Into the Forest

When Merlin had noticed the arrow flying straight for Arthur’s heart, he was absolutely certain that revealing his magic was exactly what he needed to do. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

Arthur’s face was almost as paperwhite as Merlin felt that his must be, and his eyes kept flicking back and forth between the arrow and Merlin.

“You have magic?” It wasn’t a question of whether he had it or not—no, that was obvious. It was a question of how could you betray me? I trusted you. It was a question of you, of all people? The only person who’s stuck by me all these years?

Arthur’s eyes met his, and he felt his heart shatter. There was no recognition in them, only some empty emotion that read like betrayal. Merlin felt like he couldn’t breathe, like all of the oxygen had somehow disappeared from the forest, like all of the trees had been rotting stumps of wood for centuries, and nothing had grown to replace them.

Merlin’s eyes flicked back over to the bush where the bandit had been, but he was gone. Merlin glanced at Arthur one last time—at his face that was void of emotion other than pure anger—and bolted.

In the few seconds that it took Arthur to fully process what had just happened, Merlin had found a deer trail that was just wide enough for him to escape through. He heard Arthur swear and start crashing after him, using his sword to move low-hanging tree branches out of his way, and tried to put more energy into his legs, but it wasn’t working, he couldn’t run any faster, no matter how much he tried. Arthur wasn’t just the best fighter in the kingdom—he was the fittest person by far, and no matter how long Merlin had spent on a farm as a kid, or chasing after Arthur as his manservant, he wasn’t anywhere near as fast as the prince.

He was smaller, of course, so he didn’t have to stop to push tree branches out of his way, but from what he could tell based off of the noises growing closer to him, that wasn’t slowing Arthur down at all.

He could use magic, right? There had to be a spell or enchantment to get out of this.

“Merlin, stop,” Arthur yelled, but Merlin just picked up his speed, begging for the plants to grow thicker in his wake. Based off of Arthur’s groan of annoyance, it was working. “Merlin—” Arthur repeated, but he was cut off by a thump that Merlin assumed meant he’d tripped over a root or a stick and fallen.

It took everything in him to fight the instinct to turn around and make sure that his king was okay.

That was the moment where Merlin realized that everything was going downhill—well, more so than it already had. He slid to a stop, feeling like his heart was about to slide out of his throat.

Behind him, Arthur was chasing him down with a sword. In front of him, there were half a dozen bandits. Merlin took half a step backwards, but heard a quiet snap right behind him. He spun around, and Arthur was standing there, sword out, trying to catch his breath. Then he raised his sword and shifted his weight, and Merlin spun back around, pushing the bandits out of his way with a half-formed thought and pure adrenaline.

And then they were off again, Merlin a fox and Arthur a hound. Why couldn’t Arthur give it up? How could he think that Merlin—Merlin, of all people—would betray him? He’d been by Arthur’s side for years, and had publicly saved his life at least twice by risking his own. Did that mean nothing? Was Arthur really willing to let all of those years go down the drain simply because Merlin had saved his life yet again with magic? If he wasn’t willing to look past Merlin’s magic that was—not fine, but he could live with it—but he couldn’t even just let him live? He couldn’t let him go back home to his mum, and never see him again?