Merlin had been avoiding Uther at all costs, terrified of what might occur if Uther had time to think of his decision to leave Merlin's head on his shoulders.

Fortunately the two were only really in the same room together during council meetings while Merlin attended Arthur, and Uther had been steadfastly ignoring Merlin as well, looking past him as though he was not there, like usual.

Merlin had yet to tell Gaius that Uther knew, afraid of what Uther might do to Gaius if he knew he knew or what Gaius might do to him if he found out Uther knew.

Of course, for the last several days Merlin had been particularly preoccupied with essentially saying, "To hell with destiny", and planning to run away with his new love, Freya. The decision was made all the easier with the potential threat of Uther looming over him.

When the problem of the escaped girl had come to Uther's attention he had basically dismissed it. Honestly, Camelot faced so many magical threats a single druid girl did not seem like the kind of thing that needed to occupy a busy king's time.

Merlin could have sworn that Uther's eyes had briefly flickered to look at him as he ordered guards be sent to search for the escaped girl. Despite the fact that it could have easily been his imagination Merlin had avoided him even further, hiding out down with Freya or faking chores when Arthur needed to go somewhere Uther might potentially be.

At first everything seemed to be going well, but then people started dying.

At first Uther went about things as he would normally, got Gaius to do some research, Arthur to track down any potential threats, but as the bodies piled up he grew more and more worried.

This seemed the sort of magical disturbance that that manservant of his son's might take care of, with his, abilities.

He refused to think of the word magic.

Unfortunately the difficult part seemed to be locating him. Uther could hardly summon him. That would look far to suspicious and besides, if anyone else found out the boy had magic and the king knew, he would have to be executed on the spot. The peace must be kept at all costs.

On top of the fact that he could hardly barge into Arthur or Gauis's chambers and demand to be alone with the boy, the young sorcerer never seemed to be around. He had been strangely absent for several days.

Part of Uther was immediately suspicious. He knew magic corrupted. He had seen it so many times. It was the one fact he felt he knew about a subject he otherwise avoided entirely. Perhaps the fact he knew so little about magic was why it frightened him so.

The boy's words about how magic flowed around him all the time in all parts of world put him on edge. A small part of his mind, very small indeed and hidden under layers and layers of hate and mistrust, was comforted by this fact.

Uther may have not had any magic himself but he was still a creature of this world, and therefore a little magic touched his heart and soul. It was a kind of ticklish feeling that he mostly ignored but made him rather uncomfortable.

The other, more logical part of Uther thought that this was perhaps the boy's normal behavior when something magical attacked, that he was out dealing with it or something.

Not knowing what else to do Uther proceeded with what was normal too him, demand answers from Gaius, send Arthur out on patrol.

Like usual, things seemed to work out rather well for him. They were triumphant in the fight against magic.

The Bastet was killed by Arthur's blade.

All was right in Camelot.

It was only a few days later that the king was able to corner Merlin. He had been walking down the hall deep in thought when he nearly crashed right into the boy, his arms loaded with laundry.

Looking around to see if anyone was watching , Uther quickly pulled him into a nearby spare room.

Merlin quickly became flustered, looking for a potential exit, muttering his apologies to the king.

"Silence!" Uther bellowed, quickly shutting up a slightly trembling Merlin.

"Fist, did you have anything to do with that Bastet?"

"No, no sire. It was… the druid girl. She was cursed, sire, completely against her will. Every night she turned into that monster. She's dead now sire. Camelot is safe."

Uther noted the hint of bitterness in his voice but chose to ignore it for the time being.

"Right then. If you're going to be helping me protect my kingdom and my son with your…" He stumbled on the word but quickly continued, "…Magic, then you are to inform me exactly what's going on when it's going on. You will tell me what's threatening my kingdom and what we're going to do about it. Do you understand boy?"

"Ye – yes, sire" Merlin stumbled over the words, still in a state of shock.

"I'm taking a big risk in trusting you." Uther sighed and went to leave.

"Tha – thank you, sire"

"Oh, and there's to be peace talks here in Camelot next week. I'm sure you've heard. I'll expect nothing to interrupt them. I'm sure you understand how important they are to the future of this kingdom." Uther gave Merlin a meaningful look.

Merlin nodded slightly, feeling faint all of a sudden.

Uther nodded once and swept out of the room leaving a shocked Merlin behind.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I'll try and reply as best I can.

Guest: Thank you! I started planning my next few chapters as soon as you reviewed.

mersan123: I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'll try and do the story justice!

signal27: I've tried to make it as realistic as possible. I think a lot of people see Uther as kind of insane because he does loose it after Morgana turns on him, but honestly, before that he's actually one of the more reasonable kings in Albion, except of course on the subject of magic. Even if I don't agree with him I can definitely see where he's coming from as a man who lost his wife to magic, even if it's kind of his own fault. I mean, Nimueh was kind of sketchy. And I'm not entirely certain what Uther would have done if he found out Morgana had magic before she went evil. He does seem to value family above everything else. Anyway, rant over. I have a pretty good idea of where I want the story to go, but its always subject to change.

I hope you all like the format. i know its a little short. I didn't want to just skip a whole bunch of episodes but I also didn't think completely rewriting them all is necessary. I mean some will change more than others and where there are changes I'll elaborate but a lot of the actual episodes will be short like this one. I'll probably continue posting short-ish chapters simply so I can post more frequently.

Let me know what you all think!