Step 1: Establish a Cover Identity

I didn't choose to be a warlock. I was born this way, the most powerful magic-user to ever live, destined to help the once and future king on his way to greatness. Or so Killgarah says. Repeatedly. As of now, all I am doing is helping a royal prat's dirty socks on their way to cleanliness. But Gaius and Killgarah insist that his prattiness will be a great King someday, and that I must protect him. At the time I thought it was all bloody rubbish, but you try saying no thanks to your terrifying uncle. And a dragon. Who is actually far less scary than my uncle. His eyebrow raise can cause even Uther Pendragon to falter.

Anyways, if I was to fulfill this "great destiny" and keep an eye on the clotpole, I supposed I should learn to hide in plain sight. Since magic is illegal in Camelot, secrecy is rather important to keeping one's head attached to their body. I happen to be fond of living, thank you very much.

You will be relieved to know that I have devised a foolproof guide in which to hide my magic. I hope that this inspired set of rules can help other young witches and warlocks, you know, not die.

Step one: cover identity. Strange strangers are liable to be burned at the stake here, whether they truly possess magic or not. You need a day job, like mine. I am the physician's ward. And Prince Arthur's manservant. And a super secret ninja warlock. Really, there is no need to have multiple jobs, but fate has apparently decided I am an overachiever. So, to keep my great power and wisdom under the table, I have formulated a cover that is infallible: the castle idiot.

Arthur calls me a simpleton, which is really quite rude. It's rich, coming from that toad face, who can't even dress himself in the morning without my assistance, who has no idea how to cook a chicken or wash clothes and couldn't see the obvious if it had a sign...

Right, cover identity. Your identity should be similar to your actual personality, but not too close to your hidden secret. For example, Camelot Merlin is kind and witty and clumsy, but oblivious and a bit of a coward. The clumsy part is, unfortunately, a permanent part of my charm. But it does a bang up job of making me out as the Prince's numpty manservant. The oblivious and cowardly part couldn't be further from the truth (though I wouldn't go so far as to call myself heroic), but along with the clumsiness, they form the backbone of my disguise. No one would suspect the prince's cowardly and ignorant manservant as discovering an evil sorcerer's plot and then foiling it with magic. The goal of this deception: the people of Camelot believe that I survive battles and foil plots because I simply have to get lucky at some point.

Now, I started establishing this identity right when I arrived at the castle. But I think the event that truly sold my cover was right after the whole Valiant incident. I thought I may have been a bit obvious with the heroics, so I arranged events to bolster my cover. And yes, the incident was totally intentional, no matter what Gaius might tell you:

"Merlin!" Arthur yelled, slamming the door shut behind him. "Merlin! Where are you? My armor needs polishing, my laundry is in desperate need of washing, and I haven't had breakfast!" Arthur threw open the doors of the wardrobe, staring bewildered at the sheer amount of clothing tucked away in there. He honestly had no idea where to start, but would never admit that. Not to himself and certainly not to anyone else. Where was his imbecilic manservant? Wasn't this what Arthur paid him for?

"Merlin! The longer you take, the longer your list grows. I am suddenly in need of a dummy for training today, and will require a hot bath tonight. I think the floors could do with a good dusting, and I am certain that the stables are in need of mucking. After you get done with all that, you could spend some time in the stocks for your insolence". With his final threat leveled, Arthur glanced at the door expectantly. No sign of the idiot. A worried frown played on his face for one second before the door came flying open, almost hitting the prince on the head. A scowl quickly took over as his manservant bumbled in while balancing an overloaded tray of breakfast food.

"Sorry, sire. The food was late coming off the oven and then I got stopped nearly four times on the way up the stairs and..." He paused, noticing the doors of the wardrobe propped open and the prince's face. A smirk played across Merlin's face before he hid it, but not quite quickly enough for it to go unnoticed.

"Feeling ambitious this morning, are we? Don't worry, it takes a while to get the hang of buttons and ties" Merlin ducked to avoid the flying cup. He set the breakfast down on the table just in time (read: the tray fell on the table and miraculously didn't spill) and dodged another flying object. A gauntlet this time. Lovely.

"You just missed it, Merlin". Arthur suddenly looked smug. Great. "I was just making up your list of chores for the day. Every minute you were missing I found another thing to add, and figured that if you couldn't complete the simplest tasks, such as, getting my breakfast on time, you should end the day with a trip to the stocks".

Merlin groaned. The work he could handle (especially since he had magic) but the stocks were altogether the worst thing about Camelot. Other than, you know, the entire country wanting to burn Merlin for existing.

Thoughts stuck on burning alive, Merlin frowned. Perhaps after two instances of saving the prince's life, he was getting a bit obvious. Not to Arthur, certainly. That cabbage head was so oblivious he wouldn't notice if Merlin used magic to slap him in the face. But the other servants, the council, the King, they weren't quite that stupid. And the servants were already starting to take notice. There were the beginnings of whispers, "How did that scrawny, gangly thing save the prince's life, twice?!" Soon, those whispers would turn to conspiracies, some of which Merlin was sure would include magic. And if the King got whiff of those theories, or put the evidence together himself, he would execute Merlin faster than he could say prat.

So, because his head was more precious than his dignity, Merlin executed operation cabbagehead.

