Uneasy

Just a little random something I thought of today.

I suppose this could be taken as AU, given there is a sort of reveal that occurs differently than how it happened in the show.

Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin. The dialogue in italics is more or less taken from various episodes.

Arthur Pendragon was raised knowing the laws of Camelot better than anyone. Most were fair enough, he supposed. Laws were clearly necessary. A king had to keep control of his people, after all; otherwise he was no longer a king.

But there was one law that made Arthur deeply uneasy.

It was the ban against magic.

He didn't understand why it made him so uncomfortable.

As a child, he had pushed the feeling away. His father said that magic was evil, so therefore it must be. His blind trust and devotion towards his father (and sovereign) told him to trust the king's judgment on such things.

"I am your father! And what's more, I am your king. You will obey me."

During his teen years, the feeling of discomfort at the mention of the ban intensified. For the first time, he learned of the Great Purge, beyond the brief references he had heard in occasional speeches by the king. He had thought it was a necessary sort of battle fought long ago.

The truth made him sick. For a short time.

Then he managed to shove away the uneasy feeling once more, covering it in part with brutish bluster.

The unease returned again, when he led an brutal attack against a druid camp, that, in his view, ended in tragedy. His father did not see it as such, however.

The feeling returned again and again, as he helped to arrest suspected sorcerers, as he led more raids which left him feeling simultaneously confused and guilty. And when he helped rescue a druid boy with his servant and his father's ward.

He'd always looked away at the executions of children.

"Perhaps imprisonment is a more suitable punishment for the boy; I mean, he's so young…"

"That would allow him to grow more powerful, more dangerous, until he strikes against us."

Arthur sometimes found Uther's paranoia terrifying.

He found himself questioning his father's judgment often, forming his own ideas about the laws of Camelot, finding more and more things that he found unjust about the way Uther controlled the realm.

"They are your subjects, not your friends!"

"Why can't they be both?"

His father might have been enchanted when he said that, but it actually sounded like something that he would say at any time.

Arthur still loved his father. He did until the end, but his admiration for the man died when Uther tried to execute Gwen. She was spared, yes, but nothing was quite the same after that.

The ban on magic was only the most obvious example of Uther's inherent cruelty. And yes, it was cruelty. Arthur was able to see that.

Until after his father's death, when he began to doubt. What if his father had been right? What if the deep-seated unease he had felt so often had just been the rebellious foolishness of a young boy? His father had always wanted the best for him and the kingdom, right?

"I am not my father."

Only, too often it seemed like Arthur was.

He almost always punished his enemies severely. He often kept his own council, disregarding the opinions of so many others.

He kept the ban on magic.

"Magic…is truly evil."

And yet, even when the evidence of magic's evil seemed to overwhelm him, he still felt uneasy about the fires he ordered lit, the axes sharpened, the nooses tied.

He still didn't understand.

Until he saw his closest friend's eyes glow gold. Until he saw the weapon, aimed for his heart, stop in midair.

Until he heard his trusted servant say, "You have a choice, Arthur. Which path will you choose? Your father's, or your own?"

Then Arthur finally understood.

In this, Uther had been wrong. And he, Arthur, had been right.

He made his choice. He chose his own path.

The weight of the unease lifted.

Reviews always welcome. :)