Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I swear, it’s not what it looks like!” Elyan said desperately. Merlin had come into the armory to polish Arthur’s sword late in the afternoon, and found the knight there doing the same. The servant had assumed he just kept his chainmail shinier than anyone else’s because he was the son of a blacksmith, but now it seemed that it just took him a lot less work to do so than it would anyone else. The knight had looked up sharply when the door opened, his sword and whetstone crashing to the ground from where they had hung suspended in the air.

“Really?” Merlin replied teasingly, but he turned to make sure that the door closed and locked behind him. He dropped his voice too, so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Because it looks like you were using magic.” Elyan’s eyes went wider, if that was even possible.

“No, no, it was just-” he stammered, and he looked so scared that Merlin took pity on him. His own eyes flashed gold and the sword lifted back into the air along with the whetstone.

“Relax,” he said with a smile. “I’m not going to tell.”

“You have it too?” It took only a second before a smile broke through the scared expression on the knight’s face. Merlin nodded as he set the sword and stone down beside Elyan on the bench. “I don’t use it very much myself; just picked up a few things when I was traveling. I know I should have stopped when I came back to Camelot, but…”

“It’s convenient,” Merlin agreed. “I do the same thing.” He sat down beside the knight and the two of them let their magic control the whetstones as they polished the swords and armour.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Lancelot asked when Merlin came into the room. With his hand resting over Leon’s unconscious form, the echoes of a spell fresh on his lips, and his eyes glowing gold when he looked up, he had no doubt that the warlock had seen his magic.

“What is there to say?” Merlin replied, a huge smile splitting his face. “Except you should probably lock the door before using magic in Camelot.”

“Like you always do?” he retorted. “You’re starting to sound like Gaius.” Merlin made a face at him for that. “You’re not mad at me, though, for keeping it from you?” Though he knew he didn’t have much reason to, he couldn’t help but worry. It wasn’t like Lancelot had a good reason to lie to Merlin, not like the reasons the warlock had to lie to Arthur.

“Well, it’s not like we’ve had a lot of time to talk about it,” Merlin replied lightly. Clearly, he wasn’t upset by the revelation. How could he be? Lancelot was already one of his closest friends, and the discovery that he had magic would only bond them tighter together. “I mean, you were banished from Camelot right after you realized I had magic, and I understand why you didn’t say anything before that, obviously. I am curious, however, about why you didn’t use your own magic against the griffin.”

“I’m not good at that sort of magic,” Lancelot explained. “Not like you. In fact, my magic is kind of useless in battle. I have to concentrate too much to use it. There’s a reason I trained my skill with a sword instead.”

“What can you do, if not use it to fight?” That was most of what he used his own magic for. Fighting and protecting Arthur. And mischief.

“I’m mostly good at healing magic,” the knight admitted with a blush. He knew the warlock himself wasn’t at all talented at it, from experience when he’d been wounded, and it felt weird to be better at something magical than someone who was Magic.

“Yeah?” Merlin said, sounding excited. “Well, don’t be surprised if Gaius steals you more often now that we know that.”

“I’d be happy to help,” Lancelot agreed amicably.

“Help with what?” Leon asked, coming awake on the cot. Both the magic users looked at each other, terrified of how much of their conversation the other knight had heard.

“With the utter hassle of keeping you knights from getting hurt,” Lancelot teased, leaning forward to ruffle Leon’s hair. It was simply payback for the times the First Knight had done the same for him. In the few months since the new knights had come to Camelot, a strange bond had formed between the two of them.

“Us knights,” Leon corrected, reaching up from the cot to grab Lance’s arm and squeeze it comfortingly. His eyes focussed in on his own hand in apparent confusion after a minute. “I could have sworn I broke that wrist when I fell.”

“Nope, just a sprain,” Merlin quickly lied. “Not even a bad one even.”

“Huh, that’s lucky,” Leon said, sitting up. He raised his hand to his forehead. “I don’t have a headache either. Normally whenever I get knocked out, my head hurts for days.”

“Maybe you’ve got a guardian angel looking out for you,” Merlin supplied helpfully. “If you’re feeling better then, you can go rest in your own chambers for the rest of the day.” He was eager to get the knight out of the room, so he could interrogate Lancelot about the extent of his abilities. 

“Are you sure? Gaius usually keeps me a few hours after I wake up whenever I’m knocked unconscious, to make sure everything is alright.”

“And you always complain the entire time,” Merlin retorted. Honestly, why was the knight questioning it? He made no secret of the fact that he hated the smell of the physician’s rooms, so he should be glad to be allowed to leave. “I’ll come check up on you in an hour, but there’s no reason why you would need to stay here.”

“Alright then.” Leon seemed perfectly steady on his feet once Lancelot helped him stand up, and Merlin decided they didn’t need to walk him to his chambers. Gaius would be furious when he learned about it, but he figured that they could just explain that Lance had healed him already, and could do so again if he fell down on his way there and broke something. Merlin closed the door after him and immediately ran over to Lancelot and practically launched himself into the other man’s arms. He was laughing, and Lance was almost disappointed about the hug, because it meant he couldn’t see the warlock’s smile.

“Tell me everything,” Merlin demanded.

Percival came to Merlin a few months after the whole business with Morgana. The new knight had quickly become friends with the other commoner knights, and, through Lancelot and Gwaine in particular, learned to trust the prince’s manservant almost as one of them. Merlin wasn’t surprised, then, when he found the large man waiting for him in Gaius’s chambers one afternoon.

“I hate to ask,” he started, “because I know it’s treason.” That was never a good start to a sentence. “But I know Gaius is known for still having knowledge about magic and I was hoping he had a spell or something to hide or suppress it.”

“What would you need it for?” Merlin asked, sitting down on another bench facing Percival. The large knight winced.

“Promise you won’t tell anyone? Especially Arthur?” he asked, and the servant nodded instantly. “I have visions, sometimes. About things that are going to happen.”

“And you want them to stop? It seems like that could be useful.”