After intentionally spilling water all over the prince, he dropped the dishes on his way back to the kitchen. Chuckling quietly to himself, he made sure to drop one of the dirty dishes into the pot of soup, earning a whack upside the head from the cook. Apologizing profusely, he gathered Arthur's armor and headed out to the training fields, dropping a different piece of the armor every couple seconds. He then proceeded to walk across the field while the knights were training, dropping the entire pile of armor multiple times and almost getting his head chopped off (which was an unfortunate experience Merlin should have anticipated) before making his way to Arthur. The prat scolded and nagged the whole time Merlin was adjusting his armor.

"You have to be the worst servant in Albion" he muttered, glaring darkly at the cheeky servant.

"Perhaps you are overworking me?" He innocently suggested, finishing up Arthur's armor and earning only a snort of disbelief and a swat to the head for his troubles.

"I'll show you overworked" Arthur muttered as he returned to the training field. Merlin paid the price for his deception while he served as a moving target for the remainder of training, terrified that fate might just say, "screw it" and Merlin would die on that blasted field.

Throughout the day, Merlin proceeded to weave his illusion of a numpty. He tripped on everything imaginable, served the wrong food, intentionally misunderstood Arthur's instructions, and so on. Even after the extremely unpleasant experiences mucking the stables and sulking in the stocks, the young warlock was rather pleased with himself. No one would ever imagine that Merlin the manservant could have magic. He would have killed himself with it by now!

He hummed quietly to himself as he threw open the doors to Arthur's chambers and walked over to the bed, intent on turning the room down. Perhaps he could accidently light the curtains on fire? No, that was going too far. Don't want to make Uther suspect he was trying to kill Arthur or something...

Merlin's mind was so engaged with the thought of setting the room on fire that he didn't notice the indignant noises until he was right next to the bed. Arthur sat, covers pulled to his chin, with a strange expression on his face. Merlin frowned thinking back through his entrance to the room. Had he already done something wrong? And why was Arthur in bed instead of reading reports? It was just after dark!

Merlin shrugged and started adjusting the covers, appearing to ignore Arthur's face but internally his mind was racing. Was there an intruder? Was Arthur sick? He did look a bit peaky...

"Arthur, are you feeling alright?" Merlin asked, frowning at a particularly large pile of bunched up comforter. He reached to straighten it, when his hand was slapped by the prince.

"Yes I am feeling just fine, Merlin. You are the one who had better be sick or dying or enchanted, abandoning all proprietary and barging into my chambers without knocking!"

Merlin rolled his eyes. "I've never been very proper Arthur". Something was definitely amiss. Arthur usually just rolled his eyes or glared or make a sarcastic comment when Merlin barged in. He reached for the comforters again, only to be kicked by the royal prat himself.

"Oi!" Merlin glared at Arthur, rubbing his bruised forearm. "What was that for? Your bedding is all bunched up here, I was only trying to fix it..."

"You are giving me a headache with your uselessness. Take care of the candles, will you? I will fix the bedding since you are obviously incapable". Arthur shooed him away. Merlin shrugged and grabbed the snuffer, dousing the candles by the desk first then moving towards the bed. He heard an awful lot of shuffling behind him. Abandoning his usual pattern, he turned around just in time to see a figure roll out of the bed and land on top of Arthur. The prince struggled to throw the person off him, reaching towards his nightstand where Merlin knew his sword was resting...

Merlin didn't hesitate. He launched himself towards the apparent assassin, wielding the candle snuffer. Grabbing the attacker's arm, he pulled them off Arthur, putting the prince closer to his sword. He made to call the guards as a hand clamped over his mouth. The assassin must have a friend. Struggling Merlin prepared to bite the hand...

And then he got a good look at the "assassin". Standing before him was a pretty serving girl in only her smallclothes. Merlin's jaw dropped, glancing behind him to see it was Arthur's hand covering his mouth. He dropped the snuffer, shaking Arthur off and retreating to the wall. "Oh".

"Oh? OH?!" The prince's voice grew louder, then tapered off just below a yell. He glared at Merlin as the girl stepped towards the bed, covering herself in the blanket. "That's all you have to say for yourself? I thought servants were supposed to be discrete. Of course I should have known that you were entirely incapable of discretion, Merlin".

"You, you were reaching for your scabbard". Merlin was stuttering now, searching his mind for any clues that could have alerted him to the situation. Looking back, there were a few.

"I was reaching for her dress!" Arthur was yelling this time, moving so Merlin could see the gown wadded up on top of the nightstand. "What did you think she was, a bloody assassin? Are you really that dense?"

"Yes?" Merlin gulped, seeing now the full severity of his ignorance. The mighty warlock didn't even notice that the his master was otherwise engaged when entering the room. "I'm...I'm going to leave now".

Arthur didn't deign to answer, only throwing the closest item, which happened to be the discarded candle snuffer, at Merlin's head. The servant managed to duck, dashing to the door and closing it swiftly behind him. He sighed in relief, only to see the two door guards grinning at him. "Is the prince alright?" One of them asked, amusement instead of worry dancing across his face.

"Oh yes. He's great. Went to bed a bit early, had a headache". Merlin glared at them with no real venom as he made his way down the stairwell to Gaius's chambers, tripping at least a dozen times on the way. He heard their laughter until he was several halls away.

The next morning, Merlin's blunder was the talk of the kitchen. Kitchen maids blushed and pages snickered as Merlin walked by. He sighed. Operation Cabbagehead was a success. Perhaps his idiot cover was rather fitting.