Movements of Fire and Shadow

by Soledad

Disclaimer: Arthur, Merlin and the other characters belong to the BBC. I'm just borrowing them to have some fun.

Rating: General, suitable for all

Genre: Mystery, perhaps a pinch of angst.

Series/sequel: none. Tag to a slightly AU Ep. 1.13.

Summary: After his near-death experience in "La Morte d'Arthur", Arthur begins to remember. This, however, is not without consequences either for him or for Merlin – or for their unique bond.

Author's note: At the time of writing this story, I haven't seen anything beyond Ep. 1.13 yet. Spoilers I found on the Internet hint at a different relationship between the two main characters, but frankly, I don't care. Hereby, I label this story an AU and intend to enjoy my creative freedom. The few lines quoted from the episode are in italics. They belong to Julian Jones, who wrote this particular episode. No copyright infringment intended and no pofit made.

Also, I tried to bind the episode's events a little tighter to the original legend (or the version of it that I happen to know). Hence the slightly AU elements. The basics remain the same, though, as I was mostly interested in the things that went on in Arthur's head.

Beta read by the Wild Iris, thanks. :)

Part 01

Whenever Arthur Pendragon closes his eyes since that fateful encounter with the Questing Beast, all he ever dreams of are fire and darkness.

He's never known before that so many kinds of darkness could exist. Or so many kinds of fire, for that matter.

The darkness of the forest at night, filled with animal noises and the calls of night birds. Twigs snapping under the feet of some or other clumsy knight as they follow him in full armour, holding their swords or crossbows. 'Tis quite foolish to go hunting with swords (not to mention wearing their long, billowing red cloaks, which would seem even sillier) but they are there to protect their Prince, first and foremost.

Arthur is the only one without a cloak. He holds a short, sturdy hunting spear in his hand, in case they run into an agitated wild boar. Merlin, pale like a ghost and as thin as a twig, carries the crossbow for him. Merlin whole-heartedly hates the hunt, but he cannot avoid it when Arthur orders him to attend. And Arthur never goes out into the wilderness without Merlin these days – as if his manservant were his good luck charm, no matter what happens, to keep him safe.

The Moon stands high above their heads, casting a cold, white light just before their feet when they first hear that great noise right ahead of them. It's a loud barking, like thirty couple hounds questing – which freezes their blood, as they have no hounds with them this time.

At first they fear the hunters of a neighbouring realm have forayed into Camelot's forests. Based on the noise, they count on a large hunting party, at least thrice as many as their own numbers – that would mean a nasty confrontation. Yet when the Beast appears, they all wish it were a rival party… for the creature is truly fearsome to look at.

It's something that should not exist, not even in one's nightmares. Its giant, scaled body is spotted like that of a leopard; it has the head and the long, sinuous neck of a serpent, the haunches of a lion and the feet of a hart. One would think it would be clumsy and awkward, due to its mismatched body parts, yet it's not. It's as fast as lightning and twice as deadly, as poor Sir Bedivere's extremely sudden demise shows. A forked tongue slips out of its maw hungrily, and its yellow eyes glint with a cold, otherworldly fire.

All thoughts of the hunt are instantly forgotten. Prince and knights run for their lives. Yet for some reason the monster seems to have fixed on Merlin, of all people, who falls over while running from it and is nearly bitten. Arthur has to haul the boy to his feet and drag him away from that deadly peril.

Which still doesn't explain why he keeps seeing Merlin in his dreams afterwards; and why in those dreams Merlin's eyes are glowing like molten gold.

Almost like those of the beast. Just with a warmer, more mellow light.

His memories of tracking the Beast with only Merlin at his side are understandably blurred. All he knows is that they were suddenly cornered by the creature at a cave, and it went straight after Merlin again. Arthur remembers stepping in to save the terrified boy – it is his duty to protect the weak, after all, and even if it weren't, he could never leave behind someone so fragile, so… precious to the questionable mercy of a mythical monster.

He tries not to think about why he should consider Merlin precious. That's a word he would never use where his manservant is concerned – not within anyone's earshot, at least. Merlin is clumsy, obnoxious, and largely useless and completely lacks any understanding about proper behaviour towards his master, and Arthur makes very sure that everybody knows that.

So why would he, the Crown Prince of Camelot, whose life is worth infinitely more than any serving boy's, put said life at risk just to save a servant so useless? Yet he has done so, repeatedly, and knows he would do so again without a second thought. He has faced death in the caves of Balor to save Merlin's life; he has drunk poison for him in the Labyrinth of Gedref and has taken the bite of the Questing Beast in his stead.