“It is, sometimes,” Percy admitted. “But it’s… it’s too close to practicing magic. If anyone found out…”

“Anyone besides me, you mean.” He nodded. “Morgana used to have visions too. She thought they were just bad dreams at first, and Gaius gave her sleeping potions to try to help.”

“Did they? Help, I mean?” Merlin shook his head.

“Morgause gave her a bracelet that did help, and if you really want us to find you one like it, we probably could, but it might be more suspicious if you suddenly started wearing jewelry.”

Percival looked unsure about that. “Sometimes, well, sometimes I wake up screaming. I’m worried about people hearing.”

“Whose rooms are next to yours?”

“Lancelot’s. The other side is a hallway.”

A gentle smile crept over Merlin’s face. “Lancelot will understand, no matter if you tell him the real reason or not.” He knew Percival’s family had been killed by Cenred’s army, and Lance, sadly, could empathize with that. “And he’s good at coming up with cover stories, if anyone else overhears.”

“So you think I shouldn’t try to suppress the visions?”

“It’s your choice, Percival. Gaius and I will support you with whatever you choose.”

Percy looked a little shocked by this. He probably wasn’t expecting to find much sympathy in regards to magic within Camelot, and especially not from the manservant of the prince of the magic-hating royal family. “I’ll have to think about it, I guess. But… thank you.”

“Of course. You can come talk to me whenever.” Percival stood up and squeezed Merlin’s shoulder as he turned to leave. He was a man of few words, and seemed to have exhausted them. Merlin knew how nerve wracking and exhausting it could be to just talk about magic in Camelot, so he understood and let him go. Hopefully he would be back soon.

“Hey Merlin, I’ve got a bit of a confession to make,” Gwaine said. The two men were on a picnic outside of Camelot on one of Merlin’s few days off.

“Is it about how you got these scones? Because I already know you stole them,” he replied with his mouth full of said pastry. 

“No, it’s, uh, a bit more serious than that,” he said, prompting the servant to actually pause in his consumption and look up at him. “You know how when we were on the quest to the Perilous Lands and the bridgekeeper said that we would need Courage, Strength, and Magic?” Merlin sucked in a breath. He wasn’t fearful, exactly, about what Gwaine was going to say or what he might do, since the man himself had admitted that he was more loyal to Merlin than to Arthur, but nonetheless he was a little nervous.

“Yeah?”

“Well, if you hadn’t realized already, I think each of those corresponded to one of us. You, me, and Arthur, I mean.”

“Yeah...”

“So I thought I should explain myself,” Gwaine said, and Merlin hadn’t expected that. “I know magic is illegal in Camelot, but it isn’t the fearsome thing Uther makes it out to be. It can be beautiful and helpful, as well as dangerous, and I wanted you to know that I would never use it to hurt either you or Arthur.”

“Wait, are you saying you have magic?” the servant demanded.

Gwaine smiled, but it looked a little more nervous than his typical grin. “If you’re gonna turn me in for it, I’d appreciate a head start out of town.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not going to turn you in,” he quickly reassured his friend. He could tell that the knight was trying to make light of the situation and pretend that he wouldn’t mind if he had to run away again, but one only had to see him training with Elyan or pulling a prank with Percival or collecting flowers with Gwen to know how much he actually liked it here in Camelot, and how much it would hurt him to leave. “Just between you and me, I think there’s actually a lot more undercover sorcerers in Camelot than you’d think.”

“That would explain why Cook seemed so unconcerned about that one time she dropped a chicken and I levitated it before it could hit the floor.”

“Gwaine! You didn’t!” Merlin exclaimed, but he was laughing. “You revealed your magic for a chicken ?”

“Hey, I couldn’t let food go to waste!” he said. “In all seriousness, though, Merlin, thank you for understanding and not making this a big deal.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?”

Out of all the potential causes of the noise Merlin had been expecting when he went to investigate the strange crying sounds coming from a supply closet, he had been expecting maybe a magical beast sent to kill Arthur or an injured spy or at least something decidedly more dangerous than what he found. He almost wished it was one of those, as at least he knew how to deal with them. The First Knight having a breakdown? Not so much.

“Leon?” he asked, a moment after opening the closet door, and the man looked up. His wavy hair was tangled and there were tear streaks down his face. Merlin quickly stepped inside the closet and closed the door behind him. He figured that the respected First Knight had retreated into it specifically for the privacy, so he didn’t want to drag him out of it or have the conversation that clearly needed to be had with the door open. It was dark inside, and that’s when Merlin realized that Leon was glowing. Not brightly enough that it could be seen in the daylight or that it would be visible in the crack beneath the door, but there was an undeniable golden aura hanging around him. His hair looked more red under the light and the glow seemed to pool just beneath his eyes where he might have otherwise had dark bags from crying or the perpetual exhaustion that seemed to plague the man.

“Merlin!” Leon barked in surprise and fear. “You shouldn’t be in here!”

“Why not?”

“Can’t you see?” he asked, gesturing down over his body. “Uther could have you killed for even just being in here with me.”

“If Uther was going to put me to death, this would not be the reason why,” Merlin said, which did not seem to reassure Leon, whose face went pale despite the glow. He reached out to hold his hand, and when the knight flinched away, settled for laying a hand on his ankle instead. The closet was of a size more suited to children playing hide-and-go-seek than to two grown men, so they were already pretty close together. “Tell me what happened.”

Leon looked terrified for a moment, before an odd sort of terrified calm washed over his face. “I suppose it can’t hurt. I was on my way to tell Arthur anyway when I chickened out and hid in here.”

“You were going to show this to Arthur?” Merlin asked in surprise. He managed to bite his tongue before he could exclaim that the prince could have him killed for it, as it was obviously magic related. Since Leon was one of his friends, and it was possible that the glow was due to a curse put on him by another, perhaps he wouldn’t be executed though. He didn’t understand why he would take that risk though.

