What is the story?
It's Gwaine, shifting closer to Merlin as the princess and her father and their guards trail past, a glare darkening his face.
The princess curtsies. Vera, her name is. She is bright and elegant, blonde hair curled about her shoulders. Her head glides back up. "My lord." She takes Arthur's arm and he escorts her into the hall.
The tables are set, the servants waiting. Music drifts from the corner of the room, brushing over candles and silver and guests before it slips past too-fine shoes and out the door.
What is the story?
It's her dress, flowing and flying and falling. Like a chime of laughter as they dance.
They eat, they drink, they bid goodnight, and when curtains of sleep descend, the music has yet to fade.
Dawn comes with a blast of blossoms and whiteness, and Arthur settles like dust into kingly tasks.
What is the story?
It's a servant, bursting into Arthur's chambers with wide eyes and frantic steps. "Merlin! They're whipping Merlin, it's already started. Gwaine said—"
Arthur is barreling past, scrambling down the corridor, shouting long before he reaches the doors that lead outside. "Stop!" Light floods his face as he slams into the courtyard, blinding him with a touch like laughter. He keeps running. "Stop!"
He can hear the crack of the whip. Hear Gwaine screaming. Arthur shoves past a crying form, the post blaring into sight. Merlin on his knees jerking forward, blood marring his skin.
"Stop!"
The man snaps out another lash.
Arthur crashes through the circle, hand reaching forward as though he can freeze the very fabric of time. "Stop! Stop the whipping!" He is a force of might ramming forward, snatching the man's arm as he goes to strike another blow. "Stop!" Arthur screams.
What is the story?
It's the guard's face, the flare of recognition and the dark determination that undermines it. "Princess Vera has ordered it."
"And I am ordering you to stop."
Gwaine manages to twist past the men holding him back. He wrenches himself into the circle and over to Merlin, dropping to his knees beside him, untying him with coarse, steady hands.
Merlin flinches. "Thirty more."
"No. No, Arthur stopped it. He stopped it." Gwaine braces Merlin as he tilts forward like a weary pendulum. Tilts forward like a bird shoved from its nest.
"Thirty?" Arthur growls. "How many were ordered?"
The man isn't chagrined or sorrowful. He is dark. Angry. He doesn't respond.
"Fifty," Gwaine breathes.
What is the story?
It's the fire roaring through Arthur's veins. He shoves the man back. "Fifty?! Were you trying to kill him?" That means Merlin suffered through twenty already. Twenty is too many. Too many for anything. Arthur's never ordered more than ten. Fifty is insanity.
"Princess Vera ordered it."
"Forget Vera. You come to me first. Vera's orders hold no weight in my court, understand?"
The man grits his jaw but nods.
The crowd is an invasion on Arthur's senses. "Get these people out of here," Arthur shouts. Then he snaps around, pointing to a random servant. "You! Get me a stretcher!"
The servant stutters.
"Now! Go!" Arthur stabs his arm sharply toward the castle, as though it will shove the boy to the doors a little faster.
The servant jolts into action and Arthur spins around.
What is the story?
It's Merlin, slumped against Gwaine, breathing harshly, his back torn open.
Arthur cracks his knees on the cobbles beside them. "Merlin."
Merlin's form twitches. "You stopped it?" he asks, voice half a hitch away from desperate.
"I stopped it. I'm sorry I didn't stop it sooner."
Merlin's breathing evens out just a fraction, his shoulders losing a fragment of tension. "Thank you." His fingers curl at the spine of Gwaine's shirt. "Thank you. Fifty was…." his throat bobs. "I didn't know if I could make it."
What is the story?
It's Gwaine, carefully taking more of Merlin's weight, his eyes closing tight. Gwaine, looking like he didn't know either.
What is the story?
It's Vera sent back to her kingdom, the very air of Camelot shoving her from its fields and towns.
It's Merlin, sitting a little too straight at the table, laughing as Gwaine tries and fails to clean out the leech tank.
The leeches seem drawn to his hair. Gwaine crawls from the tank, tugging the slug-like beasts from his skin with a thin curl of disgust.
Gaius, berating the both of them, muttering about the uselessness of knights and wards, huffs as he peels a leech off the cover of a book on the floor.
The leeches seem to be everywhere. No doubt they will materialize from the floorboards for ages, slinking through corners out of reach of sunlight until they have all wandered off on grand adventures to be seen no more.
What is the story?
It's Gwen, offering to help and being stubbornly refused, slipping onto the seat beside Merlin.
She laughs with him, and her laughter is earthly. Deep and coarse and so much better than wind through fragile chimes.
What is the story?
It's another day, another visitor, another brutality threatened. It's a man throwing down his too-thin glove onto a tired floor. A man fighting for a friend. Sometimes fighting for a stranger.
It's magic like miracles, shielding them all, hidden in shadows and forging light with worn, immutable hands.
What is the story?
It's people, noble and equal, bound like threads in the fabric of time.
And it's Merlin, at Arthur's right hand, weaving the threads together with stories that will not ever die.