Always Be With You - Merthur

Chapter 15

Arthur pov.

The next morning, they left at first light, Merlin hadn't been kidding with that. The sunlight only just reached over the horizon, letting one small stripe of light through when Arthur suddenly felt the covers being pulled off him followed by a the sound of his curtains being drawn and the very awake voice of his best friend, "Rise and shine!" Arthur decided to listen this time, seeing the circumstances of today, ignored Merlin's gasp of surprise and tiny victory cheer while he changed.

They left pretty quickly after that, Merlin already had the horses ready when Arthur came into the stables after him. His horse, a light brown one, seemed to notice there was a new mission and whinnied excitedly while Merlin's horse who was a dark chocolate colour stood there like a tired mother, patiently waiting for Merlin to untie her and go for a ride.

Arthur waited as Merlin undid the reins carefully and led both horses outside, wrapping his new cloak around himself. they were lucky, today it had decided not to rain, so that would shorten the time to get there. But rain could also come in handy once they would have to sneak inside.

"Your horse isn't really feeling like it, is she?" Arthur pointed out, grinning. "Really? Yours looks like an overexcited child." He patted his horse on the saddle and got on. Arthur followed his suit, swinging his leg over to the other side and putting his feet in the stirrup iron."Let's see who's faster, then." He said. "Gladly." Merlin flashed Arthur one of his incredibly charming smiles and rode off full spead. "hey! I didn't say now!" Arthur called after him. He took the reins, laughing and quickly followed after him.

He caught up with Merlin when he Skitted to a halt at a fork in his path what he seemed to think was a decent finishing line. He looked around at Arthur and without saying a word called him out for being slow.

Arthur noticed that Merlin did that quite often, telling him something without using words or anything, but he could always see what he meant. It was mostly silently scolding him for doing something he thought was stupid, but one time, in the Throne room when Uther was speaking to him and Morgana, Arthur had quickly glanced around at Merlin and saw him holding an entire conversation with Guinevere using facial expressions only. It had been quite comical before his father ordered him to listen when he spoke.

He gave Merlin a tight lipped smile, and rode on. "You are a sore loser, oh king to be." Merlin said, obviously grinning at his back. Arthur looked at him over his shoulder. "Come on, we need to be there before sundown or that thing will wake up." He saw Merlin's face fall slightly in dissappointment because Arthur had decided to be boring, but he shrugged and picked up his pace, willing his horse to go in a steady pace next to him.

He was a bit worried for Merlin and didn't truly understand why he was so at ease when there was a... Problem. But wasn't there always a problem? It was almost every week that there was something wrong, Arthur felt bad for Merlin for having to keep up with him and getting in trouble when he didn't listen to Merlin's warnings. Merlin seemed to have an exellent instinct for danger, but of course Arthur never bothered to listen because he, on the other hand definitely did not have that. At all.

Maybe he should listen to him more...

They continued on, occasionally passing tiny purple flowers that grew everywhere between the trees, giving the forest a calm atmosphere. The sound of running water in the distance indictated that there was a river somewhere nearby. Almost every tree lost all of their leaves, the brown bark remaining.

It was still very chilly when they neared noon and reached the Camelot border. "We need to be careful here." Arthur muttered, slowing his horse so it wouldn't make too much noise. Next to him, Merlin snorted. "Thank you for filling me in, I'm sure we would have perished if you wouldn't have. Crisis averted." Arthur looked up and shot him a glare, which was returned with a 'say something, I dare you' face.