Leon nodded. “I’ve been hiding it for so long, but he deserves to know,” he explained, and damn if that didn’t make Merlin’s own heart ache. “It’ll be better if I’m just put to death and it’s done with. I’m a danger to everyone in Camelot.”

“Why would you say that?” Merlin demanded. “You’re just glowing a little bit; it doesn’t seem dangerous to me.”

“It’s magic, Merlin, it’s all dangerous,” he retorted. “Even if I haven’t hurt anybody with it yet doesn’t mean it isn’t corrupting me, making me turn evil.”

“Do you feel like it’s turning you evil?” Merlin asked gently, and Leon seemed to hesitate. “Are you angrier? Do you want to hurt Arthur or anybody else?”

“Well, no, but that doesn’t mean I won’t at some point.”

“How long has this been going on?” From what the knight had said, he didn’t think that this was the first time it had happened.

“Since I was a child, but it’s gotten worse since I was healed with the Cup of Life. It used to be a lot fainter, and happened less often.”

“But it’s still been two decades,” Merlin estimated. “Don’t you think that if it was really going to corrupt you, it would’ve done so by now?” He reached out a hand to Leon, palm up. “Can I see?” Hesitantly, Leon mirrored the gesture, laying his hand in the servant’s. He flinched when Merlin ran a thumb over it, but didn’t move it away. The glow moved like a thick liquid, syrup maybe, pooling against the warlock’s thumb. Delicately, he scooped off a handful of it, cupping his hands. “It’s magic,” he confirmed. “I’ve heard that sometimes it can pool up, if you’re born with the talent but don’t use it. Little kids sometimes learn to control their magic by waiting until it builds up like this and then trying to form it into shapes.” That was how he himself had learned control. Sometimes Hunith had had trouble hiding the fact that their whole house glowed when his magic overflowed. “Here, do you want to try?” he asked gently, offering up the glowing liquid, to which Leon responded by furiously shaking his head and pulling his hand back so Merlin couldn’t pass it to him.

“Maybe it hasn’t corrupted me just because I refuse to use it,” he theorized, and the warlock suppressed a sigh. He should have realized that Leon would be more sensitive than the other knights of the Round Table when it came to his magic. Out of all of them, he was the only one who hadn’t been born or spent time away from Camelot, so he’d never had a chance to escape Uther’s brainwashing or see the good that magic could do. Merlin would have to be a lot more gentle with him. He didn’t want to reveal his own magic just yet, as he wasn’t sure that Leon wouldn’t turn them both in to Arthur if he did, but maybe he could recruit one of the other knights to help convince him that magic wasn’t evil.

“I don’t think that’s the case, but it’s okay if you don’t want to try to use it,” he assured Leon. “I think if we just brush off and pour away the magic, it’ll dissipate. May I?” He gestured towards the knight’s face, and when he nodded, reached over and dried the golden tears pooling under his eyes with his thumb. The magic ran down into his hands and he could feel the power thrumming in it. It was so hard to let it run off onto the stone floor rather than use it or pull it into himself. He reminded himself he was doing this for Leon, not himself, as he pulled his hands down the knight’s arms to wring the magic out of them until it pooled at his hands and dripped off his fingertips. The glow faded from around Leon and the gold bled into the stones until the closet was dark.

“Thank you, Merlin,” Leon said softly into the blackness.

“You’re welcome,” he replied cheerily. Hopefully, not treating his magic as some sort of serious terrible thing would help the knight become less afraid of it, and of himself. More seriously, he asked, “Are you still going to tell Arthur?”

“I don’t think he would believe me, now that it isn’t showing.”

“Well, when it happens again, come find me. I can help you with it, or just go with you for support if you want to tell Arthur.”

“Thanks.” There was an awkward silence.

“Oh, uh, I’ll get out first, and then signal when the coast is clear for you to come out?” he suggested, already getting to his feet. Leon didn’t say anything, but he assumed there to be a nod, and he stumbled out of the closet. Ava was passing by and gave him a strange look, but she already thought he was crazy so that was fine. His dignity was a small price to pay for helping a friend.

Chapter Text

Leon, as first knight and the one who made the schedules, never assigned himself to night time shifts. He claimed to have poor eyesight in the dark, but Merlin now knew it was because his glowing was only visible in low light conditions. Multi-day patrols and quests were a risk he just had to take, as he couldn’t very well refuse to accompany the prince when he went somewhere dangerous, and he just had to just hope the magic hadn’t built up enough to be visible. So far in his life, he’d gotten lucky, but with the time between his periods being so much shorter now, since the Cup of Life incident, it was bound to happen eventually.

One of Hengist’s underlings had taken over in the wake of the head outlaw’s death, and continued his racket of kidnapping ladies and minor princesses and holding them ransom. They were a bit smarter about it this time, and went after the daughters of lords instead of Uther Pendragon’s ward, and actually made sure they had the right women this time. It would have been a fairly standard rescue mission had it not involved going through the Tunnels of Andor at the exact time that Leon had begun glowing.

He had signalled Merlin as soon as he felt it coming on, using one of the dumb hand gestures he had insisted they wouldn’t need but was now very grateful for. At the time, the servant had just shrugged. It was midday, so even if he didn’t get a chance to squeegee off the excess magic, it would dissipate by dusk. The servant had forgotten about the fact that the tunnels would be dark. He was more focussed on the danger presented by the giant baby rats, aka, wilddeoren. So when Leon stopped at the entrance to the cave, sending him panicked looks, it had taken a minute for him to realize what the problem was.

The knight had far more Gaia berries smeared over his face than any of the other knights, probably in an attempt to cover the glow on his face. He had also put them on himself rather than allow one of the others to do it to him, as he didn’t want them getting close. Meanwhile, Elyan and Gwaine had become involved in a quasi-food fight and Percival had allowed Lancelot to paint a flower on his cheek with the juices from a handful of the purple berries. With those distractions, Leon really hadn’t had to worry about them noticing the faint glow clinging to his skin, but those wouldn’t continue when they entered the cave, Merlin realized. His glow would be on display.

