- "Idiot, idiot, idiot", are chanting children in the muddy street.

Arthur stops, a bit dazzled. He brings his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes and his heart aches watching their dancing figures in the steaming light. They hop in circles around a tall, skinny boy with large ears, who spins on himself to smile at them ...

- "Sire?"

Arthur flinches and comes back to the present time. He nods at Sir Leon who observes him with a slightly worried look and strides on.

The melody fades away. The children have disappeared, evaporated amid the market stalls.

The king goes down the main street of Camelot, his long red coat waving behind him, the sun hung in his blond hair, and he feels more alone than ever.

It was so many years ago.

He is barely twenty and goes heckling down the same street in the fresh spring air filling Camelot.

- "Idiot, idiot, idiot ..."

He glances at them distractedly, busy laughing out loud and playfully punching with the knights. They are just kids with threadbare clothes and screeching voices, doing a round around a distraught teenager.

- "Poor lad", sighs Sir Leon. "He's Gaius' ward. Must have been sent on an errand."

But he doesn't do anything, only frowns as they pass by the group.

- "He's not the sharpest sword in the armory", someone adds, somewhat sad.

Maybe it's just because for a short time Arthur believed the knight was speaking of Gaius in these insulting terms, but he stops to look more closely at the scene.

Dust particles dance in the sunlight of late afternoon, glittering like golden grains around the lanky figure who stumbles, trying to face his torturers.

Untidy black hair and large ears, angular face and slender shoulders that do not fill his jacket, rangy legs like a young colt and thin arms desperately protecting the bag of herbs.

Arthur smiles, amused.

Then the boy turns towards him, looking over the heads of the children circling and chanting their mischievous song. Two cobalt orbs fringed with dark eyelashes meet the prince's sapphire irises.

- "Idiot, idiot, idiot ..."

Arthur does not really know why.

Maybe it's that resigned countenance. Perhaps the mute interrogation in the deep blue eyes. Maybe just because a knight must not ignore injustice, however small it may be.

He steps forward, breaking the circle.

- "That's enough, leave him be."

The children scamper off like a swarm of crows, but the scrawny boy stays, his chin dropped on his chest, shoulders slumped like if he's expecting to be punished.

- "What's your name?" asks the Prince gruffly, after clearing his throat.

A surprised glow hovers on the protruding cheekbones.

- "Idiot?"

Arthur frowns, gives a pat on the bony shoulder - and the friendly gesture but too overdosed almost throws the teen to the ground.

- "No, your real name."

Two cobalt orbs look up at him shyly under the thick dark lashes. Then a big smile widens on the face of the back-haired boy.

- "Merlin."

- "Merlin", Arthur repeats thoughtfully. "Well, Merlin. Next time, don't get yourself entangled with these brats. Hurry up and go home. Your guardian must be waiting for you."

A hurried nod, then the boy with big ears scurries off, still cradling the bag of herbs.

- "Gaius will be grateful", Sir Leon says with an odd smile, as if he was not quite sure why Arthur chose to intervene. "The lad came here a few days ago with merchants from Ealdor. Apparently his mother was a friend of Gaius and entrusted him to the old man before she died."

Arthur does not pay much attention to what the man says, he only heeds the fact this was helpful to Gaius. He likes the old Court physician, who watched him grow up. And it is cowardly to assault someone weaker than oneself. He is not kind to his servants, but he considers himself fair. You do not have to be mean to prove that you are strong. A scene like the one he has just witnessed is just cruel, it's not like ordering his manservant to stop whining when he holds the target for practice or ignoring the grimaces of pain on the young squires' faces after hours of training.

To be firm, even borderline severe, to make fun of others and to do not indulge in sentimentality builds the character of those who show too soft.

But those innocent blue eyes simply can not defend themselves.

They do not understand.

Merlin belongs to another world, and Arthur is quite pleased he's not part of it.

He has almost forgotten that market day when the avenging dagger flies in the Great Hall and, at the last moment, someone hurls him down, pushing him out of danger.

And he is speechless when his father decides to place the one who saved him at his service.

Merlin.

Of all people present in the room, it is the gawky boy who spends his time on Gaius' heels who is the only one who saw the singer attack.

Arthur goes to Gaius the next day to clear up the misunderstanding. Certainly, he is grateful, but it is out of question that he will embarrass the old physician. It is obvious that his ward will not renew such a deed anytime soon and the prince does not want to bother with a useless servant who won't even last a week at his service.

The chamber filled with vials and potions is bathed in dawn parchment light. It smells of thyme and hawthorn, and of books leather bindings.

