I don't own Merlin. Sort of a companion one-shot to the Prat. Arthur's perspective.

He wasn't really thinking at the time. Okay, so he attacked the Idiot with a mace, but he was the Prince. And the Idiot had called him a Prat. So he certainly wasn't thinking "Someday I'll find it amusing to be insulted by this peasant Idiot, he will save my life, and I will take advice on wooing from him." That would have been utterly absurd. There seemed to be even less of a chance that someday he'd realize the Idiot wasn't really an Idiot (although the name would always remain) and count him among his most trusted advisers. At the time, had he thought that, he would have doubted his own intelligence. Sitting next to the Idiot now, going over battle plans for the war against Morgana, the woman he once cared for as a sister, He was now thinking. He was thinking that destiny's a fickle wench. He was battling the woman he called sister and taking advice from the Idiot, who happened to be his best friend. A fickle wench indeed...