Berkanan (for trusting us to try again) - muffinwrites (2024)

Chapter 1: First Frost

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When Mordred was young, winter smelled of wood smoke, dried apples and cloves. In later years, once the metallic tang of the cold air had replaced the soothing scent of the fire and the aftertaste of spice and cider had given way to the blood he licked from his chapped lips, he wondered if the memories he used as a touchstone were really born in the mind of a child huddling under a patched cloak and wondering if he’d be able to steal a bit of bread for supper that night. He doubted it, but his memories were a blurred mess of colors and sounds before he arrived in Camelot for the first time, and in his most morbid moments it wasn’t hard to convince himself that he’d fabricated it all out of thin air and colored thread.

As the sands of Camlann settled from his scarlet cloak and drifted into piles in the corners of the room he shared with the other knights, Mordred found himself returning to that time. Long after the others had blown out their candles, he laid awake, tracing scenes of storytellers and dancers around a campfire in golden sparks on the stones above his head. He’d only once been caught doing so, but though he flinched and forced his eyes shut against images of ropes and axes and flames stoked too high, Percival had only scolded him fondly for staying up so late when they had training in the morning, and hummed something tuneless but familiar until they both drifted off to sleep again.

The next morning, the brown grass on the training field glowed gold in the dawn, tiny crystals of ice reflecting the sun’s splendor across the land. Mordred had laughed under his breath when it crunched underfoot, then aloud when Gwaine shoved him in the shoulder. “Winter’s coming,” he prophesied with the joy of a child.

“You just wait until you’ve been waking up in the dark and the cold for a month,” Elyan jested, on his way past them with one of the training dummies. “And give a man a hand with this, would you? I feel like my arms are about to fall off.”

“Don’t let Princess hear you say that, or we’ll be training all day.”

“Don’t let me hear you say what?” Arthur stomped onto the training field with Merlin by his side. The King of Camelot seemed rather like a petulant toddler when it came to cold weather.

Gwaine and Elyan scrabbled for an answer that wouldn't result in them having to be outside for longer than was necessary, then both of them looked to Mordred, eyes pleading.

“What a beautiful day it is, of course,” Mordred lied with all the joy he could muster despite his lungs suddenly failing to draw in the crisp air, then turned very quickly to helping Elyan with the dummy so that he didn’t have to meet Merlin’s gaze. Elyan tried to give him a sympathetic look, but Mordred waved him off. “We’re working on it,” he muttered under his breath. The worst part, he thought, was that it wasn’t a lie.

Since Camlann, he and Merlin had been trying to be civil around each other, if not friendly. Merlin had offered to help teach Mordred to use his magic safely, and Mordred had agreed despite the way his chest tightened when Merlin drew near. Their agreement to train together had lasted exactly one evening, at the unfortunate end of which Percival had ended up having to coax Mordred out from under his bed, and Merlin had stayed in Arthur’s quarters until dawn, crying, shouting, and breaking and repairing things in turn. Merlin had tried to apologize the next day, but Mordred suggested that it was better they hold off on working together for a while, and Merlin had agreed. The knights, placed in the middle of two of their favorite people, had been treading the line with all the elegance which they could muster (which, in Gwaine’s case, was extremely little).

“Morning, Merlin,” the man in question called, and it was clear from his tone that he’d attempted to infuse his voice with all of the cheer that the others lacked in the tense atmosphere. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“You hate the cold, Gwaine,” Merlin responded, deadpan.

“Well, I suppose that young Mordred here has given me a new perspective on it!”

Case and point. Mordred ran a gloved hand over his face and Merlin froze, each attempting to process how they were meant to respond. Mordred, in a feat of courage that he thought should have earned him his knighthood five times over, mumbled, “I’ve liked winter since I can remember"

The silence that met his remark reminded him exactly how little he'd discussed his past with them, even since he'd been revealed to be a druid. "For us, it was always a time to draw closer, keep each other safe and warm.” He held his breath, waiting to see how the others would respond.

To his everlasting shock, the first answer was a gentle, sympathetic nudge at the edge of his mind. Their energy had no conception of space or time, but when Merlin spoke to him, he always felt as though the words reached him just above his right ear.

“Perhaps you could tell us about it. Later. At supper this evening?” Arthur responded next, his halting, stumbling offer evidence of exactly why he needed Merlin to write all of his speeches for him.

“I would like that,” Mordred whispered. He sent Merlin a small smile in place of the thoughts that suddenly curled up in fear upon sensing the other man’s magic, and imagined that one day he'd be able to respond in kind, or at least let him in. Merlin didn't notice, too busy looking at Arthur with an expression of hope and gratitude. As Mordred was about to look away again and rescind what bravery had pinned his gaze on the man who had awed and frightened him for so long, Merlin nodded at him with a quirk of his lips, then wandered back across the crackling grass towards the castle.

Mordred watched him go, and wondered how he was going to tell them all the story that he wasn’t sure he remembered in the first place.

***

Arthur caught his arm when he moved to leave after training. "You don't have to share your past with us if you don't want to. I'm sorry if I pressured you into it. Lord knows I haven't been kind to your people or your traditions." He'd clearly been rehearsing the words for the past three hours, and Mordred felt his heart warm.

"That's why I want to share it," he told his King. "You're a good man, Arthur. You rule with your heart, and I trust that only reason you hated magic was because you were never shown how much of it could be loved. Besides, I think Merlin needs to hear what I have to say."

"Merlin?" Arthur sounded half offended and half nervous.

Mordred giggled. "Don't look so worried. I just mean that I think Merlin's like you. He doesn't really know what parts of magic can be loved, either. And considering he is magic..."

Arthur winced, searched for words, found them, decided that they weren't good words, searched again, patted Mordred on the back, and walked away. The grass barely rustled as he moved, for the frost had long since melted. They had a while yet to go before it would withstand the day's heat.

He doubted he’d ever be able to trust Emrys again, but for Merlin—clumsy, kind-hearted Merlin, who had made too many choices alone and had been taught nothing about the wonder that his very essence could hold—for another lonely magic user, and, in a way, for himself, because he had been so very alone in his magic for so very long—he would try.

Chapter 2: Mulled Wine

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“It wasn’t that we didn’t fear the cold,” Mordred started. The empty plates had been cleared away and the leftover food would be distributed among the more desperate of the townsfolk—a request of Elyan and Percival’s that Arthur had been eager to fulfill. The knights and Merlin sat around the end of the table with goblets of spiced wine, and the fire at the end of the room burned low and warm in the hearth.

“By the time I was five, I’d spent multiple springs mourning those I’d been friends with before winter’s chill stole them away.”

Elyan made a sympathetic noise as Mordred looked away to collect his thoughts, out of the arching windows that gave way to the dazzling spires, bathed in the glow of the new moon. “We let that fear bring us closer to each other, though, instead of pulling us apart. After the years my people had spent running from your father’s men, Arthur, the elders knew well the value of the community that can only be forged in standing strong against impossible odds.”

At the head of the table, Arthur stared sightlessly down into his goblet.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to place this on you or your family, only-" Mordred shook his head though he knew the King wouldn’t see him, alarmed that his promise to be honest had already cast a pall over their happy evening. He startled when the scuffed toe of a boot tapped his ankle underneath the table.

"What sorts of things did you do to celebrate the solstice? I know that it's an important day for the Druids," Percival offered, while Gwaine grinned irreverently at him. Mordred found that his ability to speak had returned, as though by magic.

“They would send us little ones out to collect holly and evergreen, and we would laugh and sing while we decorated the camp. The first time I ever used my magic was to lift a sprig of mistletoe above the main healer and her wife so that they would have to kiss in front of everyone. They scolded me until my ears bled, but it was worth it.” He took a quick sip of his wine and pretended that the sour taste didn’t make him wince. His memories were becoming clearer as his inhibitions disappeared, and he owed it to the others to share his past with them. They’d given him a home—the least that he could give them was his honesty.

“I drew pictures in the fire the first time my Ma and I were snowed in because I wanted to make her smile,” Merlin blurted out, the words tumbling into the open and hovering there, as vulnerable and untouched as the first snow.

Mordred hoped that his answering smile didn’t look too much like a grimace. “I caught my father’s sleeve on fire the first time I tried to do that.”

“That’s why my Ma gave up on having decorations on our mantle piece,” Merlin commiserated.

Mordred’s throat felt warm from the wine, but dry from the words that scraped along it on their way out, so he took another desperate gulp. Gwaine took the goblet from him and refilled it, despite Percival’s reproachful stare. “I was too young to work on the Yule log, but I remember that my sister went out into the woods and cut it down and someone—her husband, perhaps, I don’t really remember him anymore—carved runes into the trunk with a little bronze dagger and decorated it with dried oranges and rose hips and pine cones. I got to light it once, as the youngest member of my family who could be trusted to handle fire. Every family in the camp had their own Yule log, but when we put them together in the center of the clearing and built up a ring of stones around the edge, they burned almost as brightly as the trees that the elders said we used to use.”

“Why did you stop using trees, if you don’t mind my asking?” Percival asked.

“I can answer that, I think,” offered Leon in a regretful tone. “Uther often conducted raids on Druid camps during Yule when the Purge was beginning, and the burning tree meant that they had something sacred they would have to leave behind when he did so.”

“It’s considered bad luck for the fire to go out before the tree has fully burned, but my father would begin to throw the remnants of the camp into the blaze if it was left burning, or execute anyone who used magic to snuff it out,” Arthur agreed. “I’ve been doing research,” he added when both of the magic users present cast him inquisitive looks. “I can’t fix things if I don’t know how they were broken. I didn’t want to ask you and risk dredging up things you didn’t want to remember.”

Mordred dashed a hand over his eyes. “I thank you for that, but know that whatever memories I have are yours to learn about, if you would hear them. We’ve been so scattered, and our traditions struggle to survive in the tiny groups that know little of the wonder they could’ve held before. I’d like to teach you all if I could, so that it can at least linger in our memories.”

The ensuing silence fell not like the calm before the storm, but like the peace afterwards, when the wind and thunder had roared themselves out and the watery sunlight seemed brighter than on the longest day of summer. Within the gentle hope and relief that swirled throughout the room, Mordred felt his magic brush against another’s, and looked up to find Merlin staring at him with an intense, unreadable expression.

“I’d like to learn, if you would tell me about it,” the warlock offered.

“As would I,” agreed the King of Camelot, and if that wasn’t something Mordred never thought he’d hear, he didn’t know what was.

“I’d love to hear all about it as well, and help if I can,” agreed the Queen. “But Mordred, if you don’t mind my asking, when you were offering to teach us, you phrased it as though your memories were… lacking. Am I hearing that correctly?”

Ah. There was exactly the conversation that Mordred had been trying to avoid. He reached for his goblet again, but before he could grasp the handle, he found that it had floated into the air and been set down by Percival’s right hand. The aforementioned knight gave Merlin a grateful look. Without the liquid courage he’d been depending on, Mordred realized exactly how fuzzy and warm the world had begun to feel. “I remember the Yule log,” he protested, unsure where the sudden desperation had risen from, “and the mistletoe. I remember my sister. I remember the healers. I remember my family, my people, my traditions—I can teach you,” he pleaded. “I can.” He wasn’t sure when the wind outside had become so loud, but it rushed in his ears and threatened to rob him of his ability to hear.

“Calm down, mate,” Gwaine cut in quickly. “There’s no need to defend yourself. We believe you—no one here is upset with you.”