Somehow he doesn't think all this would truly fall into the category of protecting the weak. His father certainly doesn't. And yet Arthur knows he could not act in any other way.

Even though he sometimes does ask himself whether Merlin is truly as helpless as he pretends to be. Why should Merlin always be associated with fire in Arthur's dreams? With fire and sharp swords and stormy winds? With weapons that move on their own while Merlin watches them with the glowing golden eyes of a falcon – the falcon after which he's been named?

Arthur feels restless, and the absence of Merlin is not helping. He has too many questions he needs to ask, and there is no-one who can answer them. Marlin has not returned since that strange visit of his that made absolutely no sense, no matter how much Arthur ponders over the words that have been said – and even more over the ones that have not.

Merlin must have had a reason for that weird visit. He is an idiot, for sure, but his madness has a system, and behind the words that have been spoken Arthur can see no system at all. Perhaps it is a hidden meaning behind the unspoken words, he muses, trying to remember what it was exactly that Merlin said to him.

Promise me this. If you get another servant, don't get a bootlicker.

At that time, he thought he understood.

If this is you trying to leave your job…

But he apparently didn't, for Merlin interrupted him and didn't even seem upset with him – which was a rare thing to begin with.

No. I'm happy to be your servant. Till the day I die.

Now Arthur isn't so sure anymore that he understood… that he has ever understood Merlin.

Sometimes I think I know you, Merlin. Other times…

Now he realises that Merlin has always been an enigma to him – from their very first encounter in the marketplace of Camelot, nearly a year ago.

Arthur has always disliked things he can't understand. He isn't quite as obsessed with riddles as his father is with magic – at least he hopes he isn't and that he never will be – but when he runs into one, he's like a dog with a bone… he just cannot leave it lie. And since he is well enough already to walk on his own but still too weak to do anything actually useful, he decides to go and look for some answers.

Gaius' chambers are the logical first place to look both for answers and for his errant manservant. Besides, he owes the old man proper thanks for saving his life… again. And it isn't as if he would be a stranger in those chambers. As a child, he spent long hours in there, learning from Gaius his letters and numbers and his Latin and whatever his father thought would be useful for the future King to learn.

Back then, it never seemed strange to him that his deeply suspicious father would put such unconditional trust in a simple old man of common birth, but now he wonders. Uther Pendragon doesn't have friends – he has told his son expressly that kings don't need friends. A King has subjects and allies… that is all he needs.

Nor has his father ever shown any particular kindness towards Gaius, as far as Arthur can tell. Yes, Uther listens to Gaius' opinion, even asks for the old man's advice from time to time… only to ignore it in most cases and act as he sees right, even if he must know he's being wrong. Especially if he must know he's being wrong.

Now Arthur asks himself if that is how things will be between him and Merlin, once he becomes King. He hopes it won't. Because for all that he calls Merlin useless and an idiot all the time (and let's face it, with good reason), he feels that without that unnamed, unexplored trust between them he would be lost. As lost as his father is, in the solitude of his empty chambers, with only duty and hatred towards magic filling his empty heart.

All right, perhaps the love for his son, too, Arthur admits grudgingly. While he was semi-conscious and burning out with fever from the poisonous bite of the Questing Beast, he could hear his father talk to him and weep over him nonetheless. And yet his father couldn't trust with his sorrow anyone, not even Gaius. That would have been weakness, and weakness is something a King cannot admit.

Arthur shakes his head in regret and opens the door without knocking. His eyes sweep across Gaius' large workroom that looks every bit the same as always. There is the long working table in the middle, where the old man prepares his tinctures and rolls his pills, half-covered with various sizes of bottles, filled with tinctures, standing next to the skull of some indefinite beast. There is the small desk near the arched window, with the inkwell and pens and pieces of parchment for making notes. There is the bench on the opposite wall, with dried herbs and other remedies heaped upon it. There's the pallet bed where patients sometimes lie, now rumpled and empty. The gallery, running around the entire room, with hundreds of books on the shelves – the root and source of Gaius' wisdom and the miracles he sometimes works – and a long ladder with the help of which to reach them.

Everything is as it ought to be, as it has always been, during Arthur's entire life. There is even a book of herbal lore, written by a fine, bold hand and illustrated with beautiful pen-and-ink drawings, left open on the corner of the small desk. But the fire has long burned out in the hearth, and Gaius is nowhere to be seen.

Arthur frowns and becomes a little worried, for it is not like Gaius to leave his work unfinished – as a cooled-down bowl of some medicinal brew on the working table indicates – or his books lying around. They are precious and hard to come by. The inkwell has been left open, too, the pen thrown carelessly onto the desk, without being wiped clean. That is something Arthur has never seen from Gaius before.