He plants himself in the middle of the room, arms crossed and legs spread, waiting for the old man to be back, and suddenly, up the narrow staircases, the door of the loft opens.

A tousled head, still half asleep, peeps out, then the blue eyes sees the prince and the lanky boy rushes down the stairs towards him.

- "Arthur!"

There is so much joy and anticipation on the angular face that the young man takes a step back, a bit unsettled.

He clears his throat.

- "Merlin."

- "D'you need somethin'?"

He uncrosses his arms, raises an eyebrow.

- "Hum. Uh ... Well, actually, yes. I ... where's Gaius?"

- "Gone."

- "Obviously."

The prince nibbles the inside of his cheek.

- "Look, Merlin. I ..."

I don't want you.

You won't do.

I can't spare time to be nice, nor afford to treat you differently from the other staff.

I'm sorry, but that's not possible. I need a capable manservant, one who can go with me everywhere and won't bring me shame...

He suddenly blushes when he figures out he has not even given a chance to Gaius's ward.

"Idiot, idiot, idiot ..." chant the children in his head.

He straightens, uncomfortable, clears his throat, puts on his most royal pout.

- "Merlin, if you want to be my manservant, you have to be with my breakfast in my chambers before I get up. It makes no sense that I should come get you here when I need something."

- "Yes, sire!" Merlin replies promptly with a smile that goes up to his big ears.

And Arthur feels laughter bubbling up in his throat.

That's how the story began.

It was not easy and sometimes Arthur wondered what went through his mind on that day.

Lightening?

Madness ?

The desire to stand out?

Magic?

Merlin is barely able to perform the simple duties of a kitchen boy. He is so clumsy no day passes without the sound of him tumbling down the stairs in a clatter of armor pieces. He is almost never on time, has no idea how to dispose a meal on a tray according to the etiquette, and the way he sorts clothes in the wardrobe is a mystery in itself: the prince has given up trying to find them on his own. To take him hunting means returning empty-handed and training with him is about as effective as fighting against a bag full of dirt.

And above all, he never shuts up.

All day long, he chirps continuously, comments on things, people, the weather outside, with inexhaustible cheerfulness.

Arthur thought it was nervousness at first. But he was wrong and Gaius merely raised an eyebrow when the prince complained, as if he did not see where the problem lay. Sir Leon actually guffawed at him.

Apparently whether servants or nobles, everyone knew – everyone but Arthur, who finds it a little upsetting.

But then, when he starts paying some attention to the incessant chatter, he doesn't mind anymore.

Merlin doesn't just babble. He tells a lots of things that you might want to know. He sees everything, he hears a lot of gossip and no-one is wary of him. He sorts people in his own way, those "nice" and those "creepy", which makes the prince collapse with laughter, especially since the appraisal is often close to the truth.

Merlin has no idea of what's proper. He's afraid of the king's big voice and stands silent, his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of him when he's in the same room - which mercifully keeps him away from trouble - but he has no such aloofness in front of the heir to Camelot, however.

Sire.

Arthur.

Your Pratiness.

Dollophead.

All names hold the same value to him and Arthur's worries quickly evaporate: oh, he can behave quite normally with Merlin. In fact, the gangly boy is surely the only person with whom Arthur can really be himself.

Merlin is honest – more sincere than anyone else. If he is not happy, you will know. He mumbles and grumbles and complains – his socks are wet during the hunt, he could not sleep well because Gaius snored, someone ate the pie Cook had put aside for him, there is too much laundry.

- "Merlin. Do you really wish that much to muck the stables?"

- "Nope."

He never lies: the concept seems completely foreign to him. Arthur noticed it after asking the boy to come up with an excuse for him while he went for a tryst with a princess who was a guest to the castle at the time. When the prince returned from his flowery afternoon, he found his manservant shampooed with rotten vegetables. Merlin expressed his disgust with the stocks, but he did not hold a grudge against Arthur and happily agreed to cover up for him the next day as well - ending the day at exactly the same place.

The thing happened many times again, since then.

He is the cheekiest and the most faithful domestic of them all. He follows Arthur everywhere, teases him, protects him, relentlessly serves him in his clumsy and stubborn way.

At the end of the first week, Arthur understood that if he did not send his manservant home with a clear order, Merlin would spend the night sitting in the corridor, his arms crossed over his knees, his bony cheeks nestled in the crook of his elbow, ready to answer at first call.