“We should light more torches,” Merlin said quickly, waiting at the entrance with Leon. Arthur had one, but that was it. 

“The wilddeoren will smell the smoke if we light more,” the prince countered. “Come on, Mer lin, we’ve gone through these tunnels once before with just one torch. Have you developed a new fear of the dark, on top of everything else you’re scared of.”

Leon was ready to reply that he was the one scared of the dark, because even though the other knights would tease him mercilessly, his secret would be safe. It would actually provide a good cover story for whenever he wanted to stay in the light, and they might believe it since they already thought he had poor eyesight at night. Merlin interrupted him before he ruined what dignity he had left.

“Fine, but Leon should carry the torch.” Arthur and his fragile masculinity visibly bristled at this suggestion. “He’s the only one who isn’t likely to set us all on fire,” the servant explained.

“I wouldn’t set you on fire,” the prince protested, to which Merlin simply raised an eyebrow. “Okay, that was one time , and I set myself on fire, not you!” Despite this protest, he stepped back and handed the torch to Leon, who now walked towards the cave. Any glow they saw now would be assumed to be from it, rather than the knight.

“Princess, you have to tell us that story,” Gwaine said.

“Not now. We have to be quiet or the wilddeoren will hear us.”

“Does that mean you’ll tell us later?” He received just a glare in response from Arthur.

“I will!” the prince’s manservant said cheerily. He sounded genuinely happy to be telling stories about his boss, but Leon could detect an aspect of relief in his tone that he was sure was echoed on his own face. Magic hidden, disaster averted.

“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur replied, before they all went silent as they entered the Tunnels of Andor. There was still danger ahead of them, but a few wilddeoren and a couple kidnappers were far less nerve-wracking than trying to hide your magic from the Crown Prince of Camelot.

“We should split up,” Lancelot suggested. “Merlin and I can sneak in through the guard’s entrance, Arthur can take a few knights with him however he and Merlin got in last time…” He turned to the servant in question. “How was that, anyway?”

“We climbed.”

“Ah. Maybe not then.”

“Why do you want Merlin to come with you?” Arthur interrupted his planning.

“Oh, uh… he’s good at picking locks?”

“ Mer lin? A locksmith? Are you kidding me?”

“Why don’t we listen to his plan first, before tearing it to shreds, aye?” Gwaine suggested. He figured that Lancelot was a pretty smart guy (he always came up with good pranks, at least, even without magic to help him) and if he wanted Merlin with him, he probably had a good reason. It would have been nice, though, to be paired up with the manservant himself. That way, Gwaine could have used his magic without needing to worry about being subtle with it.

“Uh, well, I don’t have a full strategy thought out yet. I was just thinking that we could split up and try different entrances, and since I know my way around the best, I should go in through the main gate and then let all of you in whichever way you come.”

“That’s a great plan,” Elyan replied, rolling his eyes. “And since you’ve already lived here for months, wouldn’t they recognize you? If anything, it should be Merlin and I that go in first to let everyone else in.”

“Guys, I have kind of a bad feeling about us splitting up,” Percival said. The big knight did look nervous, and he cast a meaningful look at Merlin that didn’t go unnoticed by Gwaine. He was more observant than he looked, alright? What it meant though, he had no idea. Was Percival just saying that they should stick together because he wanted to stay with the manservant himself? Damnit. Gwaine thought he’d had a chance with the big knight, but of course he was already in love with Merlin. Though, to be fair, wasn’t everyone? That explained, at least, why everyone except Leon seemed desperate to be paired up with him.

Arthur seemed not to realize that though. Made sense, given that he clearly had yet to acknowledge his own feelings for his servant.

“No, Lance is right. We have the best chances if we can get close to the princess without being seen, which would be easiest if we’re not all in one group,” he said. “As for why all of you seem to be desperate to be teamed up with Merlin, I’ll chalk that up to shared delirium. I’ll go with Merlin, and we’ll get in the way we did before. Lancelot, you show a pair of knights to the exit we escaped through before. Percical, probably, you’ll need his strength, and one other.”

“I’ll join him,” Gwaine immediately volunteered, and Arthur nodded.

“Then you, Leon, and Elyan can get in through whatever other entrance you know,” he

said, still addressing Lancelot. He turned to ask everyone, “Does that seem like a plan?” Gwaine shrugged, and everyone else nodded, except Percival, who still looked unsure. He made no objection, however, beyond another almost longing look at Merlin before they broke into their groups. When they got to the tunnel they were supposed to follow, the large knight let Gwaine go ahead a little bit and hung back to talk to Lancelot. They whispered, but the fighter caught the words “Be careful,” at the end. Afterwards, as they were walking down the tunnel, Percival was disconcertingly quiet. He was always a man of few words, but this time it seemed more worried than usual, and Gwaine hated it.

“You know they’ll be okay, right?” he broke the silence. “Lancelot and Merlin, I mean.” He was now convinced that the big knight was in love with one of the two men, and he wished them the best, he really did.

“I hope you’re right,” he agreed, but he didn’t sound very confident about it. Gwaine wondered why he seemed so anxious about this mission in particular. He’d seemed fine about it yesterday, but thinking back on it, he had seemed rather jumpy since this morning.

“Oh course I’m ri-” Gwaine started to say, but was cut off when a meaty hand clamped down over his mouth and a large arm curled around his chest. Percival pulled him into a tiny nook in the wall of the tunnel, and, coincidentally, pressed their bodies together closely. The smaller of the two knights was more than a little glad that he was facing away, with his back against Percy’s front as he held him. After a minute, there was the sound of multiple sets of footsteps passing by in the tunnel, and without turning his head, Gwaine looked through the corner of his eye to see an apparent patrol passing by. The two men waited a few minutes before letting go of each other and stumbling out of the nook they’d been crammed into.

“I guess that explains your bad feeling!” Gwaine remarked. “They’re clearly expecting a rescue party. Should we continue on, you think, or go back to warn the others?” Percy clearly had good instincts on the matter, so he thought he should ask.