What happened here? If Gaius has been called away unexpectedly, why hasn't Merlin cleaned up after him? Merlin always cleans up after Gaius, cheerfully neglecting his duties in the Prince's chambers if he has to, just to help the old man, doesn't he?

Without even realising what he's doing, Arthur stoppers the inkwell before it can be overturned by accident and ruin Gaius' precious herbal book. Then he looks around for some used parchment or a rag to wipe the pen clean.

What he finds is a crumpled slip of parchment, thrown under the desk as if in a great hurry. Picking it up, he sees letters, written in Gaius' familiar black ink, and smoothes it out, curiously.

What he reads there makes his head spin. He reads it twice, and again a third time, as his world crumbles to pieces around him. His hands are shaking so violently that the letters seem to run into an intricate, unreadable pattern before his shocked eyes.

Dear Merlin, he reads, my life is already near to its end. There has, for the most part, been very little purpose to it. Very little that will be remembered. In contrast, Merlin, your life is destined for greatness. Live by the tenets I have taught you, and I believe you will, in time, become the greatest warlock ever. To have known you has been my greatest pleasure, and to sacrifice myself for you is but an honour. You are, and always will be, the son I never had. Gaius.

The greatest warlock ever. Merlin. Merlin, the idiot country boy who can never do anything right and who is too stupid to even fear his master properly. A sorcerer. Not just a sorcerer, but predestined to be the greatest warlock ever.

Arthur crumples the letter again and slumps into Gaius' old armchair, trying to come to terms with the incredible truth he'd just found out so unexpectedly and without warning. Like the pieces of a kaleidoscope, seemingly strange images from the previous year resurface in his memory, gaining a new, somewhat ominous meaning.

The murderous visage of the Lady Helen, the cold, deadly glint of her knife, aimed at Arthur's heart. Her turning into an ugly old hag as the chandelier conveniently falls onto her and kills her.

The snakes coming alive on Knight Valiant's shield and Merlin watching their rising with the golden eyes of a… a sorcerer, apparently.

Merlin, standing behind him down in the vault, facing the Afanc with him… and suddenly, his torch bursting forth a powerful flame that engulfs the Afanc and destroys it.

The mysterious ball of light, guiding him out of the spider-infested caves in the Forest of Balor, calling to him in Merlin's voice.

Lancelot, slaying the griffin with a lance that should have bounced back from the beast's impenetrable skin… if not for Merlin, apparently.

Merlin, wielding the enchanted staff of Aulfric and killing the mysterious old man with the magical fire emanating from the end of the staff. Arthur was floating under the surface of the Faerie Lake at that time and had never remembered those events – until now.

Merlin, standing in a cavernous underground hall, speaking to a huge, scaled creature that could only be a dragon, strange as it might sound – and the dragon breathing fire, burnishing the sword in Merlin's hand. Arthur is quite sure that he never witnessed that particular scene and cannot understand how can he "remember" it now. But he is fairly sure the sword is the same one with which his father defeated the Black Knight.

The sword that has been missing ever since. Arthur briefly wonders where it might be now.

Merlin, standing behind the modest defences of Ealdor, watching the rising storm with golden eyes and an outstretched hand… the storm, Arthur understands now, he has raised himself to protect his mother's home. And Will, his friend, lying with his dying breath to protect him in exchange.

Merlin in the underground cavern, facing the dragon again – a very angry dragon, it seems, who is engulfing him in fire; but Merlin raises his magical shields against the dragonfire… and survives.

Arthur is certain this is not a scene he has witnessed with his own eyes, either, but he also knows with a certainty he cannot explain that it happened as he sees it now. He wonders briefly how it is possible and where the dragon might dwell and what kind of connection there might be between Merlin and the huge beast… and which one of them truly slew the Questing Beast.

Before everything else, though, he wonders what he is supposed to do about Merlin.

Not about Merlin, his clumsy and generally useless and naturally annoying manservant, but about Merlin, the sorcerer, destined to become the greatest warlock ever. Merlin, the idiot, who dared to practise magic in Camelot itself, practically under the nose of Uther Pendragon, self-proclaimed hand of vengeance against everything even vaguely magical. Merlin, who's saved his life uncounted times, and whose life he has saved repeatedly in return.

He hears voices from the small, adjoining room that he knows as Merlin's and recognises as Gwen's. That makes him leave Gaius' chambers as quickly and quietly as possible. He will deal with Gwen and the possible reasons for her presence later. Right now, he has some thinking to do.

~TBC~

After some re-editing, I decided to post the remaining two chapters, too. Enjoy!