Merlin watching, hands twitching with the want to help) Merlin had gone to bed and stayed asleep not only throughout the night, but until the following evening. He only awoke when Gwen and Gaius had manhandled him into fresh bandages and virtually force-fed him some soup, and then he'd promptly fallen asleep again.

"I suppose fulfilling your destiny is exhausting enough on its own," Gwen had said to Gaius as they watched him deep in sleep, "even without the added injuries."

Gaius had nodded silently, reveling in the fact that Merlin was sleeping peacefully for the first time.

Arthur had not come out of his rooms that entire day, although he'd called a meeting of his advisors in his chambers. Gaius didn't tell Merlin of the meeting, on account of him being dead-asleep and also in order to keep the poor boy from fretting himself to death.

But the following morning Merlin had awoken just after the rising sun and stumbled out of bed, limped down the stairs on his bandaged feet, and stated that he would be practicing magic that day whether Gaius liked it or not. He'd even managed to pull a shirt over his head, although the blue fabric made him look even more pale. Gaius made a mental note to get him another shirt. He had a good feeling Merlin's red one was long gone, and the boy was not known for his large wardrobe.

Although outwardly upset that Merlin was out of bed, Gaius couldn't help the thrill of joy in his chest at seeing Merlin, dressed, demanding something without an apology attached. He pushed away the feeling that Merlin was throwing himself into something he wasn't ready to do for the sake of finding normalcy, or finding distraction.

"Fine," Gaius had said, trying to sound stern, "But only if you swear to stop when you get tired."

"Of course," Merlin had said, and there was that tiny hint of cheekiness there, an almost-exasperated edge to his tone that made Gaius think of the old Merlin, and again, he refused to think too deeply about the whole thing.

The problem arose when it came time to get Merlin to the throne room. He couldn't very well walk there, and Gaius couldn't carry him. And on top of that, the kingdom didn't yet know that Merlin was alive, and it was best kept that way in order to, at the very least, keep Morgana in the dark, and at worst, keep Merlin himself safe from any magic-hating villagers.

So they'd waited for Gwen to stop in for a visit, and then they'd wrangled Gwaine into helping, and Percival had come along, too, and they'd had Merlin lie on a litter with a sheet over him. And then they'd carried him to the throne room, Percival at the front and Gwaine at the back, with Gwen and Gaius walking behind with worried faces, and they hadn't run into anybody at all.

(Which made the entire process feel like overkill.)

And now Gaius and Merlin were sitting in the throne room, surrounded by the smell of burnt stone and smoldering tapestries, unsure of how to proceed. Outside, Gwaine and Percival stood watch at the door while Gwen went about catching up on the royal duties she'd been neglecting that week.

The thing was, Merlin had never been given so much space to practice his magic. In the rare moments when he had practiced spells, it had been in hushed, hurried tones in his room—and more often than that, he'd simply not practiced at all. The learning curve would've been steep without the given circumstances— what did his magic do when given so much space? —but it was made even steeper by its apparent unpredictability. On top of that, Merlin didn't really understand the concept of speaking spells, especially when it came to shouting them.

He kept pulling back. Halfway through saying something he'd falter, and Gaius could see the way uncertainty filled his eyes. He'd spent his whole life hiding his magic. Fearing its discovery. It was a hard habit to break.

The last time he'd yelled a spell, he'd been imprisoned for five weeks.

"Gaius…" he moaned through his fingers. His voice was apologetic. Muffled. He peaked up at the physician. His eyes slid to the tapestry before landing on the melted bit of floor. That particular burn had been made by a roaring inferno large enough to bring Gwaine and Percival rushing in to help, although Merlin hadn't been able to cast until they'd left the room again.

Now, though, the edges of Merlin's eyes were rimmed with red above the dark circles. He rubbed his fingers over his face, wiped his nose with his sleeve.

"What am I going to do?"

"I know you're short on time, Merlin, but maybe this is enough for today," Gaius said gently.

Merlin sniffed once. Twice. Gaius could see the beginnings of unshed tears in the corners of his eyes.

Merlin's voice cracked. "I've done nothing today, Gaius."

Gaius sighed. "You got dressed," he said, "and you got out of my chambers. And you cast some spells, whether they went the way you wanted them to or not."

"Oh, and that's great, isn't it?" Merlin's voice was sharp.

"After all that you have been through…" Gaius began, but the floodgates had opened. Merlin's control of his emotions was about as tenuous as his control over his magic, and the loss of both was too much for him to take.