Mordred chewed desperately on his lip, the taste of iron flooding his senses once more and reminding him of the bars that he’d clung to as they took Kara away from him. He’d chosen not to kill his King, and it was a choice that he knew could be made into the right one if the had the strength to bring about a better time for them all, but he doubted suddenly that he had the power to do so. He could barely make it through a single conversation without losing his nerve. How could he call himself a knight of Camelot when he was still so frightened by the shadows of his past? He was meant to represent courage, love, and honor. He didn’t think that any of those words described him at the current moment

“My father said that he’d explain our traditions to me when I was old enough to teach them to a family of my own,” he said, voice high and half laughing. “This is the closest thing I’ve had to a family since he died, but he never told me what I’m supposed to tell you all. He never got to, and even though I’m the only person left who can remember him I can’t even do that. It’s all blurry, you see.” He lifted the goblet back out of Percival’s hand and dragged it towards himself through the air. Anything to stop feeling the waves of guilt and exhaustion washing over him. His father had died to protect him, and then he’d nearly killed the very next man he’d found and loved like one.

The taste of rot and salt on his tongue was replaced by bitterness, and below it, just a hint of cinnamon. He felt as though he was going to be sick, but what bubbled up from his stomach was a torrent of words, not his half-digested dinner. “All that’s left are snatches of song, wood smoke, and cider. I think that maybe it wasn’t even real, and I’m just making this all up so that you think we’re worth loving and don’t cast me out of the last place I’ll ever have the chance to find a family that I won’t lose.”

Percival had risen from his seat, Mordred noticed in a detached manner, and his long cloak was fluttering behind him in an invisible breeze as he strode around the table towards the youngest knight. He looked rather like the men who’d stormed the camp on the day Mordred had left his home for the last time, face contorted in fury and large hands reaching to snatch and destroy. He’d been so focused on Emrys during that battle that he hadn’t noticed the knights in his periphery, but he saw them now. In the echoes of his worst days, their eyes held a hatred that crashed over him like the tide, unyielding in the face of his cries.

Mordred’s breath caught in his chest as Percival reached for him. When had he started screaming?

Chapter 3: Out with the Old

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“Mordred.”

By the time Mordred caught onto the fact that Percival’s lips had been moving in the shape of his name for two minutes, his back was pressed against the cool glass of one of the windows and his throat felt as though someone had poured boiling water down it. His arms were like lead, but he lifted one hand and spelled Percival’s name in the code that he, Percival, and Gwaine had made up in the days following Camlann.

“Hey there.” Percival’s voice was low, and it rumbled against the tightness in Mordred’s chest and softened it ever so slightly. “I’m glad to have you back with us.”

Mordred blinked in an effort to clear the blurriness from his vision, then squeezed his eyes shut when the lights began to swirl around him. He felt as though he was going to be sick. As the frantic high of his anxiety drifted away and left him feeling shaken and vulnerable, he observed distantly that this was exactly why Percival hadn’t wanted him to keep drinking.

“Could you open your eyes for me? Merlin has snuffed some of the candles so that it won’t be so bright.”

From the ambient scent of smoke and beeswax filling the air, Mordred knew that this must be true, and wondered when Merlin had gotten so caring or perceptive, at least when it came to him. He peeled his eyelids open and kept his gaze squarely on the floor. A little spider crawled over the toe of one of his boots and fled into a crack in the wall. He let it go, wondering if it had just realized how small it was.

“Thank you,” Percival said kindly when he saw that his eyes were indeed open. “May I come closer?”

Mordred shook his head, then felt his neck tense despite himself. He knew that Percival wouldn’t be angry—the knight had assured him of as much at least seven times now—but he couldn’t help but feel as though a blow would soon fall on his head for his refusal. “‘m sorry,” he managed to get out past his clenched jaw.

“Don’t be,” Percival assured him. “I’m glad you’re telling me what you need.”

Mordred hadn’t, at first. It had taken three of these attacks for them to get to that point.

“Are you alright with it if Gwaine comes over to this side of the table too so that we can talk to you together?”

Mordred nodded as desperately as he’d refused a second before. He wanted Gwaine there, wanted the man who’d been able to make him laugh on the worst day of his life to work his oh-so-human magic again. More than that, even, he wanted Gwaine there so that Percival would stop looking quite so nervous, as though he didn’t know what to do with himself. Over the past months, Gwaine and Percival had helped Mordred more times than he’d like to count, but that didn’t mean they’d stopped being painfully awkward when trying to do so on their own. Mordred understood how they felt, when he had his senses about him enough to consider it. It was terrifying to see someone you cared about hurting—he knew that better than anyone.

Gwaine, it seemed, had been waiting for his consent, for the man vaulted the table immediately and landed at Percival’s side instead of going around it. Arthur made a tiny, strangled noise of concern as Gwaine’s cloak fluttered dangerously near one of the candles that was still burning, but Gwaine avoided harm with a dexterity that could only have been earned from dozens of bar fights in close quarters. Mordred felt his lips twitch despite the tiny cuts that he’d dug into them.

“How’re you doing over there, Mor?” Gwaine grinned confidently at him. At first, Mordred had thought it was an act. Now, he knew that the man was enough of a bloody idiot to really believe that everything was going to be okay because the three of them were there together and could work on fixing it.

“Not feeling so well.” He smirked self-depricatingly.

“Yeah, didn’t think you would be after all of that. Got any ideas how you want to do this?”

Mordred wracked his brain until he caught onto something solid and dependable. “Counting?”

Gwaine smiled as brightly as the sun, and even Percival looked pleased beneath his ever-present stoic expression. “Of course,” Gwaine agreed, gallantry dripping from every syllable. “Can you tell me five things you see?”

“You and Percival,” Mordred started. He thought of the spider, but it wasn’t there anymore, so he didn’t list it. He forced his gaze up across the table, and felt his heart sink at the sight that met him. All of the knights and Guinevere were staring at him, their eyes wide and ranging from concern to alarm. Worse still, Merlin was glaring at the table, clearly wanting no part in what was going on.

“Three more,” requested Percival.

“Arthur.” Mordred’s voice felt thin and reedy. “He looks like he’s swallowed a wasp.”

Gwen snorted, then covered her mouth in alarm. Mordred met her eyes, though, and felt himself gaining strength from the unbridled affection he found there. “Guinevere. She has a very pretty smile.”

Arthur squawked. “That’s my wife you’re talking about!”

“And you know he’s right, dear,” Gwen responded without missing a beat, and patted the King on the arm.

“Leon,” Mordred finished. “He looks like he wants to go to bed. He also looks like he wants to hug Merlin. Right now, I'm not sure which one is going to win."

Elyan chuckled and nudged Leon’s shoulder. Leon frowned, gaze still fixed on where Merlin was pouting. Elyan nudged him harder, until he turned towards him, then shook his head at the blonde knight. "Not right now, Leon," he murmured. Mordred did them all a favor and pretended that he hadn't heard anything.

“Four things you can feel,” Gwaine continued.

“The window. The glass is cold, like ice. The floor… solid. Holding me up. My boots. And my cloak,” he finished. “It’s soft. Some days I still can’t believe it’s mine.”

“Three things that you can hear.”

“The wind outside. My breathing. Your voice.”

“Two things you can smell.”

“The smoke from the candles. I can still smell the soup from dinner.”

“Good job,” Gwaine praised. “Last one. One thing you can taste?”

Mordred felt his stomach flip again as he concentrated on the taste of blood in his mouth. “I bit my lip,” he whispered, looking to Percival for help.

“One thing you can taste,” the man responded, eyes full of hope and acceptance for whatever answer Mordred would give.

“Cinnamon,” Mordred said, because it was true.

“Can I give you a hug now?” Percival looked as though he would start crying right there on the spot from how proud he was. Mordred flung himself on the knight, burying his face in Percival’s chest. “You’re okay.” Percival ran his hand up and down Mordred’s back, touch light so as not to be constricting. Gwaine ruffled his hair and left his hand atop his head when he was finished. “You’re okay, Mordred. We’re so proud of you for how you handled that.”

Mordred pushed himself closer to Percival. He wished that he could use the knight’s arms to shut out the rest of the world so that he didn’t have to give the explanation he was going to be asked for. He could feel Merlin’s presence across from him like a blazing fire.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he begged.

“That’s-” Percival started to reassure him, but was cut off.

“I think we need to,” said Arthur.

“Princess-” Gwaine turned, ready to commit treason on a moment’s notice, but Arthur raised a hand. Upon seeing something unexpected in the man’s expression—request instead of command, hope instead of fear—Gwaine softened. “It might be a good idea, Mordred. If you keep holding this in, I don’t think things are going to end well for any of us, and if we plan to talk another time you’ll just destroy yourself from worry until it comes.”

Mordred settled his head more firmly against Percival’s chest for a moment. Percival tightened his arms, but they both knew that Mordred was only gathering strength to pull away. When he went, Percival let him, then stood behind him like a vengeful guardian angel as Mordred turned to Arthur. “We’ll talk, then,” Mordred agreed. “But I don’t want any of the others here. I can’t handle that. Not yet.” It would be too complicated to try to explain it to all of them at once, to accommodate for the anger or fear or hurt that each person would bring to the conversation.

“Very well,” Arthur agreed. Then when nobody moved, he raised one bossy eyebrow. “You heard him. Out, the lot of you. We can talk later.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea, sire?” Merlin questioned.

Mordred felt more than saw Percival stiffen. “Why, Emrys? Because you think I’m going to be a danger to your precious King if we’re left alone together?”

“Mordred, that’s not…” Merlin rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. They both knew that his words had been meant exactly how Mordred had taken them, even if neither of them had wanted it to be the case.

“If I’d wanted to kill him, I would have done so at Camlann. What more do you want me to give you? I’d vow that I wouldn’t, but Arthur is my King, not you, and I already said as much in my oath to him. What do you want from me, Emrys?”

“Alright, enough!” snapped Arthur. Mordred flinched back into Percival, who growled slightly. “Shut it, the lot of you! Mordred and I will be talking, and no one will be interrupting us until we’re finished. Everyone out!”

Elyan, Leon, and Gwen left quickly. Merlin, Gwaine, and Percival loitered, but after Arthur questioned whether they were really planning on refusing the King of Camelot, they followed the others, dragging their feet. Mordred awaited whatever condemnation Arthur had to offer him.

Arthur sighed, then dragged one of the chairs away from the table and sat down backwards on it so that he was facing Mordred. “Relax. You look like you’re about to fall over just standing there.”

Mordred estimated the strength it would take him to get a chair of his own, considered how wobbly his legs were feeling, and sat down on the floor where he’d been standing. Arthur let out a laugh that was half sob, and rested his forehead against the back of the chair. “Damn this all, Mordred. How did we get here? You were the best of my knights—you still are, really.” He raised his head again, and Mordred felt his throat clench. There were honest tears in Arthur’s eyes. “You tried to kill me.”

“I’m so sorry."

“No, don’t.” Arthur waved a hand as though he was dismissing a bothersome fly. “Guilt isn’t going to do anything for us. Guinevere told me that more times than should have been necessary before I believed her, but I do now. If we just keep feeling bad about the mistakes we made, we won’t have any energy to focus on the good things we could be doing now.”

“What good can come of me committing treason?”

“Attempting treason,” Arthur corrected him. “You didn’t kill me. And if nothing else, I’d like to start by knowing why.”

“I wasn’t doing it for the right reasons,” Mordred admitted. The world was still swaying a bit, and he wasn’t sure he was quite in control of his words.