The prince is pleasantly surprised to discover Merlin is able to help him don his armor correctly from his second day of work. He does not know that Gaius and Guinevere, the maidservant of his sister Morgana, spent hours with the lad. After his disastrous first morning - out of patience, Arthur threatened to get rid of him – Merlin, lips tightened so not to cry, went with long strides to the girl's house to beg her to show him how to do it properly. Gaius served as a dummy, giggling when the boy tickled him while looping the belts. They did their best to cheer him up and were rewarded with the stunned face of the prince the next day and Merlin's beaming smile when he found out they had watched his deed.

Merlin loves tournaments. He claps his hands and whistles excitedly, rushes when the fight is over to pick up the helmet of his master and take his sword. He seems convinced of Arthur's invincibility and of his incredible resistance to pain, and the prince, flattered if a little worried, has decided not to disabuse him.

There is something extremely exhilarating in this boundless adoration, something strange that awakes in Arthur the desire to prove that he is the man Merlin sees.

It's not like proving his value to his father – the prince bitterly acknowledges that it probably never going to happen. It's not like when he's jousting with the other knights, eager to show his worth to the oldest and to dazzle the squires. No, it's different, because his father calls him a young fool or condemns his slightest weaknesses, because nobody at the Court or in the army would never dare to tell the truth to the prince about his actual fighting level - or his personality. His "friends" flatter him and are careful not to upset him, but he heard them talking about him when they thought he's wasn't there: an unexperienced rooster with big muscles and a disproportionate ego, who will never stand a chance when he accesses the throne…

A prat of petty scale.

Since he learnt what people thought and said behind his back, Arthur throws himself headlong in the tournaments, in search of a sense of reality.

A fair and great king.

He has a dream and, for the first time in his life, he met someone who believes in it.

So he wins his fights. For Merlin, for himself, for the love of Camelot.

And he does not see that it makes him change gradually.

A month after their meeting at the market, he's flabbergasted when it turns out he was right to give a chance to Merlin about Sir Valiant, when his manservant, ears red with emotion, had rushed in his room telling the far-fetched story of a cheater slipping snakes in the chain mail of his opponents. Fortunately, Sir Leon had gone ahead and made discreet inquiries before taking the matter to the attention of the king. Without evidence, Merlin would have been in serious trouble - and Arthur would have been terribly humiliated.

Later, when a courtesan attempts to assassinate Uther Pendragon during the banquet of alliance with King Bayard, Arthur does not have time to consult with the more serious of the knights because Merlin jumps in directly, triggering a scandal in the Great Hall. Arthur tries to protest, to remind his father of the mental impairment of the young servant to appease his anger, but he can not prevent the two sovereigns from glaring at each other and deciding Merlin will drink the cup he claims poisoned.

Two cobalt orbs fringed with dark eyelashes gaze trustingly at Arthur, convinced that he will be saved, once it's proved he was right.

So when the frail figure collapses, the prince pays no attention to the outraged racket of the room. He picks up the oh so light body of his manservant and storms out not worrying of what will be said or the fact his father requires him to be there during the negotiations with Bayard. And when Gaius, frantic, tells Arthur only a certain plant with yellow leaves can save the boy, the young man does not waver for a second. He braves the wrath of the king, saddles his horse and dives into the night resolutely.

On the cot, Merlin is tossing, burning with fever, and he whimpers softly.

- "Ar'th'r ..."

When the prince returns, Uther, beside himself with irate, throws his son into the dungeons to punish him, but Arthur doesn't care how his pride will suffer in the weeks to come, when he will face people in the upper class again. No, he has only one thought in mind: saving Merlin.

Two blue eyes gaze at him ...

Someone believes in Arthur and he is not about to fail that trust.

It is Guinevere who comes to the rescue and steals the flower under the nose of the guards. This is the first time he talks face to face with his sister's maidservant. He did not know she was so courageous, so audacious ... so beautiful.

His world is about to turn upside down, his priorities are reversed, he sees what he never looked at, he hears what had always remained in silence, and Arthur guesses it will not last for long. But he is not afraid. Instead, a soft, warm hope throbs in his throat, an adventure thrill more attractive than any of the quests he pursued before, the sense of being fully alive.

Later, when his father lets him free, the prince doesn't wonder why he finds himself in Gaius' chambers, sitting by the fireplace next to that idiot who has become much more than just a manservant.

Merlin smiles, hooded in his blanket, still weak after this ordeal.

The flames dance in the cobalt orbs shaded by thick eyelashes. He does not ask questions, he does not say thank you either, so Arthur has no need to pretend he had a thousand reasons to try saving him.

It's so easy to be yourself when you're loved just like you are.

TBC

Based on episodes: 01x01, 01x07, 01x02, 01x04