“Keep going,” he replied, looking grim. “And hope they didn’t run into any trouble they couldn’t handle.”

By all rights, they should not have won the fight. There were only three of them and five times as many enemy soldiers. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to try to sneak through the guard tower. Leon swung the torch he held along with his sword, but that still couldn’t keep the soldiers back from him. Lancelot was even having trouble keeping the men back from him until one of them slipped and impaled himself on his own sword. Elyan was suddenly against his back, slashing down another, and once he saw a break he left the remaining two guards to him to go help Leon. The last soldier fell under his sword and gave them a brief moments respite. Lancelot looked around to see that five of the soldiers seemed to have been crushed by a flying bench, along with the two that he’d seen inexplicably slip while fighting them. That was the thing he expected to happen when Merlin was around.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it, as there were undoubtedly more soldiers on the way. The other two knights followed him toward the dungeons, Leon still carrying the torch and Elyan watching their back. They nearly bumped into him when he abruptly stopped and knelt down, looking through the grate near the floor and into the cell below.

“Empty,” he announced. He gestured towards the other grates, and thankfully Leon and Elyan seemed to understand what he was indicating, as they crouched down too to help him find the missing princess.

“Here!” Elyan announced, and Lancelot rushed over. There was a girl, who couldn’t have been older than a teenager, lying on the ground of the cell. She seemed to be asleep, or else unconscious. It was likely that she was injured, and Lance cursed to himself. He’d have to arrange a minute with her by himself, so he could heal her before they tried to escape.

"Leon, Elyan, the fighting cage should be not far that way," he said, pointing down the corridor. "Percival and Gwaine might have gotten trapped, so you should go get them. I'll grab the girl and meet you back here."

"What if you run into trouble?" Elyan protested.

"It'll be okay. Arthur and Merlin should be on their way down here anyway." Lancelot knew that his concern was valid, especially if he ran into trouble after healing the girl, when he'd be weaker, but he couldn't think of a better plan. Percival's stark warning about splitting up almost made him change his mind, but he couldn’t think of any other way to heal the girl without revealing his magic.

"We'll be back as fast as we can," Leon promised before taking off down the corridor with Elyan at a jog. Lancelot himself ducked down a side corridor, recalling the way to the front doors of the cells. He kept his sword drawn, planning on dealing with any soldiers on the way in instead of the way out.

This plan crumbled as soon as he turned the corner and came face to face with five guards. He took down two, grabbed the keys from one of them, and dashed for the princess’s cell. Wielding his sword in his left hand, not trying to attack but merely flailing it to keep the guards back, he unlocked the door with his right hand. He ducked inside, slammed it shut behind him, and reached through the bars to the outside to lock it. One of the guards brought his sword down, and he narrowly avoided losing his hand as he pulled it, and the key, back inside the cell with him. He breathed a sigh of relief. Both he and the girl were safe, at least for the meantime. How they were going to get out again was another matter entirely. But that could wait until Arthur and the others arrived. For now, he had the injured princess to deal with.

Lancelot had almost stepped on her when he’d stumbled into the cell. She was laid out on the floor, even though there was a cot against the wall. Her skirts were disarranged, showing her right leg. It was broken badly, with the bone poking through the skin near the knee. There was also a cut on her forehead, with blood matted in her blond hair, and her face was pinched with pain even in unconsciousness.

“Really?” Lancelot asked, turning to the guards outside the cell. They were standing around looking at each other, apparently trying to decide what to do with the fact that a knight of Camelot had just broken into the cell they were supposed to be guarding and locked himself inside. Lance thought that he recognized one of them. “You had to break her leg and give her a headwound? John, I expected better from you at least.” The young man shrugged, but looked sufficiently mollified. The knight turned away from his former companion, kneeling down beside the princess’s leg. Even though she was unconscious, he muttered an apology before setting the bone sharply and pouring his magic into it.

“Hey!” John shouted, when he noticed the glow in Lancelot’s eyes. “I didn’t know you had magic!”

“Shit, not just a knight, but a sorcerer?” one of the other guards remarked. “The boss’ll kill us for this.”

“Not if we kill him first,” the third guard suggested.

“How? We can’t get to him,” John said. He never had been a bright one. Though, as the third guard pulled out a crossbow, it occurred to Lancelot that his decision might not have been the wisest either.

“Let’s see him try to heal this,” the guard said, aiming it at the knight’s chest where he sat beside the girl. Lance could have stood up and tried to dodge, but he hadn’t the energy, nor the space to dodge, so instead he looked death in the face. This was probably what Percival had meant when he warned about projectiles before they’d split up. 

The crossbow bolt hit the wall to the side of Lancelot. Likely, his aim had been messed up by the surprise of Percival and Gwaine charging him with a battle cry. Although, it seemed almost as if the bolt had already been loosed and had in fact changed direction midair. The explanation for that came a second later, when Merlin and Arthur ran up from the other end of the corridor. Lancelot hadn’t thought the servant could do magic on things he couldn’t yet see, but he guessed he was wrong about that. Percival killed the shooter, Gwaine took out John, and Arthur got the third man. Lance tossed Merlin the keys, and he quickly unlocked the door and dropped to his knees on the other side of the girl.

“Can you…?” he asked quietly, gesturing to the cut on her temple.

“Not if you want me to be able to walk,” he answered. “I already healed her broken leg.”

“Can you tell if it’s bad, at least?” It was clear that he was thinking about Morgana’s cracked skull, when he’d needed an extremely powerful spell to heal her.

“It isn’t,” Lancelot assured him. When he laid hands on someone to heal them, he could feel everywhere they were hurt and get a sense of how badly, even if it wasn’t the injury he was trying to heal. “She’ll likely wake soon.”

“I’ll carry her,” Arthur immediately suggested as soon as the fighting was done, and Merlin rolled his eyes. Of course the prince had to be the hero. Once they’d taken her, Lancelot stumbled to his feet. Instantly, Percival was there, holding his arms with a strong grip.