Arthur looked like he was going to have a headache for the next week. “I don’t think I like the implication that there would have been a right reason to kill me.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“No, I didn’t think so. Care to tell me what you did mean?”

“I’m fated to kill you.”

Yep, Arthur was definitely going to have a headache. “You’re what ?!”

“Emrys didn’t get around to telling you that part, then.”

“Can you please stop calling him Emrys? His name is Merlin. It just makes everything confusing if everyone starts becoming someone else around me. Maybe he’s an all-powerful sorcerer in his spare time, but I know him as my idiot servant, and we’re both quite happy with it staying that way. And no, he didn’t tell me. I didn’t ask,” Arthur added, looking a bit embarrassed.

“Speaking of not communicating, Sire…” Mordred suggested.

“I get it. Now stop trying to distract me and go back to the part where you’re supposed to kill me. Call me stubborn, but I think I’m still stuck on that.” Arthur looked like he was considering jumping out of the window, and Mordred really didn’t want to be responsible for anything even adjacent to treason, so he did his best to explain.

“Prophesied to, not supposed to. There is a difference, which is where Merlin got it wrong. It’s a tale that’s been passed down through my people’s seers for years. You are destined to unite Albion and bring in a new era of prosperity and hope. Merlin is destined to protect you and rule at your side, balancing magic while you balance mortality. I’m…” And this would never get easier to consider, he thought, “I’m destined to kill you.”

“Bloody hell.” Arthur slammed his face against the chair again. “Bloody, f*cking, hell.”

“Language, sire,” quipped Mordred bitterly.

“And when I had Kara executed, you decided that her death was going to be the reason you finally got around to doing it?”

“No!” Mordred was half on his feet before he realized what a supremely terrible idea trying to stand was and collapsed back onto the floor in a tangled mess of scarlet cloak and gangly limbs. “No, Arthur, that’s not what happened. I need you to believe me that that’s not what happened.”

Arthur considered it for a long moment. When he finally said, “I do,” Mordred was more certain than ever before that he actually meant it.

“When Kara died…” He swallowed. “Do you remember when I first came to Camelot?”

Arthur nodded. “You saved us from Morgana and I knighted you. I'm not that slow, Mordred.”

Mordred felt his heart splinter a little bit. He’d wondered, at times, if Arthur hadn’t remembered, and if he’d have willingly knighted a Druid had he known. “Not precisely. My father and I were driven into Camelot by the guards when I was eight years old. He was caught. I hid in the courtyard until I sensed another magic user around.” He’d been stunned by the strength of Merlin’s raw power back then, and the kindness infused within it. That first day, the older man had been nothing but gentle. “I called out to Merlin telepathically. He rescued me. Morgana found out, and hid me in her chambers.”

Arthur opened his mouth to say something, but his comprehension caught up with him after a second, and he squeaked slightly. “That was you?”

“The whole time, I could still sense my father. I reached out to him with my mind, to comfort him, to assure him that I was safe and that he was going to be alright. I felt the moment his fear turned into acceptance.”

“Mordred…”

“Morgana held me while they killed him.”

“Oh gods.” Arthur looked like he was going to be sick. Mordred wanted to offer to give him a moment, but if he stopped now, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to start again.

“I felt the exact same way when Kara died, except that I was alone, in a cell in your dungeon. When I felt her soul leave the world, I didn’t think, I just reacted. My magic broke the bars and reached out for the only place that it had felt safe the last time I'd been in that position.”

Mordred felt his breaths getting shorter, and forced himself to inhale deeply until his lungs burned. “I was acting without thinking at that point, too lost in my grief and fear. That isn’t an excuse, but an explanation." He shook his head and collected himself. "You had rescued me back then, but now you were the one responsible for killing her. Merlin had been kind at first, but he tried to let me die the night you helped me escape, and he hated me even more than he did all of the sorcerers that have tried to kill you.”

“ All of the sorcerers?” squeaked Arthur.

“Save that for the talk you promised to have with him. You know how the next part of the story goes, or at least, you think you do. I found Morgana. If I couldn’t trust you or Emrys—Merlin—to change the way my people were treated in Camelot, then maybe she could. I told her who Merlin was because I wanted him to hurt the way he’d hurt me. I regret that, truly, but I’d be lying if I said that a little part of me isn’t spitefully glad I did it.”

When Arthur hadn’t chopped his head off after a few seconds, he continued.

“She told me that she would protect me and that we would make you rue the day you hurt me. Very dramatic, Morgana is.” He laughed emotionlessly. “Then, she showed me the prophecy. It was the first time I’d seen it, Arthur.”

By now, they were both openly crying.

“It all made so much sense—Merlin’s hatred towards me, the way that I had managed to find a family here only to realize that I wasn’t safe. It just felt too right to let Merlin have what he wanted, to kill you the way he was certain I was going to, to destroy all of us because fate would never let us be an us, no matter how hard we tried. But,” Mordred said, and raised his gaze to meet Arthur’s, feeling clear-headed for the first time all evening, “I’m a Druid who got knighted by the King of Camelot. I’ve never really enjoyed doing what I’m meant to do.”

“Bloody hell,” Arthur murmured. “I’m sorry, Mordred.”

“I thought that guilt wasn’t a useful emotion.”

“It isn’t. But sympathy—empathy—is. Gods above, Mordred. I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through.”

Mordred sniffled, and looked at his boots again. “Could I have a hug?”

That was how the King of Camelot and his most trusted knight ended up cuddling on the floor of the banquet hall, a scene which would be the primary topic of discussion at the servants’ dinner that night.

***

“Where can we go from here?” Mordred asked, when his heart had stopped beating out of his chest and Arthur had stopped crying.

“Anywhere we want to,” Arthur swore. In that moment, Mordred saw in him every bit of the King he was meant to be. “Why don’t you tell me where you think that should be?”

“You haven’t executed anyone for the crime of simply having magic since I met you,” Mordred started tentatively. “Not even Kara. But most people don’t realize that. They’re still terrified that you’re going to. You told me on the battlefield at Camlann that I could use magic as much as I wanted to, and you said the same to Merlin when his aging potion wore off in front of you-” at least, he had implied as much, in and among the offended spluttering, “-but I’m still afraid to cast in front of anyone who isn’t you.” He trailed off, unable to voice the request that hovered on the tip of his tongue. It felt too grand, as though he shouldn’t be the one to suggest it.

Really, though, he already had. “Legalize magic,” Arthur finished for him. “You’re right. I should have done so long ago, my father be damned.”

“More than legalize it,” Mordred said before his anxiety could get the better of him. “Welcome it. Celebrate it. Let the Druids heal people and thank them when they do. Thank Merlin for all he’s done for you, as well.”

“And what about you?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Mordred said, suddenly feeling very wrongfooted.

“You’ve asked for something for all of the magic users in Camelot. You’ve asked for something for your people. You’ve asked for something for Merlin, who, if I’m interpreting everything you told me correctly, convinced you that you were nothing more than a killer through his hatred of you. But Mordred, you still haven’t told me what you want.”

Mordred opened his mouth, and suddenly found that all of the speeches he’d prepared in the past meant nothing to him. He swallowed, and caught a hint of cinnamon on his tongue once more. “I want to celebrate the solstice with you and Gwen and the knights,” he whispered. “I want to spend Yule with my family again.”

“Then you will,” Arthur said, and Mordred knew that it was a promise on his honor as King.

***

“Gaius?” Arthur knocked softly on the door of the healer’s chambers. Mordred was leaning heavily against his side, fighting to keep his eyes open. “May we come in?”

The door was opened, unfortunately, by a very frantic-looking Merlin. Mordred flinched minutely, and Arthur winced. “Oh.” Merlin looked at Mordred, who blinked sleepily at him, and seemed to find himself unable to locate a response. “Gaius?” he called nervously. “I think Arthur needs you.”

“Yes, the fact that he asked for me and not you when he knocked would indicate as much, Merlin,” Gaius said, bustling over and lifting Mordred up and away from Arthur, who rolled his shoulder gratefully. He led Mordred over to the patient’s cot, then lowered his voice so that only the young Druid could hear him. “Do you want them here while I work?”

“No,” Mordred murmured, even more quietly.

“Right then. Arthur, Merlin, I think that you should get going. I’m pretty sure that the two of you have a long-overdue conversation, and I need to not be distracted while I’m speaking to Sir Mordred.” Unlike Arthur earlier that evening, Gaius’ command was met with no resistance. Both the King and his manservant knew better than to question the physician's authority.

“Thanks,” Mordred mumbled.

Gaius nodded. “Now, are you actively dying?”

“What? I... I don’t think so.”

“Would you like to sit quietly for a while before we get to work, then? You look rather wrung out.”

Gaius, Mordred thought, was a god amongst men. “I would love that more than anything.”

Gaius chuckled and puttered off to continue brewing a potion by the open window.

***

Arthur wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to start this conversation, which is why he was grateful—if surprised—when Merlin cut through the tension by flinging his arms around him. “You god-damned prat .” Merlin jammed his face aggressively into Arthur’s shoulder. “You can’t just force me to leave you alone with a threat like that. I can’t take it. Not after I nearly lost you at Camlann.”

Arthur reveled in the warmth of the gesture for a moment, then took Merlin by the shoulders so that he could look him in the eyes. “Mordred isn’t a threat, Merlin.”

“He’s destined to-” Merlin cut himself off with a hand over his mouth.

“Kill me. I know, Mer lin. Which you kindly didn’t see fit to inform me of. You didn’t see fit to inform him of it either, mind you, which is a large part of why we’re in this mess in the first place.”

“What?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m at fault too, but if neither of us wants to see his sword through my heart-” Arthur squeezed Merlin’s shoulders gently as the man shuddered, “-or his neck in a noose, or your body at the bottom of the guard tower because you lost your mind trying to take on everything by yourself, then we have to believe that destiny doesn’t mean everything.”

“I used to think that,” Merlin scoffed. “Then I tried to change it, and look what happened.”

“Did you try to change it, or did you let it change you?”

Arthur forced Merlin to meet his gaze for an instant longer, and then the man crumbled, sagging against Arthur’s hands. Arthur drew him to his chest once more. “I don’t want to feel like this,” Merlin sobbed. “I don’t want to hate him, Arthur.”

“I don’t think you do,” Arthur murmured into his hair. “I think you’re terrified of him—just as terrified as he is of you. And you’re scared of him because you love me, and he’s scared of you because he used to love you, or at least what you represented for him. A right mess, isn’t it?”

“When did you get so wise?”

“After Camlann. Guinevere screamed at me for a solid hour and told me that if she was going to spend every day having to fear losing me, she wouldn’t do it unless she knew that we’d been completely open with each other, and loved every part of each other that we’d had the chance to love. It was rather effective, actually,” Arthur admitted.

“And you’ve been planning what you’re going to say to me and Mordred ever since?”

“Pretty much.” Arthur felt more than heard Merlin’s answering laugh.

“I don’t want to hate him or fear him, Arthur. I want to teach him how to make flowers grow and watch his eyes light up. I want to learn about all of the healing magic he knows that I’ve never been able to grasp. I want to team up to prank you and the others, and I want to spend the worst of his nights or of mine understanding each other because even if things get better it won’t fix the fact that they were so, so bad. He’s the only person around here I could really connect with about how it feels to have magic in this place, but more than that…” Merlin swallowed. “You love him like a son, Arthur, and I want to love him like a nephew.”

Arthur nodded against Merlin’s head, and summed up the train of logic for both of them. “But you can’t, because you already love me like a brother and you can’t trust him not to hurt me.”

“I want to.”

“I know that.”

