A/N: AU where things happen in a different order and change more than you'd think.
. . . . .
The boy is obviously scared of him. Arthur knows that as soon as he sees him. He hides it well, but the boy is absolutely terrified.
Which makes it all the more shocking when he quite politely tells Arthur to stop throwing knives at the servant.
Arthur pushes back, metaphorically speaking, a mocking edge to his voice as he asks, "Don't you know who I am?" He doesn't push as hard as he could though, because it feels wrong. Not just the muddled, frustrated sensation of wrong he got from his father's latest order that he was trying to work out by throwing the knives in the first place, but a gut deep sense that he wants to be the kind of king someday who stops that sort of wrenching terror in the boy's eyes, not the kind that makes it worse.
"A knight. That doesn't give you the right to hurt your own servants, though."
He's angry and he doesn't like the way his insides twist at the boy's words, so he reveals his identity with a little too much relish.
The boy looks like he's about to throw up.
He still doesn't back down though.
Arthur feels trapped. He can't back down, and he refuses to steamroll forward, and Sir Leon's coming over to see why training had stopped.
"Help him clean this mess up if you object to it so much," he snaps, gesturing to the target and the knives and catches himself wishing there were servants that could come along and clean up the rest of the mess too - the Druids that he didn't really want to hunt no matter what his father said, the loneliness that the laughing jackals behind him only made worse, this constant sensation that he was failing at something essential.
The boy's eyes light up, and he rushes to do as he was told, and there is far too much relief in the set of his shoulders.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, a voice inside him whispers. This is all wrong. What does he look like to an outsider if this is the reaction he inspires?
He doesn't want to know.
. . . . .
He's in the street when he sees the boy again and hears him introducing himself to a girl as Merlin.
There's something about that name that strikes him. Something about the boy that makes the idea of him being afraid laughable, and of him being afraid of Arthur sickening.
Something.
He calls out to him because he wants to understand, not to start something, but the yapping dogs of knights at his back are already cackling in anticipation of their idea of fun, and the hunted look on Merlin's face makes him inexplicably angry.
The insults aren't fair, and he knows it, but Merlin just takes it, and, as soon as he can, he slips away.
It surprises Arthur when he's swallowed his shame enough to consider it. What cowed the boy today that he wouldn't stand up for himself as he did yesterday, despite his terror?
Except it hadn't been for himself yesterday, had it? It had been for someone else.
He throws himself into the sparring match even harder when he thinks about the kind of courage that must have taken, abruptly furious with the knights looking forward to carrying out his father's orders, with their fawning attention to him, with the pride they take in this pageantry, with everything.
. . . . .
The boy - no, Merlin, the boy was Merlin, why did the name not quite fit? - saves his life.