“You okay?” he asked, concern even thicker in his voice than it had been when he’d told him to take care of himself before they split up outside the castle.

“Yeah. Just a little lightheaded from the relief of not being shot,” he assured his friend. “How did you know, anyway? About the crossbow.”

“Uh…” the large knight said, looking slightly panicked. Merlin jumped in to rescue him.

“Oh, I told Percy that the last time we were here, a lot of the guards had crossbows that they used to attack the wildeorren without getting in the cage with it,” the servant explained. Lancelot himself didn’t remember that, but he supposed he’d been a little preoccupied at the time.

“Lance, where are Leon and Elyan?” Gwained asked.

“They went to go find you,” he explained. “You didn’t run into them?”

Percival shook his head. “We got out of there quickly. It would have been too easy to trap us there.”

“Great, now we have to go rescue them too,” Arthur growled. He had the princess cradled in his arms, bridal style.

“I’ll go back to find them,” Percival offered at the same time as Merlin. “You, Gwaine, and Lancelot should get the girl out of here,” the knight continued. The prince looked a little taken aback at being given orders, but he nodded after a second.

“That’s a good plan,” he agreed, and Percival and Merlin took off. Lancelot could see the two of them talking as they jogged. Meanwhile, he led the way back out through a different tunnel, leaning one hand against the wall for stability. Gwaine seemed to notice, and kept a closer eye on him. He hoped the long-haired knight didn’t suspect anything. Fortunately, the attention was taken away from his weakness when the princess woke up.

“What’s going on?” she asked. Arthur quickly put her down on her feet before she could start to squirm. He’d learned that lesson when he’d accidentally dropped Merlin while carrying the servant after he’d been knocked out during a hunt gone wrong. “Who are you?”

“I’m Prince Arthur of Camelot, and these are two of my knights, Sir Gwaine and Sir Lancelot,” he explained. “We’re rescuing you.”

“I…” she said, looking a little stunned at this information. “I’m Princess Joanna, but I guess you probably already know that.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, my lady,” Gwaine said. It was less flirtatious than usual, given that the girl couldn’t have been more than sixteen. She nodded to him, and then to Lancelot.

“We should probably keep going, if we’re trying to escape, right?” She said.

“Yes, we should,” Arthur agreed. He had kept a hand on her arm, and used it to gently guide her forward. She didn’t take a step.

“I can’t walk; my leg is broken.”

Lancelot winced internally. He had hoped that she wouldn’t remember that. “Milady, you’re standing up right now, and to my eyes, you do not look to be in pain. Are you sure your leg is broken?”

Hesitantly, the princess took a step. She looked down in wonder at her legs. “I could have sworn…”

“Perhaps it was a dream,” Lancelot suggested. “Head wounds can make you think strange things.”

“Whatever it was, you clearly can walk, and we do need to be going,” Arthur ushered her along. There were sounds of footsteps echoing down the corridor, and he wanted to get as far from away as he could before fighting, to limit the amount of backup that could arrive. They were almost at the exit before eight soldiers caught up to them. Even with Lancelot far from top form, they made quick work of them. The knight could have sworn that one of the men he was attempting to fight tripped on air and fell into his own sword, but he couldn’t be sure. The quality of the fighters seemed to have really declined since his own time in this castle.

They made it out to the forest, and Arthur decided that their camping spot from last time would be a good place to wait for the others. The ridge was defensible, although they doubted that anyone would go to the trouble of chasing after them now that they’d escaped, and Merlin would know to meet them there. Though he was worried about his friends who were still in the castle, Lancelot appreciated the opportunity to stop and rest. He sat down against a tree. Gwaine shot him a look and tossed him the waterskin.

Despite his exhaustion, he jumped to his feet at the first movement in the underbrush. He recognized Percival by the sound of his stride before he even came into view. All four of them, Percy, Leon, Elyan, and Merlin, were there, and they all looked alright. Smiling, even. “You should have seen it!” Elyan announded. “They were running away scared from Percival! It was like he saw every hit coming!”

“Hey, you did pretty well yourself,” Leon replied. Normally he wasn’t one to be so informal about discussing fights, so the knight must’ve been truly impressive. “How many did you get? Five?”

“Four,” he corrected.

“If you are done bragging, we should go,” Arthur interrupted. The knights all nodded, and along with the princess, made their way back to where they’d left the horses. Despite the trouble they’d run into, it seemed like they’d all had good luck where it counted.

Chapter Text

Merlin was about ready to lose it. He had promised all of the knights he wouldn’t tell anyone about their magic, not even Gaius, but none of them were making it easy to keep a secret. With the exception of Gwaine, surprisingly, they were all far less subtle than him, and that was saying something. Covering for them was becoming a full time job. At least Lancelot and Elyan sometimes returned the favor for him, but he was still being run ragged with helping Leon cover up his glowing episodes, checking in with Percival whenever he had a vision and trying desperately to keep it from coming true, and trying to invent ever more specific names for potions and herbs to explain how people around the castle were healing faster than ever before, when in fact they were simply enchanted by Lancelot. On top of all that, Elyan had accidentally turned his sister’s hair green with a prank gone wrong, and then blamed it on Gwaine. The knight must’ve thought that his friend was a safe target to deflect blame onto, as he didn’t know that Gwaine also had magic and that his lighthearted accusation could actually be dangerous. Merlin had quickly explained that the trouble-making knight had bought a potion from Gaius that sometimes had an effect on hair color, at which Lancelot looked up sharply, because he’d never heard of such a potion despite practically living in the apothecary.

“Are you okay, Merlin?” Lancelot asked one night. The servant had stumbled into Gaius’s chambers and had collapsed on the floor, unable to even make it to his bed. The knight had immediately dropped down beside him to make sure he wasn’t hurt, and the reminder of his magic, though it was objectively helpful most of the time, just made Merlin groan. Lance carried him to bed like a child, and now sat on his bed beside him, trying to ascertain what had happened.

“I can’t live like this anymore,” the servant groaned.