"I put a shirt on, like a bloody child," he muttered. It was more to himself than to Gaius. He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up in long, uneven patches. He slammed his hands into his lap, making Gaius wince- although Merlin didn't seem to notice the pain.

"I did a bit of a walk and I dressed myself, what an accomplishment!"

His voice had reached a higher, rapid pitch. "Maybe tomorrow I'll feed myself, hmm? Maybe I'll even stay awake for half the day! Maybe I'll make my bloody bed and hold the spoon all by my goddamn self. Maybe that'll be enough for the day!"

Gaius heard, rather than saw, the tapestry behind him burst into flames again. He raised his voice, keeping it steady but firm.

"Merlin, you need to calm down."

"I don't want to calm down. What I want is my magic to work the way it's supposed to. I want to cast a spell and have it go at my say-so. I want to be able to light a bloody fire without melting the floor."

He threw a hand out, gesturing forcefully towards the hole in the floorboards behind him.

Behind Gaius, the tapestry beside the door billowed with renewed flame, licking at the walls. Merlin's eyes darted towards the fire, his brows furrowing even deeper.

"Belūce," he snarled, his voice coming from deep within his diaphragm. Gaius could feel it in his own chest.

The fire roared back, a great column of black smoke and sparks spitting themselves onto the floor and into the air, pieces of flaming thread fluttering across the ground.

Outside, Gaius heard Gwaine and Percival shouting something.

"My dear boy, I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself."

"I'm putting pressure on myself? Gaius, if I don't get my magic working in time, the whole kingdom is doomed."

The shouting was getting louder - an argument. A third voice had joined the knights, softer but insistent.

"Belūce," Merlin repeated. His voice was breathless. With each utterance of the spell, the fire crept higher, and he sounded more desperate. He didn't appear to notice the voices, he was too busy trying to coax the fire out with sheer force. Gaius's heart skipped a beat.

"We need to go, Merlin," Gaius hissed. His voice was urgent. He hobbled over to Merlin and seized his extended arm, dragging it down to his side. Merlin ripped his arm back, Gaius's voice lost to him.

The fire had reached the next tapestry over, engulfing the unlit torch on the wall and warping its sconce. It licked at the door frame.

There was a thud against the door. Gaius seized Merlin's shoulder and pulled him back, away from it, desperately glancing for a place to hide. Merlin was still focused on the fire, still trying to put it out.

"Leave it be!" Gaius scolded, "We need to get you hidden!"

Merlin heard Gaius's words too late. In one instant, he dropped his arm and looked at the physician, suddenly registering the shouts outside, the look of desperation in Gaius's eyes.

In the next, the throne room doors were thrown open.

Gwaine and Percival fell through them, mid-scuffle with a uniformed guard.

"Stay out!" Gwaine was yelling, "King's orders!"

Merlin felt the world tilt around him as the flames roared once again, catching the hem of Percival's tunic and setting it alight. The momentary distraction was enough for the guard to break out of Gwaine's grip, take a few frantic steps into the room, and freeze, wide-eyed.

Owain.

"No-"

Merlin's voice was strangled. Gaius wasn't sure if he was aware he'd even said anything. Breaking his shoulder free from Gaius's grip, he stumbled backwards, landing hard on his tailbone. His feet scrabbled desperately as he backed away, slipped, forced himself up. He was shaking his head, raw panic in his eyes.

"No- No, no, not again, no-"

"Kid-" The guard said quietly, leather-gloved hands fluttering anxiously in front of him. But Merlin was beyond hearing words now, and as Gaius moved to calm him down, Gwaine moved to tackle the guard once again.

Only one was successful.

As Owain and Gwaine crashed to the ground, Merlin whirled on his heel, unaware of the tearing of bandages, and made a break for the other side of the throne room.

"Merlin, wait-!" Gaius shouted, hobbling across the tiles. Percival finished putting his shirt out and turned towards Gaius's shouts. He was just in time to see Merlin falter, hit the ground, scramble back up, and slip through the servants' entrance to the left of the thrones.

Percival took off immediately as Gwaine shoved Owain back the way they'd come from, sending him stumbling.

"Haven't you done enough?" He hissed, already turning to follow Merlin, Gaius, and Percival through the doorway.

By the time they'd reached the doorway, however, Merlin had already disappeared into the labyrinth of servants' passages.