“Then what do I do?”

Everyone, Arthur thought, had been looking to him in the past few months as though he had the answers. He felt as though he was still a kid, searching for someone else to tell him who to be. But there was no one to turn to, now—at least, no one who would do the work for him. He had those who’d worked willingly beside him in the past, though, and he had the feeling that they’d be the ones to help him figure out the future, if he was strong enough to hold onto them.

“Think about it this way, Merlin. If a sword can be removed from a stone, why can’t the future?”

“I cast a spell on the sword,” Merlin protested weakly.

“Then cast a spell on the bloody future, for all I care!” Arthur burst out. “I will not lose you, and I will not lose Mordred, so f*cking work with me to figure this the hell out.”

“It sounds rather like you’re offering me a promotion, Sire,” said Merlin. There was something tentative in his voice, and though it was concealed stealthily beneath several layers of nuance and mirth, Arthur would always know what his brother meant when it really mattered.

“Why not? The second the ban on magic is lifted—which I’ll need your help with, by the way—I’ll appoint you as my court sorcerer. So long as you tell me what you’re doing to protect me—and share the parts of what you did in the past that you want to tell me. How does that sound? Just don’t f*cking lose yourself to this when we're so close to being okay again, alright? Please.”

“Once… once the ban on magic is lifted?”

***

Gaius arched an eyebrow at Mordred as Merlin’s cheering echoed through the halls of the castle. “Did you have something to do with this?”

“I’m not quite sure what I have to do with anything, anymore.”

“Ah. I thought that you might be here for more than a hangover cure. What seems to be the trouble?”

“Aside from the whole trying to kill the King thing?” When Mordred had decided that yes, Gaius did mean aside from that, he continued, “I think my memory’s broken. I can’t remember most of my childhood, and then I remember it at inconvenient times and have these… attacks.”

“I see. Have you been doing anything to help with them?”

“Gwaine and Percy usually are able to calm me down. If they aren’t around or can’t help I just drink more than I probably should until I can convince myself to fall asleep. I’ve tried using my magic sometimes, but it kind of goes haywire. That’s why one of the gargoyles outside of the knights’ dormitory speaks with an Irish accent now.”

“Did you know that Merlin turned a statue into a dog when he first came here? You are not the first to have difficulties with your magic, and you will not be the last. I’m not in the least surprised about the symptoms you’ve described, either. I’ve seen them in many of the knights, especially those who had to fight or kill when they were much too young to consent to doing so. Does that sound familiar?”

Mordred nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Unfortunately, the best assistance that I can give you with your memories is to suggest making as many new ones that you can look back on fondly as you possibly can. Don’t look so alarmed, Sir Mordred. The anxiety, and the dreams that I’m sure you’ve been having, are much more treatable. There are several herbs which can help with both, and I’m sure if we work together on it over the next few months we can find a combination of them that will help you be able to live your life more normally.”

“Thank you,” Mordred breathed.

“This is my job, Sir Mordred. I would caution you, though, that alcohol is not among those concoctions known to do good for those who are struggling with such conditions as yours.”

“I’m pretty sure I knew that already.” Mordred curled in on himself a bit. “More good memories, less drinking. I can try to work on that. I doubt I’ll even have time to look at alcohol in the next few weeks—Arthur wants me to organize some kind of festival for Yule to teach him and the others about how to honor Druid customs.”

“That sounds like quite the event,” Gaius said with a genuine smile.

“It is, and I’m flattered that he wants me to run it all, but I don’t know how I’m going to remember everything about our old Yule celebrations. So much of that knowledge was lost during the Purge and isn’t readily accessible now, especially not in the Citadel.”

“Sir Mordred, might I ask you a question that does not at first seem relevant?”

“Go ahead.”

“Did the shouting we heard just now mean that the ban on magic is to be lifted in Camelot?”

“I think so. Arthur said he would, at least.”

“Then allow me to offer my assistance in your quest to make this the most magical Yule since before the Purge. I was friends with many Druids in years gone by, and I remember quite a few customs that others might not.”

“Gaius.” Mordred stared at him like he’d hung the sun and the stars. “You are the most wonderful person I’ve ever met.”

Gaius patted him on the head. “No wonder you’ve got this whole castle wrapped around your little finger with a smile like that, my boy. Now get going with you. We can plan tomorrow when you’re done regretting all of the imbibing you’ve done this evening.”

Mordred was sure Gaius was right and that he would suffer in the morning, but as he half skipped and half stumbled back down the stairs and across the castle, he couldn’t bring himself to mind.

“Ah, Mordred! I was looking for you!”

He glanced over his shoulder to see Leon sprinting around the corner at full-tilt, and slowed accommodatingly. He wasn’t sure what the older knight had in store for him—Leon had been part of Uther’s regiment, and he hadn’t made his views all that clear ever since—but he certainly wasn’t expecting Leon to rock back and forth sheepishly on his toes before asking, “Do you know where I could find some mistletoe?”

Mordred stared at him for a long moment, then decided that he was too tired for this, and continued on his way to his room, where a warm, safe bed awaited him. Outside, the wind roared and whistled, singing in the first days of winter.

Chapter 4: Windchimes

Chapter Text

It wasn’t long after his conversation with Arthur before the snow began to fall, but Mordred found that he was so busy between attending training, council meetings, and assisting Gaius in the village that he barely had the time to enjoy it. As the weather grew colder and the clouds gathered overhead, thick with big, fluffly flakes that soon blanketed the sleeping earth, travelers began to arrive in Camelot. Drawn into the Citadel by the promise of the same hospitality that had welcomed them in years before, parties of diplomats and nobles arrived to meet with the King and his court and share in the festivities of the last feast before winter necessitated the rationing of their stocks.

Mordred would watch them arrive, pausing in whatever task he’d been undertaking and gazing nervously upon the newest appearances, or the rainbow of gallant cloaks that now hung in the coat room off of the entrance hall. He wondered how many of them had heard the truth of what had happened at Camlann, for though Arthur had done his best to enforce a rule of secrecy on all those who had fought there that day, whispers were bound to pass between the kingdoms, and it hadn’t been only Camelot’s soldiers who died on that battlefield.

Mordred hoped desperately that the need to entertain dozens of guests wouldn’t put a stop to his plans for Yule, but he knew that the kingdom had to come first, and the diplomats of all of the surrounding countries couldn’t be turned away. He cursed himself for being selfish each time he had to fight back the urge to scowl at a passing knight or noble, but he felt bitter and exposed as the castle began to swarm with people who would only know him as what they’d been told of him.

“Of course you should still plan for the Solstice!” Arthur told him jovially when he posed the question at dinner that night. “Our guests won’t mind a bit more celebration, and it’s about time that we all learn the depths of the wonderful traditions that Camelot has to offer.”

Gaius patted him on the shoulder after that particular meal ended and promised that Arthur didn’t mean to turn his traditions into a spectacle. He was just trying to balance the duties of King and friend, Gaius explained, and struggling to do so. Mordred found it rather difficult to believe him.

The one aspect of the preparations that he wouldn’t trade for the world, though, was the strange friendship he’d developed with the Court Physician. Arthur had wrangled Merlin into devoting all of his spare time to reading over the bills relating to the new freedom of magic in Camelot (and violently revising them, as well, if the arguments that could be heard from the corridors outside of Arthur’s chambers were anything to go by), and while the two of them struggled to balance Merlin’s duties as a servant and advisor and Arthur’s as a friend and a King, Merlin had been left without any time at all to assist Gaius in the village, even as illness became more prominent and dangerous with the onset of the cold.

Mordred had offered himself in Merlin’s place, framing it as payment for Gaius’ help with the festivities because—as Gwaine had said and Mordred had vehemently denied—he was too nervous to offer kindness for its own sake lest he be rejected. (Gwaine, when one got to know him, was frighteningly emotionally perceptive. Mordred still wasn’t quite sure what to do with that fact.)

“Good morning, Sir Mordred,” Gaius would greet him kindly each day when he arrived at the physician’s quarters after training. “I was wondering if you could assist me in…”

Mordred felt, often, as though he was back in the Druid camp and helping out the Elders in preparation for Yule. Gaius never mentioned it, but judging by the way he’d begun to pack an extra sandwich each time they were to spend the day seeing patients in the lower town, Mordred got the feeling that he understood, at least in spirit. There were plenty of days where Mordred was sent into the woods to collect herbs, too, but though he was nervous to spend so much time alone with his mind at first, the knowledge that he was doing something more than training to fight or kill or keep a kingdom from falling apart made it so that he barely felt the cold or noticed the loneliness that had once accompanied him.

“Good morning, Sir Mordred,” Gaius called out to him one particular morning from the top of the stairs to Merlin’s room. “If you could assist me in packing my medical bag, that would be much appreciated. My ward is refusing to leave his room, so I must deal with him before we head out for the day.” This last sentence was spoken at a much higher volume, and Merlin responded with a grumble from inside of the room.

“Arthur has requested your presence at the meeting this morning, Merlin.”

Mordred turned to Gaius’ bag and began to tuck bottles of fever reducers, pain relievers, and cough suppressants into the pouch that was lined with sheeps’ wool.

“As an advisor , Gaius, not as a servant! I don’t know how to advise! You know how to advise, tell me how to do it.”

Mordred had to stifle a sudden laugh as Merlin poked his head out of the door, hair sticking up in every direction, wearing something that Mordred thought was meant to be a professional looking outfit, if one squinted very hard. It really looked as though Merlin was planning to act out the part of a King in a traveling theater production, but he got points for trying, Mordred thought. Gaius didn’t seem to share this opinion.

“Merlin, my boy, what on Earth are you wearing?”

“Does it look bad? Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have kept my neckerchief on. Just a second, I’ll go change it-”

Gaius caught Merlin by the offending neckerchief and stared him dead in the eye. “If you are not wearing your everyday clothes when you open this door again, then so help me-”

“But I want to look good! Arthur’s going to make me Court Sorcerer , Gaius. I’ve got to make a good first impression!”

“You certainly won’t make one by being late,” Gaius scolded, though there was little heat in it. “Honestly, Merlin. You’re the only person I know who could worry about getting exactly what they’ve always wanted.”

“Arthur won’t care how you look,” Mordred spoke up suddenly, then cursed himself for it. He couldn’t stop there, though, not with Merlin looking at him like he was some strange, unfortunate creature and Gaius looking at him with more encouragement than he knew what to do with. “The nobles won’t either, once they’ve heard you speak. Actions and words matter more than appearances."

Merlin continued to stare at him. Mordred wilted, and turned back to the bag, so that the only evidence he had of Gaius’ reproachful whap on the top of Merlin’s head was the warlock’s startled shout. “We’ll be talking about this later,” Gaius said pointedly, “when you aren’t already keeping the King of Camelot waiting.”

Merlin retreated into his room, and Gaius turned apologetically to Mordred. “Where were we? Ah, yes.” He smiled, and Mordred could have sworn that he winked. “Good morning, Sir Mordred.”

“Good morning, Gaius.” Mordred felt himself stand up straighter without having been aware that he’d instructed his body to do so. “How are you today?”

“Well enough, my boy,” Gaius responded pleasantly, then frowned in the direction of Merlin’s room as a muffled, “I thought I was your boy,” could be heard through the wood. “Well enough, that is, for a man who’s had to deal with a stubborn warlock for the past ten years of his life. Get going , Merlin.”