“What happened? Did Arthur do something?” Instantly, Lancelot was on his feet, clearly ready to throw hands against whoever was hurting Merlin, Crown Prince included.

“No, no,” Merlin quickly reassured him. Actually, Arthur was being the least troublesome out of anyone at the moment. “The prat is just being his usual self. Its-” He started to say, and then sighed. No, he couldn’t just reveal them all. How would he feel if someone did that to him? He should give them all a chance to come clean first. “Never mind. You’ll understand someday.”

“Merls?” Lancelot asked, clearly concerned. He held one of Merlin’s hands in his, and rubbed his thumb in circles over the back of it.

“It’s fine, Lance,” he sighed. “I’m okay.”

“If you’re sure,” the knight said, not sounding sure at all himself. “Let me get you something to eat.”

The next day, after morning training, Merlin called a meeting of all the commoner knights, plus Leon. Arthur was not invited. Nor was Gwen, but Elyan ran into her on his way to the council chamber and she came along with him. After only a brief consideration, Merlin decided to let her stay. Honestly, he wished he had told her about his magic years ago, as he had no doubt that she would be supportive. Now that she was so close to Arthur and had seen her mistress become ‘corrupted by magic’, he was a little more hesitant to tell her. He’d at least wait until he saw her reaction to the knights’ magic. He knew she wouldn’t turn them in, at the very least, given that her brother was among them.

“Where’s Arthur?” Lancelot asked as he took a seat. The other knights did the same, arranging themselves around the table.

“Not here,” Merlin answered quickly. “And believe me, you don’t want him to be. Besides, this meeting isn’t about him, or Camelot. It’s about you.”

“Me?” Lancelot asked, looking confused and slightly scared.

“All of you. Except you Gwen. I think.” At that, each of the knights looked around at the others, clearly nervous. Merlin, on the other hand, had a devilish gleam in his eye as he slapped both hands down on the table. “Who’s gonna go first?”

“Merlin, mate, I’m not sure what you’re expecting here,” Gwaine said, trying to deflect the conversation. The servant was having none of it.

“Thank you, Gwaine, for volunteering to go first,” he said. “Do you have any secrets you’d like to tell the group?”

The knight winced. “I take it you don’t mean the nobility thing.”

“The WHAT?” Leon nearly shouted. Merlin ignored him.

“No. The other thing.”

Gwaine sighed. “Well, I’ve had a good run here in Camelot, I guess.” He looked up at Percival, willing him to understand. Well, he hoped they would all understand, but Percival especially. “I have magic.”

“Wait, you have magic?” Elyan asked, and Gwaine looked at him in annoyance because wasn’t that what he had just said? Don’t make him repeat one of the scariest admissions he’d ever made in his life.

“Were you the one to deflect that crossbow bolt?” Lancelot asked.

“Which one?” Gwaine asked cheekily, to hide his fear that this was just the calm before the storm and that they were all about to turn on him and try to kill him or drive him away. He also reassured himself with the fact that Merlin never would have forced him to out himself had he thought that would be the outcome.

“When we were rescuing the princess. I had thought it was Mer-” Lancelot started to say, before abruptly closing his mouth with a wince. He looked panicked for a second, glancing around the room. “Me! I thought it was me, I meant. My own magic, I mean. It’s mostly healing magic, but sometimes it branches out into other things, like preventing people from getting hurt in the first place or protecting them like with the griffin-”

“Wait,” Leon ordered. The First Knight looked like he was struggling to keep up with the conversation, which made sense given the way Lancelot had started going on. “You both have magic?”

“Uh, is this a good time to say that I do too?” Elyan said. He looked a little less frightened, and mostly looked over at Gwen. The maidservant seemed to be doing her best to keep a straight face. Merlin, meanwhile, was openly cackling. 

“I have visions,” Percival blurted out. It was becoming more clear each second as to why Merlin had called them all together. Everyone turned and looked to Leon, sensing the trend here.

“I don’t use magic,” he immediately denied.

“No, you just let it build up inside you until you literally start glowing with it,” Merlin huffed. “All of you knights have magic. And now that you all know about it, you can stop hiding it from each other.”

“Wait, they didn’t all know?” Gwen asked, prompting everyone to turn and stare at her, Merlin included.

“ You did?” Elyan asked incredulously, while Percival just tilted his head slightly like a confused puppy.

“I mean, yeah. I know about all of you,” she said, and the glance she gave Merlin indicated that she did truly mean all of them. “I was Morgana’s maidservant when she started having visions, so I guessed what Percival’s nightmares were after Lancelot told me about them. Especially since he always seemed worried afterwards, until something went down that by all rights should have gone even worse than it did.”

“I wasn’t gossiping, I promise,” Lancelot said to Percival, hands raised in apology. “It just came up. Gwen helps me sometimes when I have nightmares.” Elyan nodded understandingly; evidently, she did the same for him. Percival nodded too, and Lancelot took that to mean he wasn’t mad.

“As for the others, Leon, I saw you glowing once when we were kids together. Elyan, you should probably be a little quieter when you start the fire in the forge with magic. Gwaine, you stumbled into our house drunk and used magic to undo the straps on your boots when your fingers wouldn’t cooperate. And Lance, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that everyone started healing a lot faster when you arrived, especially with how much time you spend with Gaius. You also talk in your sleep, sometimes, and not in English.” She smiled, shaking her head gently. “Honestly, none of you are that subtle. It’s a good thing Arthur is as oblivious as he is. I thought you all had to know about the others, given that you spend a lot more time together than I spend with any of you, so you would have more chances to figure it out. It didn't even occur to me that you might not know.”

The knights all looked at each other sheepishly. She was right, as always. They really should have realized earlier. Lancelot wondered how long it would have taken them all to find out had Merlin not called them all together. He was a little embarrassed that he hadn’t at least suspected Percival. Now that he knew, it seemed obvious.

Leon was the only one who didn’t look relieved. The First Knight dropped his head to the surface of the Round Table, hands coming up to cover the back of it. A small groan escaped him.

