A/N: Right! I have decided to take a break from NaNoWriMo and write this thing that has been mulling around in my brain for a long time now! Basically, no slash. Apart from that, no idea where it will go!

Hope you enjoy and please review!

A strange wind blows through Camelot, leaving its residents restless, tired and bleary eyed, and irritable. In Arthur's case, more irritable than usual, Merlin thinks, before he opens his eyes. He wakes in time now, being used to the routine of the day. Rise, before dawn has truly touched his window, have breakfast with Gaius, fetch the prince's breakfast in the kitchens and then go wake him, help him dress and do whatever tedious chores he is ordered to do. He yawns, eyes still closed. He has a little trouble waking up today. He stretches his legs, wiggles his toes, lifts his arms over his head and kneads his fingers into the pillow that feels so much softer than usual. He can't remember the last time he was so comfortable. Or the last time his sheets felt so soft. Maybe five more minutes. Just five more and then... he sighs. That is exactly what used to get him into trouble, so Merlin reluctantly opens one eye while knuckling the other and finally opening that one too. He swings his legs over the bed, patting his feet around the cold ground looking for the pile of clothes he left there before he fell into bed the night before and doesn't find them.

'Odd,' he thinks and he shuffles down the bed a little while yawning widely, thinking that maybe, he is farther up his bed then he thought or maybe he dumped them further down than he remembered or-

'Ow!' Merlin's face collides painfully with something hard and wooden. Who? What? Why is there a pole at the end of his bed? Rubbing his face where the pillar had attempted to make an imprint, Merlin stands and shuffles toward his window. There isn't exactly a lot of light with the sun barely above the horizon but at least it will bring some clarity to the peculiarity of it all. There follows another loud noise however, with Merlin seeing all sorts of colors red while hopping around on one foot and clutching the other. There is something between the bed and the window that most definitely wasn't present the evening before. When the pain in his toes subsides enough to let go of them, Merlin shuffles forward on his bare feet, carefully exploring the dark and now oppressing air for more unexpected obstacles with flailing arms. But there are none. He fumbles with the lock on the shutters, not finding it where it should be and not twisting the way it should do and eventually he manages to open them and a fair amount of grey light spills into the room. But Merlin's jaw slackens at what he sees, when it is not what he is expecting to see. Instead of looking upon the small courtyard with the opposing wall too close to ever allow really fresh air into his room Merlin stares over the castle grounds and the already wakening servants fetching water to freshen themselves up before tending to their masters. The view is familiar and even though it still takes too long for Merlin to understand where he is because of the sheer impossibility of it, he realizes it fairly quickly.

He is in Arthur's room.

Merlin rubs his eyes, pressing his fingers into his sockets for good measure, to establish he is really awake. Red and black swirls dance against his eyelids but when he lifts them again the same view stares him in the face. For one dreadful moment he believes he must have sleepwalked his way here and crawled into bed with his master so he turns agonizingly slowly, as if that would make all the difference in the world, as if turning quickly would make the truth more embarrassing. But the bed is empty. The room is empty. There is no Arthur. In fact, the room is entirely the way he left it when he had bid the prince goodnight. Even the goblet of water by the bed stands where he left it, still full to the brim. Which is strange, because Arthur always wakes up thirsty in the middle of the night and drinks- .

Coming to think of it, Merlin is feeling particularly parched himself and surely it wouldn't hurt to drink, just a little, from the golden-. He is already moving toward it when he stares at his own feet, dumbfounded. Only, they aren't his own feet. Because his own feet, well - aren't huge. And for the first time that morning, Merlin moves frantically as if an awareness is starting to sink down on him but he doesn't quite know what it is yet. He palms at the shirt covering his chest and sniffs it before jerking his face away from it when he realizes exactly what he is doing.

'Oh Lord it is Arthur's shirt,' he mumbles before staring at callused hands that he knows so well but aren't his own. Hands callused with sword fighting, with handling spears and shields. Callused hands that now pull at the hair on his own head while screwing up his eyes and face to see it. But is too dark in the room and the hair is too short to really get a good look. Not that he needs to because he has already seen the fine golden hairs covering arms that aren't his either. He rushes to the table none the less and grabs the silver plate causing the fruit upon it to tumble down onto the wooden surface. When an apple rolls all the way toward the door only to be stopped by its unbudging nature, Merlin is staring at the face staring back at him in the platter. The eyes are too blue and the nose is too straight and the top lip is too thin and the hair. It is too blond. He is Merlin. But he looks like Arthur.

Arthur.

The plate lands heavily on the table and vibrates through the impact spinning around a dozen times before coming to a rest but by then Merlin is already out of the door and running, running down the stairs not caring he is running on bare feet and not caring he is running in a night shirt.

He has to find Arthur before the prince wakes up.