Merlin finally burst out of the door, startling Mordred so that he let out a little squeak and cowered back into the table. Merlin spared him a single glance, then grabbed the bowl of porridge that Gaius had set out for him and downed it in three bites. Calling out to Gaius to have a good day through a full mouth, he grabbed his satchel from a hook beside the door and dashed down the stairs into the castle proper. Gaius sighed. “I didn’t know him as a teenager, but I pity Hunith for having to deal with him at that age.”

“Probably a consequence of being Emrys,” Mordred muttered. “He’s immortal, so he’ll never grow up.”

“Probably a consequence of being Merlin,” Gaius countered, and the exasperated affection that felt was clear in his voice. “Now. We have several patients to attend to in the town today, and one girl out at one of the farms along the entrance road. She’s been sick for several days, but her parents thought that she might get well on her own. It seems that last night she took a turn for the worse.”

“Do we know what to expect?”

“Likely the same fever we’ve seen going around the village for the past few weeks. She was seen playing with some children who came down with it a few days later. I’d pack some poultices if I were you,” Gaius advised. “The worst part seems to be her cough, and the messenger who informed me of her condition said that she needs to clear her lungs out if she’s to get enough air to power her through the rest of the fever.”

The messenger system, sending heralds to check up on the villages surrounding the Citadel, had been a plan of Percival and Elyan’s that had been implemented in the past months, and had already seen immense success. Now, instead of hearing about a tragedy only after a member of the village council was sent to inform Arthur, they had the chance to catch problems before they reached that point. As they set out into the sunlit morning, Mordred found himself bolstered by the fact that he was friends with people who were actually able to make things better. Maybe, if today went as he hoped, he’d be able to try his hand at helping, as well.

The snow crunched underfoot. Mordred felt grateful for the boots he’d acquired as part of his knight’s uniform—they’d be out of the castle for hours, and if he wore the right socks, his toes would only get a little bit numb.

The calls in the lower town were as uneventful as medical calls ever were—there were children for Mordred to distract while Gaius treated their parents, and parents to comfort while Gaius did what he could for their children, and people who were all alone and wanted to hear a story before the only visitors that they would have all season departed once more. Mordred was always in high demand for the first and last of these categories. The young and the lonely alike, it seemed, were eager to dream of what it would be like to be a knight. They loved to hear Mordred speak of Percival, who was a commoner (“Just like us!” so many of the children cheered), and was now recognized as one of the most noble men that the land had to offer.

“And I know him,” Mordred would add in a whisper, feeling rather like he was telling some great secret despite the fact that they’d all seen him riding by in his knight’s attire. “He’s a very close friend of mine—and you wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he really likes puns.”

This particular tidbit of information had resulted in the unexpected consequence of little children running up to Percival when he was walking through the town and asking him to tell them a joke, but he always obliged, and had thanked Mordred for it after dinner one night. “I used to frighten them, I think,” he confessed. “I’m not the most friendly-looking of men.”

“You are the most friendly of them, though,” Mordred had replied, and had hugged Percival and run off before the knight was able to come up with a response.

He had a feeling that the last little girl they were going to see couldn’t be helped with only a kind word or a laugh, but he resolved to try. As they approached the farm, a large black and white dog ran out to meet them, barking around their legs. Its paws were caked with snow, but its tail wagged more valiantly than the flags on the castle proper. “Hi there, sweetheart,” Mordred cooed, and it fell over in the snow at its feet, presenting its stomach for a scratch. Mordred obliged, but only for a moment. “I’m sorry, buddy,” he told the dog as it bounced after them and continued to throw itself dramatically across their path. “We’ve got to go take care of your human.”

The dog paused where it had been wiggling in the snow, remembered itself, and sprinted towards the run-down farm house that was set behind a bank of evergreen trees, barking all the way. An old woman appeared in the doorway, and raised her hand in greeting when she saw the two figures tromping through the snow. Her gray hair was tucked beneath a worn violet scarf, but whisps drifted out at the edges like tiny clouds. Her hands were roughened with age and care, Mordred noticed as they got closer, but her face had smile lines tracing up and down it, though she didn't seem all too pleased to see them.

“You're here for Ellie." It wasn't a question.

The first thing Mordred noticed when they stepped into the house and removed their boots at the door was that the room smelled wrong . The scent of sickness clung to the little trinkets on the mantelpiece and drifted around a little pile of brown paper packages on the table. A nest of woolen blankets was arranged on the floor in front of the kitchen stove, and a little girl lay curled in the midst of them. Her cheeks were flushed with illness, and she winced at the light coming from the open door behind them, but she raised her head a few inches in greeting nevertheless.

Forgetting everything Gaius had taught him about maintaining a caring but objective demeanor, Mordred was at her side in an instant, hand on her forehead to check for a fever. She curled into the coolness of his palm, and he felt his throat clench. “Hi there,” he murmured. “You’re Ellie, right?”

“Mmhm,” she mumbled. In her tiny hands, she clutched a sock with two button eyes, mismatched ears, and a mouth stitched on with red thread.

“Who’s this?”

“Nicolas. She’s a dragon.” She let out a wheeze of breath, then stiffened and curled her body back around Nicolas as her bony frame was wracked by a fit of painful coughs. Mordred rubbed her back until the spasms eased. Behind him, he could hear Gaius murmuring in an all-too-gentle tone to her grandmother. The little girl didn’t seem to notice, but Mordred felt a wave of cold wash over him. He knew that voice.

“Did you know that Healer Gaius’ son is friends with a dragon? His name is Kilgharrah, and he’s very old and very grumpy.”

“My Grandma is grumpy too,” Ellie confided in him. “She says that it’s because she’s old, and that I’ll be just as grumpy when I’m as old as she is.” She stared into Nicolas’ button eyes for a second, asking some unknown question, and Mordred wondered what secrets she’d whispered to the little dragon when no one was looking. Nicolas must have agreed with her, for she turned back to Mordred with a steely resolve visible in the line of her pale lips. “I’m never going to get to be as old as Grandma, though, because I’m sick.”

“Don’t say that,” Mordred begged, then took a deep, shaking breath and forced his voice to settle back into something gentle, kind, and not at all heartbroken. “Your parents and Grandma are worried, and that probably scares you, right?”

Ellie nodded, Nicolas bobbing with her head as she clutched him against her chin. “Every time Ma and Pa go out for the day, they say goodbye to me like they’re saying goodbye . Every day I try so hard to still be here when they get back, and so far I’ve done it but it’s getting harder. In three days it's gonna be too hard and I'm gonna have to say goodbye, too."

“Ellie?” He waited until she looked at him again. “How long have you been sick? You sound like you haven’t been well for a long time, but we thought you only got sick this week.”

Ellie wiggled back and forth and coughed again, not ready or willing to answer.

“It’s very important that Healer Gaius and I know how long you’ve been sick so that we can help to make you better. And we can make you better, Ellie—I promise you.” He shouldn’t promise her, he thought distantly, but he wasn’t in any way intending to break it, no matter what Gaius might say.

“I started feeling icky after the first frost.”

Mordred held his breath as he counted backwards. Twenty-nine days. She’d been sick for twenty-nine days—no wonder she was in such bad shape. “It must have felt kind of scary to be sick for all that time, yeah?”

She nodded again. Her eyelids were beginning to stay closed for longer every time she blinked, and Mordred wondered if he would ever stop feeling nauseous when he saw a child in pain. He hoped, in a strange way, that he never would.

“Sir Mordred, my boy,” said Gaius from behind him. It wasn’t a question, but at the same time, it was.

“Hand me the packet of herbs next to the cough suppressant, and ask them if they have clean water that we can boil,” Mordred said. It wasn’t an answer. At the same time, it was.

He ran a hand through Ellie’s hair. Despite the fact that she’d been ill and sweating for weeks, her curls weren’t tangled, and they looked cleaner than he would have imagined. He resolved not to ask why her caretakers hadn’t called them sooner, at least not until he’d seen what could be done for her. He didn’t think it was from lack of care, and even if it was, the answer didn’t matter until he’d made sure she would live to be cared for.

“Can you tell me about the dragon?” Ellie whispered into his hand as he cupped the side of her face to help her drink one of the cough suppressants. She spluttered at the bitter taste, but the ensuing coughing fit didn’t last for quite as long. A ray of golden, afternoon sunlight drifted through the window above the stove where Gaius was working and fell across the floor. Specks of dust drifted in the beam, dancing with each of their breaths.

“He’s taller than your house,” Mordred told her with genuine awe in his voice. “He has big, yellow eyes that are the size of- of pumpkins!”

Ellie giggled. “So does Nicolas!”

Nicolas’ button eyes were charcoal black and the size of copper pieces, but Mordred believed her.

“Why don’t you tell me about Nicolas? I’ve never met such a pretty dragon before. He must have told you all sorts of stories about himself.”

“He has,” Ellie said.

“I’m sure the Healers don’t need to hear all of them right now, though,” the older woman cut in. She crouched down beside Mordred despite the way her knees creaked, and there was a biting worry in her voice. “You should save your strength, my dear. I don’t want you to get all tired out from talking.”

Mordred felt his cheeks burn. He should’ve thought of that. Some physician’s assistant he was. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to the woman as Ellie rolled over and pouted into the blankets. “I didn’t mean to tire her out, it’s just that our visits are always so much less exhausting for them if they aren’t afraid of us.”

“Shouldn’t they be afraid, though?”

Gaius stilled in his steady puttering around the room.

“Excuse me?” Mordred breathed, feeling lightheaded. He knew that news of Camlann must have spread through the kingdom, but he hadn’t expected his worst mistakes to rear their heads at such a time as this.

“I know who you are, Sir Mordred.”

Two brown eyes blinked curiously up at him from the nest of blankets. Ellie’s presence was the only reason Mordred didn’t scramble to his feet and indulge in his desire to run straight out of the door into the snow beyond. “I’m the Physician’s assistant,” he tried to defend. His past didn’t matter in this moment. He was here to treat Ellie—he’d never hurt a child.

“You’re a knight of Camelot ,” the woman hissed with such vitriol in her tone that it took Mordred a long moment to parse the words and the fact that the situation wasn’t at all what he’d thought it was. He sagged back against the leg of the kitchen table behind him, dizzy with relief. Then, he registered the true implications of what she’d said.

“I’m a healer,” he hastened to assure her. “I’m not certain what you’re worried about, but I promise I’m not here for anything but to help Ellie feel better.”

Had they stolen something from the castle? Had they not paid their rent? Was there something more sinister going on? Mordred shook his head to rid himself of the errant thoughts. Gaius had taught him the concept of Healers’ Immunity on his first day—it unfortunately didn’t mean that healers didn’t get sick, which would have been lovely, but that healers weren’t required to share any information about their patients with the guards or King unless someone was plotting active harm to others. In fact, they were explicitly forbidden from doing so.

It gave him a certain amount of freedom that he had yet to get used to.

“I’m not worried about anything,” the old woman told him stubbornly. “Only that my granddaughter lives to see her fifth solstice.”

“Then we share an aim here, madam,” Mordred assured her. Then, turning his back on her in a way that probably was rude but that he couldn’t bring himself to worry about at the current moment, he asked Ellie, “Can you sit up for me, sweetheart?”

Ellie struggled valiantly up onto her elbows, and Mordred tucked an arm behind her to support her. “Healer Gaius has warmed up a little bag of herbs in some water for you, okay? We’re gonna put them on your chest and they’re gonna help you breathe better.”

“I can do that for you,” the grandmother cut in. “Really, thank you for coming all this way, but I’m certain that if you give me the herbs we can handle this ourselves. We’ve dealt with her illnesses before, and we know how to take care of our own here. You don't need to linger any longer than you already have."

