In the weeks that followed Arthur began his preparations to lift the ban on magic in Camelot, whilst a few of the older members of the royal court did not like the idea and tried to persuade the king otherwise. It was to no avail, as he had the support of his Queen, Physician, and Sirs Leon and Percival, all of whom were the most respected members of the court and as such many other members, especially the younger ones, quickly agreed to the king's proposal, believing that magic was not pure evil.
The new law would treat magic as innocent as a freshly crafted sword. Reasons of arrest and trials would be as a result of foul use of magic for means of stealing, harming, killing etc. Punishment world be regulated accordingly by the residing judge and treated no differently than that of a non-magical offence. The past weeks were spent looking into the fine details of the law making sure it was fair and just, in two days time it would be officially announced to the kingdom of Camelot.
Whilst the many meetings took place everyday for hours upon hours. Merlin found himself alone more and more, he would occasionally stay and listen to the meetings but there was no real need to, he trusted Arthur and his decisions as a king. The nightmares still happened every single night, it was always the same windowless room lit on fire and every time he would be faced by a hooded figure before being burnt alive. The boy was lucky if he got an hour of sleep before the nightmare started playing and he would wake up screaming or shaking and soaked in his own sweat and tears. Not to mention the fact that he would awaken to earthquakes or fires caused by his magic as well as levitating objects. On a few occasions Gaius had ran into Merlin's chambers upon hearing the screams and would cradle the boy until he stopped shaking. He would always ask what was wrong to which the warlock would just insist it was a nightmare that he couldn't remember. The physician would always raise his eyebrow but eventually let it go, understanding the boy didn't want to talk about it.
As for the pain in his chest? It had grown worse: the periods of sharp pains had grown less frequent but now lasted longer, his last severe pain was two days ago, but it had lasted 2 hours - the longest one yet. Of course he was always in constant state of agony (enough to make a regular man cripple) which exhausted even more than his sleepless nights. With Arthur and all his friends in the council chambers most days it had been easy enough to hide, only on a few occasions had he had a near close encounter. But with the lift on the magic man soon to be revealed, Merlin would be back to spending more time with his King and most likely providing counsel to his friends about magic, so he needed to figure out a way to hide his pain.
With all his new found time, both from not sleeping and relaxed duties, Merlin found himself reading many of Gaius' books learning more about magic, the human anatomy and scientific methods of curing ills, he did so whilst also trying to find out about the mark on his chest which had grown to double its original size, but to no avail. The raven had also become a much better at doing Arthur's chores, so much so he could probably rival even George. Not that the king had noticed. Merlin was always on time if not slightly early in the morning, with amazing breakfasts for both him and Gwen, his armour had never been so clean, his clothes never dirty and his chamber - spotless.
Merlin was looking out through the window down onto the courtyard from Arthur's chambers, waiting for the royal court meeting to adjourn for the day, he had already prepared Arthur's diner. As the boy stared aimlessly, he saw his reflection in the glass: his face was as white as snow - and not the pretty kind, no - it was a sickly sort of death bed pale, his lips were dry and his eyes had deep, dark, sunken bags underneath, whilst the rim of his eyelids were a reddish pink, safe to say he looked awful.
What didn't help was that two days ago the boy stopped sleeping altogether, after his dream from the previous night where three hooded figures now emerged instead of just one and they had ventured even closer to him than before.
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The Aftermath (Merlin)
Fanfiction*Sequel Out now* Kilgharrah may have told Merlin that nothing he could do would save the Once and Future King, but that doesn't mean he was right. The warlock takes things into his own hands when he revives Arthur at Avalon, but there are consequenc...
