Like a Phoenix

9: here comes this rising tide

When Merlin woke up, it was nearly evening. He couldn't believe he'd missed so much of the day— what was Arthur going to say? This time he really had spent his missing hours in the tavern. On one hand, he wanted to kill Gwaine for letting him get this drunk and wasting half the day away; on the other, he was very grateful to him. Without Gwaine's meddling, Elyan never would have forgiven him.

And he was pretty sure Elyan had.

Merlin freshened himself up as much as he could considering his growing wooziness and his rush to make up for his lost hours. He exited his chambers, intending to find Arthur and clue him in to exactly why he'd— oh gods, Merlin had a vague memory of Arthur putting him to bed, and frankly he wouldn't mind if he dropped dead right now.

But... wait. No sooner had he stepped out of his chambers did he realize he was in front of Arthur's. No, that couldn't be right. He couldn't have teleported without knowing it, right? His magic didn't work like that. It needed intent.

Well, it usually needed intent. Lately it'd been doing whatever the hell it saw fit, like making dragons and growing flowers. And...

And moving doors around.

Merlin checked the door right next to Arthur's and, surprise surprise, it was Merlin's room. His chambers had magically shifted again. He hadn't been sure the first time, but now he vaguely remembered telling Gwaine that he had no idea where his room was. At first he'd have sworn Arthur gave him the last one at the end of the corridor, and then it had moved a few doors down the next day— he'd thought maybe his memory of the night before was mistaken at the time, but now he realized he shouldn't have dismissed it. This was his magic's doing.

Which meant something was wrong.

He sighed and closed his eyes, holding out a hand to move everything back in their original place. When he was finished, he checked the rooms again. It was like he'd never performed a spell at all. But how could that be? He had the intent. Was his magic not working?

Merlin opened up his hand and conjured a ball of fire. Nope, that seemed to be working fine. What had Gaius said, when he was still learning to control his powers? Saying spells helped to direct his energy into completing particular tasks. Okay, so all he needed was a spell to move things around, Preferably before Arthur saw this. There was no way Arthur knew that this was going on, or he definitely would have called Merlin a pervert by now. He just needed to grab his book and then see Gaius and boom. He'd fix the problem. He could do that, right?

***

Alright, so, he couldn't do that. He tried, but Gaius didn't have anything for him. (Seriously? In all your years, in that huge book, there isn't a single spell for when your magic is playing Musical Doors?)

Gaius had made him do a bunch of tests that all pretty much indicated nothing was wrong with his magic. Then Gaius performed a physician's test to determine whether sickness had anything to do with it (he was still feeling woozy, after all, but this was to be suspected after getting drunk first thing in the morning). Apparently he was fit as a fiddle, and unfortunately he was running out of time to fix this before Arthur came back from wherever he was. Gaius had said something about Arthur going into town to see how the people were doing for himself.

Merlin smiled. He knew Arthur used to make his rounds as the Crown Prince, but the King was never expected to go into Lower Town without very good reason. Merlin felt a rush of pride swell for him.

The only problem, Merlin thought as he climbed the stairs to his and Arthur's chambers, was that Gaius said he'd been gone for a while. Which, judging by the amount of times Merlin had accompanied Arthur on these visits, meant he would be walking up these very steps any minute now.