"I need to finish treating her cough."

"You need to leave. You've given us what you can."

Mordred breathed through his nose, an all-too-familiar anger rising in him. Flashes of swords and red sand broke into the corners of his vision, and he pressed his eyes shut. This couldn’t be happening right now. His arm trembled where it held Ellie up, but instead of slipping away from him, she sagged into his side. He held her closer, suddenly unwilling to release her to people who were too frightened to let her be cared for in the way she needed.

“You have to let us help her,” he protested. “You’ve been trying on your own for weeks, and look where that’s gotten you! We can help—we can fix this—if you’ll just let us!”

“I don’t have to do anything!” the woman cried, rising unsteadily to her feet and towering over him. Ellie whined and pressed her flushed and clammy face into his neck. He could feel the heat of her fever through the thin fabric of her nightgown. “Ellie is my granddaughter, and I will take care of her as I see fit!”

“Even if it isn’t enough to save her?” Mordred burst out.

“Sir Mordred,” said Gaius, his quiet voice sympathetic and reproachful and furious all at once. “Might I speak to you outside?”

Mordred felt hot tears spring to his eyes, but forced them not to fall until Gaius had pulled him out the door and all the way into the peace and shade of the grove of trees. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed into the blessed silence of the branches when they were out of sight of the house. The crisp winter air burned his lungs and cooled the boiling tear tracks on his cheeks. He couldn’t seem to breathe well enough to get his anger and grief under control; something red and rough was rising inside his mind, overwhelming him in waves until he had to take Gaius’ offered arm and lower himself to sit in the snow.

“I’ll scold you later, my boy.” It was both a threat and a promise. “For now, you’re going to breathe, and then you’re going to tell me what set you off about what’s going on in that house. Then, we’re going to make a plan for how we’ll end this day with everyone as well as they can be in the circ*mstances.”

It all seemed so simple when Gaius put it that way. Mordred rested his head between his knees with some encouragement, and breathed. His tears melted tiny, icy circles into the snow below him. “She’s been sick for twenty-nine days,” he finally confessed when he was able to speak without feeling like he was going to be violently ill. “They’ve been taking care of her, but I don’t understand why I can’t get through to her grandmother that they can’t be stubborn about being the only people to take care of her anymore if they want her to make it to adulthood. Life doesn’t work like that, Gaius.”

He raised his head, all defiance and desperation. “Life didn’t work like that when I was young. We all took care of each other, and it was considered just as much of an honor to accept help as it was to offer it."

“Do you think they’re actually being stubborn or dishonorable?”

Mordred resisted curling up in shame. Of course he didn’t. “They’re scared, Gaius, which means that if she dies it’s our fault for not being able to convince them that they don’t need to fear us.” He’d been thinking it all along, but voicing the condemnation was something else entirely. He began to chew on his lip again and looked away so that Gaius didn’t scold him for it.

“Would you like me to tell you what I think about this?” Gaius offered gently.

Mordred was nodding before the physician had even finished his sentence.

“I don’t think that it’s entirely our fault or theirs. This isn’t the first time one of the families further out from the Citadel has responded to my care in this way—I’ve just sent you out to collect herbs on the days that I was going to see them.”

“Because you thought I couldn’t handle it.” Mordred hated that he’d proved Gaius right.

“Because I thought you shouldn’t have to. I do the exact same thing when it’s Merlin assisting me, if that helps.”

It did, a bit, not that Mordred would ever admit it.

“The fear they feel over letting us help was bred in Uther’s time, when the cost of a favor could be a life—whether lost in battle, service, or on a pyre—especially when a knight of Camelot was involved.”

“If I left-” Mordred started.

“Do you want to leave?”

He wanted nothing less. He wanted to march back into that house and scoop Ellie up in his arms and do whatever it took to make her well again. He wanted to prove that someone, anyone, didn’t need to fear him. “They don’t deserve to be afraid while their child is already ill, but I don’t think we’ll ever prove that people don’t need to fear us if we give up every time they refuse our help,” he reasoned tentatively. “I just don’t know whether I want to fight this battle for the sake of a war that’s so much bigger than that little girl and risk her being a casualty. Nothing is worth having to feel her spirit leave this plane. Nothing.”

Gaius, to Mordred’s eternal surprise, smiled at him as though they were both in on some joke that nobody else understood. “Do you typically feel it when our patients pass on?” he asked, and though the question seemed genuine enough, Mordred had gotten to know Gaius too well in the past few weeks to think that it wasn’t meant to lead him somewhere.

“Why?” He could be as curious as the physician when the situation necessitated it, and as stubborn, too.

“Think about it, Sir Mordred, and then tell me whether this is a battle that you’re sure isn’t worth trying to win.”

“I suppose that I don’t usually feel it, actually," Mordred started. "The last time I felt it was…” He froze, reconsidered all of his life choices, and stared up at Gaius, who smiled back down at him with an expression that said “Go on,” as clearly as if he’d actually spoken the words. “Most kids don’t have toy dragons, do they?"

"Not typically, no. Usually that's seen as a taboo around here."

"Most kids aren’t certain when they’re about to die."

"Indeed," said Gaius.

"Most kids couldn’t have survived an illness like this for more than a few days," Mordred breathed. "She..."

He sprang to his feet, whirling to return to the house, and found himself face to face with a windchime that had been dangling just above his head. Carved on a little circle of wood in the center was a rune that he knew could only belong to the Old Religion: a straight line, and two pointed peaks in front of it that made it look like a stylized letter ‘B’. He stared at it for a long moment, took a deep breath, took another deep breath, and turned to Gaius. “She has magic. I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”

“There’s no way you could have known.” Gaius smirked. Mordred got the sneaking suspicion that he’d been led to this particular grove of trees for a reason, and contemplated melting the snow beneath him so that he could sink into the ground and hide there until spring came.

“Were the signs that obvious?”

“Only if you know what to look for, my boy. Don’t be too hard on yourself—you haven’t spent time around your people in years, and you’ve spent even less time around patients before. You may think you know how to read people, but when they’re fading in front of you and you can’t figure out how to return their light to them, that skill goes out the window, and it takes years of practice to summon it back to you dependably.”

“Gods.” Mordred tilted his head back and stared at the sky above him. The brilliant blue that had shone over them for hours was beginning to pale as the sun fell.

“Do you know what you need to do now?”

And after all of that, Gaius was still trusting him to finish this in the right way. “Gods,” Mordred whispered again, and nodded. Then, he put himself back together, piece by piece, and knocked gently on the door of the house. The old woman opened it a mere crack and peered out at him, eyes distrusting and oh-so-protective.

“I’m sorry for not listening to you, but if you’ll grant me the courtesy, I’d request to share my point of view with you, as well.”

She nodded, once, stiffly.

“Part of the healing process for this particular illness typically involves two hours where it’s touch and go whether the patient will live or not. If you don’t know how to respond to each new symptom the moment it appears, the result usually isn’t good. All I was thinking about when I responded the way I did to your refusal was that I’d have to feel Ellie die when I was halfway down the road and too far away to do anything but throw up in the snow.” He swallowed, not wanting to dwell too hard on that possibility until he’d tried all that he could. “I know that there have been times in the past when the most terrifying situation you could end up in was to need help from anyone connected to the royal family.”

“And how would you know that?” the woman hissed.

“Because I felt that fear. I felt it in myself, and I felt it from my father when the guards chased us into the city.”

“You’re a knight of Camelot.” She seemed rather stuck on that point.

“Back then, I was eight years old,” Mordred informed her kindly. “Not nearly old enough to be a knight. And King Arthur didn’t actually realize I was the same Druid boy he saved back then until a few weeks ago, but he’s been quite accepting and understanding about it, all things considered.”

“Arthur Pendragon saved you?”

They could stand in the doorway going back and forth and wasting daylight until spring came, Mordred thought, or he could speed things up a bit. “The rune that you have on your windchime out there. Do you mind if I ask what it represents?"

“Care." She opened the door fully, and stepped aside. "Trust, and rebirth. A new age, perhaps, after the old one has died.” Two button eyes peeped out from behind the kitchen table, followed by two brown ones. “We call it Berkanan.”

***

By the time Ellie’s breathing evened out and the spark returned to her eyes, Gaius looked as though he was ready to topple over in a stray breeze, and Mordred had run dry both his supply of dragon stories and his packet of herbs. Ellie pretended that Nicolas was kissing his cheek in gratitude for saving her human, though, so he didn't mind too much. Mordred began the process of extricating himself from her grip, which was indeed quite the ordeal, for both Ellie and her magic had clearly decided that he was friend-shaped and wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon.

It was when he’d managed to free one of his arms and was working on his cloak that someone knocked on the door with a heavy, leather-gloved fist. Ellie sprang back into Mordred’s arms, and this time, he only pulled her closer. “Who’s there?” he called, for he knew that he had the most intimidating voice of those present, and if the visitor posed a threat-

“Do you mind telling me where I am?” called a young man’s voice. “I was trying to make my way to Camelot, but I seem to have gotten turned around.”

Mordred sagged in relief, though Ellie didn’t loosen her grip quite yet. The visitor sounded genuinely confused, and not at all threatening. Ellie's father, who had returned an hour earlier, opened the door and beckoned the poor, frozen knight into the warmth of the kitchen. “Thank you, my good man. I am Sir Everett of Mercia. Who…” the question was originally directed at Ellie’s family, but then his gaze caught on Mordred’s scarlet cloak and traveled slowly up to his face. “Who might you be?”

“Sir Mordred of Camelot.” Mordred bowed as best he could while sitting on the floor with his arms full of young witch and stuffed dragon. “Gaius and I are heading back to the castle now, if you’d like us to show you the way. You’ve actually made it quite close on your own, though.”

“Don’t leave,” Ellie told his shoulder.

“What?" Mordred glanced down at her in surprise.

"Stay here with us tonight."

"I’m afraid I have to, darling, though I’ve enjoyed getting to know you and Nicolas today.”

Ellie shook her head. “Don’t. Leave. It’s dark outside. It isn’t safe.”

“It’s only going to get darker the longer we stay here.” Mordred lifted her up and set her on her feet, feeling his heart swell when her legs supported her. “We’ll be alright. I’m a knight, after all—I’ve faced worse things than a bit of darkness in my time.”

“Then take Nicolas with you. She’ll keep you safe.”

“Ellie, darling…”

“I won’t take my medicine until you take Nicolas.”

Mordred pinched the bridge of his nose, then turned to her family, who looked like they were suppressing mirth. “I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but in my humble opinion as Physician's Assistant, I’m quite concerned that your daughter is going to grow up to be just as stubborn as King Arthur himself.”

They laughed so loudly, full of unbridled relief, gratitude and love, that Mordred almost missed Sir Everett’s muttered, “Let’s hope not.”

When he met the knight’s gaze with an inquisitive and reproachful stare, the man merely shrugged. “Anyone as resistant to change as King Arthur is far from a good role model.”

Suddenly, Mordred found that he wasn’t so uncertain about celebrating the Solstice in front of the visiting nobles, after all. “We’ll see if you still feel that way by the end of your visit, my good sir. Change is coming to Camelot, and King Arthur is the one ringing it in.”

“His knights might have something to do with it as well,” Ellie’s grandmother added.

A cold breeze wafted past as they stepped out the door and into the snow, and Mordred held Nicolas closer to his chest. In the grove of pines, the windchime swung back and forth. Change was indeed being rung in—Mordred just hoped that it would be good.

