Merlin put his head in the hand resting on his knee and stared straight into the unblinking eyes of some long-forgotten, yet still disapproving Pendragon family ancestor. Merlin had to give it to the artist of this portrait. He or she had managed to capture the Pendragon Blue eyes perfectly. Of course, they'd also captured the glare perfectly, too. That was a bit less admirable. Scary, really, that the same scowl had been passed down for generations unchanging. This particular ancestor seemed to be from the 1700s or one of those times when they wore white wigs and were obsessed with their dogs. Merlin counted seven of them in the painting with the man.

He sighed. It was time to pick up his trek around the castle. Maybe he'd even be able to find a corridor that looked more familiar and he wouldn't be stuck with another random dead Pendragon judging him as he tried to make his way back to the apartment he and his mother had been given. He still wasn't even sure why they had to live at the palace. His mother could just have easily commuted to work and he would have been happily living in a real house where he could run around if he wanted and have his friends over. Instead, Merlin had left his friends in Ealdor and was stuck where there were no other kids to play with.

Merlin turned a corner and breathed a sigh of relief. He recognized this corridor. If he walked down a bit and turned he would find a sculpture of a fat goose and then the door to his new home. He rapped on the suit of armor, humming tunelessly as he walked toward his apartment (finally!).

"Hey! Watch what you're doing!"

Merlin spun around quickly, his hand hitting the empty gauntlet. He watched in horror as it moved up and down. His breath caught while he and the boy further down the corridor waited to see if it would settle or cause the whole suit to fall. It shifted a bit but didn't come crashing to the ground. Merlin's whole body sagged in relief. He turned on the other boy, "Seriously? You made me almost knock over Bob!"

"Bob?" The boy looked at Merlin incredulously. "You call a suit of armor 'Bob'?"

"This one, yes. The one in the Great Hall is George, and the one in the hall leading to the kitchen is Nitwit."

The boy snorted. "I call that one Sir Peter." He gestured toward the armor Merlin had almost knocked over. "This is Sir WIlliam." He grinned.

Merlin grinned back and shook his head. "Those names are way too serious. Look at Bob here. His shield is crooked. He leans a little to the left, so he obviously drank a bit before he stepped onto his pedestal." He looked back at the boy who'd yelled at him and realized he was talking to the Crown Prince. The prince!

His smile slipped, "Um, sorry, I was supposed to bow or something, wasn't I?"

Arthur kept grinning, "Absolutely. You also need to get down on your knees and follow me around like that all day."

Merlin shook his head, his heart settling as he realized the prince wasn't as frightening as he could have been. "Keep dreaming, Your Highness. Or is it Your High and Mighty-ness?"

"Oh, definitely the last. In fact, I dare you to call me that around my father." Arthur's eyes took on an evil glint.

Merlin shuddered. "No, thank you. I'll avoid being around the king, if it's all the same to you. He scares me."

"He's not so bad. He just has a lot of things to worry about because of his job." Arthur walked over to the window seat that helped light the corridor and sat down. He scooted over to give Merlin room. "So, who are you? No one told me that there'd be another kid moving here. It's usually just me and Morgana unless one of the cousins is visiting. You're not one of my cousins and you're definitely not my sister."

Merlin sat next to the prince and relaxed back against the other side of the wall, pulling his feet up and sitting cross-legged as he faced Arthur. "I'm Merlin. My mum just took on the job of Assistantprobably Archivist under Sir Geoffrey."

"Oh, I think I saw her when I went to the library for a book for an assignment yesterday. Brown hair? She had a nice smile. Was her name Hooney?"

"Hunith. It's Welsh. That's where we're from originally."

Arthur smirked. "I thought you spoke a little funny."

Merlin uncrossed his legs and kicked his future king lightly before crossing them again.

"That's treason, you know." He moved his own legs up and crossed them so he was totally facing Merlin.

Merlin just shrugged and closed his eyes and soaked up the sunlight coming through the window. He felt his lips curve up in a little smile. It was really nice talking to another kid again. Sure, he'd been able to call Will and Freya on the phone, but this was actually someone in front of him. The craziest notion flashed through his mind that he was suddenly in the perfect place. That everything in his life was going to be alright.

"You're going to burn. Are you sure you're not Irish?"

"Dad was. He died when I was a baby." Merlin opened his eyes and watched the prince nod. His mother died when he was a baby, too. Everyone knew about the tragedy of Queen Igraine's death. "Sorry."

Arthur shrugged. He knew what Merlin was apologizing for. No one ever talked about his mother around him. "Sorry for yours, too." Both boys sat there in silence for a few moments before Arthur smirked. "You want to meet Killy?"

"Killy?"

"Yeah." He got down from the window seat. "Come on." After he waited for Merlin to get off the seat, he grinned and darted off down the corridor, leaving Merlin no choice but to laugh and run after the other boy.

Merlin followed Arthur down the corridor as they both laughed. He caught up to the prince, his legs just a bit longer than the blond's, and they both ran next to each other, grinning. As they neared the turn-off for Merlin's corridor, the prince slowed down and motioned, "This way."

They both turned and suddenly the prince came to a screeching halt in front of the fat, old goose statue that was only a few doors down from Merlin's apartment. "This is Killy," he said breathlessly, patting the head of the statue fondly. "Father named him that when he was our age."

"The king named him Killy?" Merlin tried to wrap his head around the idea that the king had ever been their age and that he'd been able to think of silly names. The king seemed so serious and, well, grim at all times. The two times he'd been near the king he'd been terrified out of his wits that he'd do something horrible and be put in the dungeon until he was old and wrinkled like his Great-Uncle Gaius. Merlin had mostly spent those, thankfully, short visits keeping his eyes down, his mouth shut, and trying to remember to bow when he was supposed to.

"Yep." Arthur grinned. "My grandfather called him Kilgharrah, but Father didn't like that, so he's always called him Killy."

"Wow."

"I asked Father if we could have him moved closer to the Royal Chambers, but he won't let Killy be moved. He said Killy has been in this spot for hundreds of years and he's a good guardian who is right where he needs to be." Arthur frowned. "Did you have a name for him?"

Merlin nodded. "I was just calling him 'Gus', but I like Killy better." He turned to the goose statue. "It's nice to meet you, Killy."

Arthur smiled. "Come on. There are a ton of old statues in the palace. We can name them all."

"Wait. If we're going to name them all, then we're going to need to have some paper to label them or we'll just get confused. That's where we live. We can get some paper or sticky notes from mum's desk." Merlin led the prince toward his apartment.

"The housekeeper will get really angry if we put sticky notes on the statues." Arthur shook his head.

"It'll just be until we memorize what we've decided to call them all. Then we can take them off." Merlin waved his hand. "Besides, we can just put them behind their legs or something so no one else knows they're there but us."

"Hmm. Good idea. Hey, what have you been calling that really fat monk by the doors to the conservatory?"

Both boys were too busy discussing some of the statues and possible names for them to notice the head of the goose statue turn to follow them as they walked together and nod as if in satisfaction.

This is my entry for the Where's Killy Fest on AO3.

Merlin belongs to Shine and the BBC.