“You good there Leon?” Gwaine asked. The knight didn’t take his forehead off the table as he replied.

“No,” he whined. “I thought Arthur would be okay with my betrayal when I tell him, since he’d still have all of you, but he’ll be devastated about all of us.”

“Wait, you can’t tell him!” Elyan objected at the same time as Percival asked “What betrayal?” Gwen shushed them both with a look as she stood up and walked over to lay a hand on the distraught knight’s shoulder.

“Leon,” she said softly. “You trust that I am loyal, right? To Arthur?”

“Yes,” the knight said. Even when Gwen had turned Arthur down when he asked her out, and even when she had begun to court Lancelot instead, no one had ever doubted her loyalty to the Crown Prince’s rule. Not after she had betrayed Morgana and left behind a potentially very high position with her in favor of helping Leon himself escape and reinstating the true king of Camelot.

“And you trust that Merlin is loyal to Arthur too, right?” she asked, and the knight nodded against the table. “Then even if you don’t trust your fellow knights due to their magic, trust us. None of them, none of you , would do anything to hurt or betray Arthur, magic or no.”

“But we’re lying to him,” Leon replied, his voice muffled from his face being pressed into the table. Gwen shifted her grip on his shoulders and began to massage the tension out of them.

“Arthur isn’t ready to hear the truth yet,” Merlin explained. “But one day he will be, and we’ll tell him.”

“And take whatever punishment he chooses,” Lancelot added. Gwaine gave him a look that clearly said ‘you may, but I won’t.’

“But not right now,” Percival emphasized. He looked scared at the prospect of Arthur finding out, and Gwaine reached over to hold his hand. It was a long minute, in which Gwaine and Elyan also held their breath, as they waited for Leon’s answer. Even before he spoke, Gwen had a feeling what he was going to say, as he relaxed into her hands on her shoulders.

“Okay. I won’t tell Arthur,” he agreed, sitting up. “Or if I do tell him, it’ll only be about myself.” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, I think this deserves some celebration,” Gwaine announced, to lighten the tension in the room. “The tavern, perhaps?”

“Gwaine, Gwen just said that you accidentally revealed your magic to her when you were drunk, and now you want to go to the tavern?”

“Well, you all know now, huh? So I’ve got nothing to hide,” he replied. Elyan face palmed.

“I do hope you have something to hide,” Merlin said. “We don’t want a repeat of last Thursday.” Lancelot, despite himself, giggled, and Percival smiled even as he blushed.

“So are we going then?” Gwaine just asked. They all looked to Leon, who sighed.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” he agreed. “If you get drunk and use magic, one of us will cover for you.”

Chapter Text

Arthur stared, open mouthed. He had zero idea of what to say and the feeling that even if he could find the right words, they wouldn’t come out. He was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to speak. Because… All of them? All of his most trusted knights had magic. 

He supposed he should be grateful. They had just used their magic to save him from the lindworm that had been terrorizing a village. Percival had taken them to where the beast was going to be, Gwaine seemed to have enchanted a weapon to kill it, Elyan had thrown the creature back away from Arthur when the king had tripped while running away, Leon had distracted it with the magic literally dripping off of him, and Lancelot had healed his broken leg. Now that the pain was gone and the adrenaline was fading, it hit him that they all had really all revealed themselves as sorcerers.

He felt less betrayed than he knew he would have a few years ago, and hoped that they felt less scared than they would have too. Magic wasn’t exactly legal yet, but Arthur had gradually realized that his father was wrong about sorcery and had stopped enforcing the ban on it. No one had been executed for it in over two years. Nonetheless, he understood why they hadn’t told him. Not that he was happy about it, but he understood.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Merlin suggested, guiding him over to where a campfire was blazing. He didn’t remember anyone setting it, but with five sorcerers walking around with him, he supposed someone could have easily lit it without him noticing.

“So you all…?” He asked dumbly. Lancelot, who was leaning back against a tree, grimaced. He looked tired, as it seemed like he often did after fights, and Arthur wondered if that was a side effect of healing people and how many times he’d missed it before. Elyan stood over him, a hand not-so-subtly on the hilt of his sword. The king, despite being the king, kept his own hand away from his weapon out of caution. Evidently, his knights all knew about each other, and were planning on looking out for one another. Even against their king.

“It isn’t something we chose, sire,” Leon said from where he sat on the other side of the fire. “Respectfully, sire, we never meant to betray you.”

“It actually had nothing to do with you at all,” Gwaine said roughly. He was obviously expecting a confrontation. “It’s just who we are.”

“You were born with it?” Arthur asked. As limited as his knowledge about magic was, he had thought that most sorcerers had to learn it, and that the true naturals were very rare. As unlikely as it was that all his knights had magic, that seemed even less likely.

Percival shook his head. “Just me and Leon. I’m a seer, and I think I might be able to do more things if I tried but I never have.”

“Like Morgana,” Arthur said.

“Hold on, that doesn’t mean I’m anything like her,” Percival replied defensively.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” the king corrected himself. “Leon,” he addressed his longest-serving and most trusted knight. “You were born with it too?”

“Yeah,” the knight agreed. “I learned to use it properly, too terrified of being caught.”

“Do you want to? Learn to use it, I mean?”

Leon shrugged. “I don’t feel it luring me to use it, but if magic were legal, I might study some. Just so my power can be used to help Camelot, instead of it being wasted.” It hadn’t seemed useless today, when the magic had distracted the lindworm and kept it from eating Arthur like it had several villagers.

“Well, consider yourself a student,” the king said.

“You mean…?” Merlin asked, sounding immeasurably hopeful, trailing off as if voicing the question completely might scare it away. He had thought that the knights would have been more excited, but the servant’s face was the one lit up with the most joy. It made Arthur’s heart swell in his chest and if he hadn’t known he’d made the right decision then, he did now.

“Yes, Mer lin. I’m lifting the ban on magic.”

Every one of his knights cheered.