Chapter 5: On Change

Chapter Text

“Bets on whether Merlin or Gwen will crack first?” Gwaine asked. They were on their way to what Mordred thought was going to be either the longest or the shortest Round Table meeting of his life.

“Is that even a question?” Percival strode up behind them, taking the stairs two at a time. “Arthur will crack first, and we all know it.”

Gwaine turned to grin at Percival, then nearly tripped over his own feet. Mordred caught him by the elbow and kindly didn’t comment on his stumbling as he attempted to right himself. “Good morning, Percy,” Gwaine called cheerfully. “Ready to suffer with the rest of us today?”

“You never know,” Mordred cut in, in mock defense of his friends, “they could have miraculously gotten their act together by this morning. Stranger things have happened.”

“Name one thing that would be more unexpected than Arthur, Gwen, and Merlin actually managing to be civil to each other for the entire council meeting.”

Mordred desperately searched his memory, and came up short. Gwaine grinned and shoved his shoulder. “See? I’m right. I don’t know quite what Arthur was thinking by seating the two most opinionated people in all of Camelot on either side of him, but on his head be it.”

“That’s treason, Gwaine,” Percival deadpanned. Mordred knew that at first, the knight had been shocked by Gwaine’s irreverent references to the King, and had scolded him with honest alarm each time he threatened or criticized Arthur. Now, Percival was so used to Gwaine’s antics that the phrase ‘That’s treason, Gwaine,’ had become more of an inside joke than an actual warning.

Gwaine tilted his head back to grin up at Percival, and Mordred had to stop him from falling down the stairs a second time. “You know you love me, treasonous or not.” He then extricated himself from Mordred’s grip and dashed off towards the council room, leaving Mordred to stop Percival from tripping over his feet, this time, as the knight turned bright red and forgot how to walk in a straight line.

“You doing alright there, Percy?” Elyan asked with a grin that was nothing if not supportive.

“Fine,” Percival squeaked. Then, “Elyan-”

“Ye-es?” Elyan, the knights had quickly learned, had as much of a penchant for sarcasm as his sister did.

“If I wanted to- if Gwaine… I’m not so good with words, but what I’m saying is, if-”

Mordred, who was going to have to deal with nobles stumbling through their speeches all day, left them to it in the interest of protecting Percival’s privacy and his own ears.

The drafts of the old castle wrapped themselves around him in a cold embrace, and he shivered appreciatively as he descended the last flight of stairs. Winter, which had been steadily approaching for weeks, had fallen in full over the week since his visit to Ellie’s house. Speaking of Ellie, Mordred had a new companion accompanying him—Nicolas the dragon was tucked into the opposite side of his belt from his scabbard. Arthur had tried to question him on its practicality, but after Gaius had glared at him icily from across the training fields, he’d decided that Nicolas was to become an honorary member of the knights of Camelot and that no one was going to say anything about it.

“Sir Mordred!”

Mordred had just made it to the entrance hall when Sir Everett approached him, his violet cloak fluttering behind him in the breeze that had crept in from outside and refused to depart again.

“Sir Everett.” He inclined his head. “How are you this morning?”

“Quite well, my good fellow. Quite well. Have you heard any news of that little girl that you were treating when we first met? Is she on the mend?”

Mordred felt his face break into a grin. “Gaius told me that she ran out to meet him when he went to check up on her the other day. Her parents say that she has more energy each morning than she did on the last, and an appetite to make up for every meal she refused to eat in the throes of her fever. She’ll be back to running after sprites in the forest before winter is out, mark my words.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Sir Everett did truly sound glad, and for that, Mordred was grateful. Many of the visiting nobles didn’t bother to take an interest in the castle’s occupants, let alone those who dwelled in the villages beyond. “I’m impressed that you were willing to treat her, all things considered. It’s rare that I’ve encountered such understanding attitudes in Camelot before this visit. I wonder how much of that is your doing…?”

“I’m not sure precisely what you mean.” Mordred’s hand strayed nervously for his belt, but instead of reaching for the hilt of his sword, as would have once been his instinct, he ran a thumb over Nicolas’ ears until the anxiety that had jumped in his chest settled back down into the bottom of his lungs with a grumble. “I don’t think there’s ever been a time when Ellie would’ve been refused care.” Not since Gaius was in charge of the healing, at least.

“Not even by a knight of Camelot?”

“Why does everyone keep harping on that point?” Mordred forced exasperation into his voice, though his heart was in his throat and refused to settle. He knew exactly why Ellie’s grandmother was harping on about that point, and he had the sneaking suspicion that Sir Everett was aware of her reasoning, as well. “I've sworn to protect my people from those who would harm them, and I fight to do so every day. If I can protect them from illness and injury, as well, I consider that my good fortune. Now, if you’re quite-”

“Aye. You protect your people. I wonder if those would truly be the same people that King Arthur meant for you to defend when you swore your oath to him.”

“Did you want something from me, Sir Everett?” All the ice of the season that raged on beyond the thick walls of the castle had flooded into his voice. Mordred was surprised that his breath didn’t condense in the air, considering how cold he both felt and sounded.

“Oh, yes, indeed!” Sir Everett chuckled, seemingly unaware that Mordred was glaring at him like a kitten that had been backed into a corner. “I was wondering if you would be willing to give me a tour of the castle when this meeting gets out. I’ve been trying to find my way around, but I’ve ended up lost more times than not!”

“Such does seem to be your tendency.”

“And it seems to be yours to rescue me from such situations. What do you say?”

Mordred wanted to refuse, but when he tried to voice his denial, he found that he couldn’t quite remember what order the words were meant to be lined up in. Finally, giving up on speaking entirely, he nodded, though his stiff neck made the movement seem more painful than accommodating. Then he turned away as quickly as months of training to evade enemies would allow him, strode into the throne room, and sat down beside Gwaine, pressing his shoulder up against the older knight's until he stopped trembling.

***

“Lord Ackerby,” Gwen began in a long-suffering tone.

Mordred had to stifle a laugh behind his hand as Gwaine mouthed, “Lord Ackerby,” to Percival, who was seated across the table from them. Mordred kicked him in the ankle, and Gwaine grinned innocently in response. Percival spluttered, ran a hand over his face, and pressed his lips into a line that looked disapproving, but was really an attempt to hold in his laughter.

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” Gwen continued, raising her voice in response to the knights’ antics, “this castle has thirty-seven floors, each of which needs to be cleaned at least once every two weeks, else the dust, mold, and smoke will become unbearable. Decreasing the number of servants we have hired to do this task will not lower the amount of work that needs to be done, nor will docking their pay. Both of those options will only result in our employees doing poorer work because they, primarily, are exhausted by what they now have to do to earn enough to feed their families, and secondarily, but equally understandably, are frustrated by the circ*mstances we have placed on them .”

Gwaine raised his eyebrows approvingly and mimed clapping. Percival’s cheeks were beginning to turn an alarming purple color from his efforts to not make any sound.

“They will adjust to their circ*mstances,” said Lord Ackerby. Though his voice was abnormally high and lofty, it barely penetrated the thick silence of the room. Had Mordred not wanted the man to get his comeuppance so badly, he would’ve felt rather sorry for him.

“You have children, don’t you, Lord Ackerby?” Merlin piped up.

“I do.” Ackerby puffed up his chest. “Two little boys—energetic scamps, the both of them. They’re going to grow up to be just as strong as their father is.”

“I’m sure,” said Gwen, then ceded the floor to Merlin again.

“Have either of your sons ever taken ill?”

“Aye. Jonathan came down with a bad fever last winter. Are you trying to threaten my children, boy?”

“Lord Ackerby!”

Lord Ackerby fell silent with a grumble, for though he was not the most intelligent of men, he knew better than to attempt to argue with the Queen of Camelot after insulting her best friend.

“What would you do if one day, Jonathan didn’t wake up?”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re implying-”

“Answer his question.”

“I would call for the Physician, of course!”

“And if he told you that your son needed a costly medication to get well again?”

“I would spare no expense for my Jonathan,” Ackerby huffed, offended.

“I’m sure that you wouldn’t.” Gwen’s voice was all sweetness. “However, consider what would happen to your Jonathan if you weren’t in a position to make the statement that you just did. How would he fare if, for instance, you could not afford his medication because your employer only paid you enough to get by?”

Lord Ackerby scowled. “You’ve made your point. Leave the wages as they are, then, but don’t come crying to me if we don’t have enough money to supply our army the next time someone decides to take a swing at King Arthur.”

“I don’t think you do understand, and it’s important to me that we’ve made ourselves clear before we move on.” There was barely-contained fury bubbling beneath Merlin’s calm and collected expression. The implication that he would fail to do enough to protect Arthur was something of a sore subject for him. “I have spent most of my time in this kingdom as a servant and as an assistant to the Court Physician. I have stood beside a child’s bed and known that if we gave them all of the medicine they needed, my guardian wouldn’t have the means to buy food for himself in a month. I have sat in the laundry room with a woman I’d never spoken to before and held her as she cried because she knew that her daughter was going to die within the week, but she couldn’t afford to take the time off to be with her. Never accuse me of being willing to leave our kingdom without the means to care for itself, but know that most at this table are acutely aware that there are more important members of a kingdom than its nobles, or even its King."

“You’re edging on treason, boy,” Lord Ackerby tried. Mordred wasn’t quite sure why the man was trying to save face anymore, as he was only digging himself more deeply into the hole that he’d already created.

“Is it treason, Lord Ackerby, if both his King and Queen agree with everything he’s saying? Or are you the one approaching treason, for speaking so uncharitably to their most trusted advisor?” Gwen pondered.

“Do you think they’re more terrifying when they’re working against each other, or together?” Gwaine whispered.

Mordred, having decided long before that if he was going to have to suffer through being seated next to Gwaine, Percival wasn’t allowed to escape it, either, projected the message so that it appeared right beside the other knight’s ear. Percival, much to Mordred’s chagrin and Gwaine’s everlasting amusem*nt, yelped and struck out at the space beside him, which just happened to be occupied by Sir Leon.

Mordred froze.

Percival froze.

Lord Ackerby, who had been attempting to rise and slink out of the room, froze.

Leon ever-so-slowly lifted a hand to stem the blood that was now dripping down his face. “Would someone please hand me a handkerchief?” he requested with more patience than Mordred had thought one man was capable of managing. “I think that Sir Percival just broke my nose.”

In the ensuing commotion—Merlin rose and sprinted around the table with his handkerchief, crashing straight into Gwaine, who had been trying to do the same—Lord Ackerby slipped out of one of the side doors. Though several members of the council likely noticed as it thudded closed behind him, no one said anything. He hadn’t been too popular to begin with, and no one wanted to be the unfortunate soul to call back a man who had sparked such a response from the Queen.

Gwaine finally won the handkerchief battle, pointing out that it had been his fault in the first place, but Merlin, not one to be outdone, caught Leon’s hand that had been pressed against his nose and began to gingerly wipe the blood from it. Leon tried to protest that he was alright, but any movement of his face or hands resulted in more blood dripping onto the table, so he finally stilled and allowed Merlin to continue his ministrations, staring resolutely at the spot just over Merlin’s left ear all the while.

“And they say that Percival and I are the disasters,” Gwaine muttered to Mordred as he collapsed bonelessly back into his seat.

“Didn’t you just prove them right?”

“Take a good look at Merlin and our dear Sir Leon, and tell me if you actually think that Percival and I are worse.”

Merlin glared at them across the table, and Gwaine wiggled his eyebrows in response.

