Merlin's magic (Oneshots) 1

about loyalty

It began how many stories begin.
With a feast. Not that there was a special occasion for it or anything. It was just a gathering of royal families with their soon to be knights sons and their wealthy daughters and so on and so forth.

Women in fancy dresses were talking to boys in overly cleaned armor, while their personal servants hushed around. Just doing their purpose.
The wealthy tried to seduce each other, why the servants went for their duties. It was such a common occurrence, the working class was nearly invisible to the rest.

It was then, that Arthur sat between old friends of his father (who had recently deceased) who kept giving him their condolences. Boot lickers – all of them, Arthur decided in his head, but kept smiling.
His faked smiled turned real, when he saw his servant approaching.
"I'm afraid, Sire, I must inform you that Sir Gwaine has broken one of the tables in the kitchen.
Bread is out for now, my lord."
Arthur's smile fell again. He barely noticed how the women next to him raised a suspicious eyebrow.

"But – Merlin, we need bread! "We cannot serve just meat.", Arthur was irritated, but Merlin just sighed with a grin.
"Well – I'm sure your belt won't mind." The man to Arthur's right spit out his drink.

"Are you calling me fat, Merlin?"
"What? No, I would never. Just saying it wouldn't hurt you to eat a little less."
With that he bowed and left, while Arthur threw an apple after him. Merlin chuckled and dodged, as he left the room. Trying to help with whatever mess was happening in the kitchen.

"You let your servant talk to you like that?", one of the laughing royals spoke to him.
Arthur shrunk in his seat. Merlin was his friend, surely. But how could he ever admit that to his father's old friends?

"If he was my servant, I'd have him whipped in the dungeons. I strongly advice you to speak some manners into him.", Lady Valery said. She had long brown hair that flowed down her back in waves. Not unlike Gwen's.
Arthur remembered how his father had tried to get them together, when they were younger. Despite the age difference of almost five years (she was older).
Today she had a son at the age of three. He was playing with other children his age somewhere in the courtyard. They played a game called execution. (They were burning sorcerers.)

"Well – Merlin is -", Arthur searched for the right words. "Special.", he said, but Lady Valery only sighed. Her husband, Sir Bernard shook his head in disapproval.
"He is a servant, nothing more. See? Thomas!", he said with a serious face, as a small boy, no older than 17 faced him with fear in his eyes.
"Dance.", he said in a commanding tone. The servant's eyes widened, but not in surprise, but shame and fear. His eyes searched for Arthur's, then he began dancing.
It was only now that Arthur noticed the boy was limping on one foot.

As a result of that, the boy was stumbling on his feet, almost falling over with each step.
"Faster.", Sir Bernard demanded, clapping to give the boy a tact to dance to.

Arthur shoved his chair back, as he stood up momentarily. "Stop this, right now!", he demanded at Sir Bernard. Who didn't look impressed, but disappointed.
"I should have known. Your father has shown you far too much kindness to you. Thomas, back to work."
The boy bowed, seemingly glad Arthur had stopped his misery, as he stumbled back to serve vine to the royals.

"He was limping!", Arthur said, his entire demeanor full of shock.

Sir Bernard scratched his reddish beard as he noticed too.
"Oh, yes. You are right. I guess we'll have to replace him soon.", he nodded, leaving Arthur breathless.

"Oh, I know. Let's play the game we used to play with Uther when we were younger!", Lady Valery suddenly clapped her hands. And for a second, Arthur felt relieved enough to sit down again.