It was only then that Mordred had the good sense to end the spell that had still been projecting their entire conversation on the opposite side of the table. Leon had never looked more relieved in his life, and Merlin’s neck was as red as his neckerchief. Mordred gave up on trying to understand anything and turned his attention to mouthing apologies at Percival, who looked ready to cry, or strangle him and Gwaine, or do both at the same time.

“Do you think Percival is upset at me?”

Mordred groaned incredulously. “Gwaine. We made him punch Leon in the face.”

“But do you think he’s really upset, or just jokingly so?”

Mordred felt about as ready to cry as Arthur looked. “I think it would be a good idea to apologize, that’s for certain.”

“Right. An apology. I can do that. Will you help me write it?”

While the rest of the court was still distracted by Leon, who had only just begun to stop bleeding quite so profusely, Mordred subtly banged his head against the hard wood of the table. Well, as subtly as one can bang one’s head against a table. He caught Sir Everett looking at him with a smirk, and shrank slightly in his seat.

“My humblest apologies, Sir Leon,” Percival burst out, when the other knight had stopped bleeding enough to be able to acknowledge him.

“‘S all good, Percy,” Leon mumbled obligingly.

“Yes, all is well, Sir Percival. At least you ended that foolish charade before I lost my breakfast from the poor quality of the acting.” Sir Everett’s voice, on the other hand, filled the entire hall. “Really, you sit here discussing your servants’ wages and attempting to seem benevolent, all while upholding everything that your father stood for. You’ve even wrangled two of your servants into acting the part of your defenders… tell me, King Arthur, all cooped up here in your glimmering, spotless palace, do you really know what it means to change?”

“I assure you-” Arthur started, but he was so startled and put off by the comparison to his father that when Sir Everett rolled on ahead, he let him.

“It means giving up the things you love. Power, wealth, luxury. I doubt that you could even survive a day without your manservant to hold your hand through it, and your indulgent dinner and perfectly warmed bath at the end.”

The knights had suggested as much in the past, as had Merlin, but now no one was in a joking mood.

“Do you really think that you can consider yourself to be better than any of the rulers who came before you when you tread in their footsteps every day, maintaining the structures that they set up to keep people like yourself on top, and not give anyone else the chance to rise?”

“King Arthur is nothing like those who led Camelot before him.” The young, steady voice not only filled the room, but danced along the glass of every towering window until the walls hummed with it. Mordred looked around to see who had spoken, but found no source that the sound could have come from. Beside him, Gwaine shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “If he was, I would be dead right now.”

One by one, every gaze in the room fell on him. Gwaine reached across the space between them, caught Mordred’s hand, and squeezed tight. Arthur gazed steadily at him, eyes shining with love and tears.

Oh. Those had been his words, hadn’t they?

“Change is not caused by running away because people don’t think you’re capable of enacting it. Change is caused by showing up every day of your life, learning until you are capable, and then proving to all who doubted you that you will make the world a better place, for them and all those around them, even if they never believed that you would.”

“You know,” Sir Everett said, “you might be the last person that I ever expected to hear those words from. Didn’t you try to commit treason yourself, a few months ago? I could’ve sworn that I heard something about a battle at Camlann..."

Gwaine’s hand was so tight on his own that Mordred thought his fingers would snap. “That just goes to show you,” he murmured, taking all the strength he could from the other man’s grasp, “exactly how much change King Arthur is capable of. After all, I certainly wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe in what he was doing now.”

“I don’t understand you,” Sir Everett hissed.

Mordred laughed. He was beginning to feel lightheaded again. He squeezed Gwaine’s hand twice, their established signal for being in need of an escape. “Neither do I, my good man. Neither do I.” Mordred was out of the door before Sir Everett could decide how to respond.

The grand doors of the entrance hall slammed shut behind him, and a silence echoed in his wake that none of the assembled court knew how to fill.

***

The council meeting ended soon after Mordred had left. Tempers that had been fraying for hours were ready to snap, and Arthur had decided that it would be best to reconvene the next day, when everyone had been able to rest and recover their depleted patience. Besides, he knew that if he forced Gwaine to sit through more than another ten minutes without being able to leave and check on Mordred, he really would have an attempt at treason on his hands. Unsurprisingly, the man sprang from his seat before Arthur had even finished declaring the meeting closed. Less expected was the fact that everyone, save for Sir Percival, followed at a similar clip. He got the feeling that he’d underestimated the strength of the tension he felt filling the room.

“I wanted to apologize for disrupting the meeting,” Percival began, once everyone else had left. “I made us all look like a bunch of fools, and I’m truly sorry for it.”

“Don’t take it to heart, Percival.” If Arthur was upset at anyone, it certainly wasn’t one of his favorite knights. “Everyone needed a bit of a laugh after hearing Lord Ackerby drone on in complete and utter ignorance, and I know that it wasn’t your fault. I’ll have a talk with Gwaine at some point, but judging by how guilty he was looking, even that might not be needed.”

“Gwaine? Guilty? Are you sure you aren’t coming down with something, my lord?” Percival joked weakly.

Arthur smiled wryly back at him. “I would agree, but from what I’ve seen, Gwaine behaves quite differently when it comes to you.”

“Ah. Very good, sire.” Percival stared blankly ahead.

Arthur laughed, then rested his forehead on the table in a perfect imitation of Mordred. “Why would he do that?”

“It seems like he has a lot of pent up anger that would have been much better directed at your father or Cenrid. It wasn’t your fault, and in the end, it wasn’t about you. If I’m not allowed to beat myself up over breaking Leon’s nose, you aren’t allowed to beat yourself up over the words of some idiot who doesn’t even belong to your court.”

“Not him. Sir Mordred. Half a year ago, he was trying to drive a blade through my heart. A month ago, he was still so nervous around me that he had a panic attack when he was trying to share his story with us. Now, he’s defending me in front of the entire court. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, I really do have the power to turn our fate from what it’s meant to be—and that’s a terrifying thing to even consider.”

“Isn’t it better than the alternative?”

Arthur sighed and brought his arms up to cover his head. “I suppose so.”

Percival chuckled. “If it helps, Arthur, there’s no one whose hands I’d rather that power be in than yours. Now, I think that Gwaine is preparing some sort of apology for me that I ought to go listen to, and I’m sure that Gwen and Merlin will be waiting to speak to you about what occurred today.”

Arthur whined into his arms. “Can’t I come with you instead? They’re going to start arguing with each other the second no one can hear us—they probably already have.”

“Do you really want to have to sit through one of Gwaine’s apologies? He usually has to stop at least three times to check what he wrote down.”

“I suppose not.” Arthur raised his head resolutely, then reached out and clasped Percival’s wrist. “Godspeed, my brother, and let us both pray that we endure what horrors this night has in store for us.”

“Indeed.”

There were worse ways to end the meeting, Percival thought, than in laughter.

***

Percival knew his friends well enough by now that instead of returning to the knights’ dormitory, he picked his way down two sets of rickety stairs into the records room beneath the castle. He made it two steps through the doorway before one of the bookshelves asked, “Was Arthur mad?” in a voice that sounded entirely too young for such a grand, aged space.

“We’re back here,” Gwaine added, as though Percival couldn’t infer from the circ*mstances.

He rounded the bookshelf to find Mordred curled up against one wall with red eyes and dried tear tracks on his face, playing with Gwaine’s hand absentmindedly. Gwaine waved the other hand in greeting. Percival waved back, then felt rather silly about it.

“I think that Arthur was more confused and grateful than angry.”

Mordred sagged in relief.

“See, what did I tell you?” Gwaine winked at Mordred, then returned his gaze to the book of fairytales open on his lap. The illustrations were faded, and the corners looked as though they’d been nibbled by mice, but Percival knew that Gwaine didn’t need pictures or even words to tell a good story. He wished, not for the first time, that he was skilled with a pen so that he could sketch the scene in front of him and keep it close even when it faded from clarity in his mind. Gwaine’s face was bathed in candlelight, and his brow wrinkled and smoothed as he resumed reading the story aloud.

Percival sat across from them and let Gwaine’s rough voice wash over him, wishing that he could bask in this moment for all of eternity.

Unfortunately for him, Gwaine had other plans. When the tale had been concluded and he considered Mordred sufficiently comforted, he slammed the book shut, fixed Percival with a grin that made his heart flutter, and said, “What do you say we walk down to the tavern and celebrate Mordred putting that idiot in his place?"

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” Percival wanted nothing more than to spend the night with Gwaine, hearing story after story until they both stumbled back to the dormitory together, each depending on the other to carry their weight, but they’d decided months ago that he was to be the responsible one, and he wouldn’t shirk his duties now.

“It’s a brilliant idea,” Gwaine protested, and Mordred, to Percival’s astonishment, nodded readily.

“I won’t drink anything,” the younger knight assured him. “I’ve just had enough of all the new knights and nobles milling around—I want to see some familiar faces, and maybe some new ones that don’t look down their noses at me. Besides, if we're both there to keep Gwaine under control, what could possibly go wrong?”

Chapter 6: Friendly Strangers

Chapter Text

Miraculously, Gwaine had yet to be permanently kicked out of the village tavern, partially because he was a knight of Camelot (which accorded him a bit of favor) and partially because he he had a habit of punching anyone who tried to put their hands where the barmaids didn’t want them (which accorded him more than a bit of favor). Mordred was grateful that despite the mornings where Gwaine had found himself booted out of the door, he had yet to be served permanent notice—which meant that they didn’t have to walk two miles to the next closest tavern. Mordred had more affection for winter than most of the other knights combined, but even he didn’t relish spending so long out in the cold on a night like this, and he certainly didn’t relish dragging Gwaine two miles back to the castle through the newly fallen snow. (He knew that their night was bound to end with them having to forcibly remove Gwaine from the tavern, no matter where they went. It was just one of the facts of life.)

He wasn’t sure if he was going to regret agreeing to accompany Gwaine to the tavern—a statement which indeed already offered the potential for numerous regrets—but he knew that the curly haired knight wasn’t just there to drink. No, he wanted to apologize to Percival in a place where he felt comfortable, and likely with a few drinks in his system to make being emotionally open without the aid of a written apology a more likely prospect. Mordred wasn’t certain whether it was the most healthy plan, but he’d been honest in saying that it was worth it to be able to hear the stories of the people at the tavern, both familiar and unfamiliar. As the closest Inn to the Citadel, it was a place that called to travelers in droves, and Mordred had always found a home among the adventuresome.

All that to say, he was a bit nervous as they approached the wooden sign that swung back and forth over the road, but not half out of his depth as Percival seemed.

Ah, Percival. Most were of the opinion that Leon was the most straight laced of all the knights, but those who’d spent time around the both of them knew that said honor fell unequivocally to Percival. He was all too aware that he was one of the only commoners who had ever been knighted, and while he could joke with the rest of them, he was more worried than most about accidentally proving all the rumors surrounding him to be true, or losing the position that he held through merit alone. Percival had no name to protect him—a feeling that Mordred knew all too well.

“Percy.” He looped his arm through Percival’s as Gwaine pushed open the door of the tavern with a showman’s flair. The smell of spices, sweat, and mead washed over them. Gwaine sniffed appreciatively. “How are you feeling?”

“I punched Leon in the face,” bemoaned Percival.

“Technically, you elbowed him,” said Gwaine, but his smile fell when the quip failed to make Percival laugh. “It’s okay, mate. Leon and Arthur aren’t upset, and besides, it was my fault. No one is going to blame you for it.”

“It was my fault too,” Mordred jumped in. “I won’t do that again in the future if you don’t want me to. I thought it was funny, but I think that we’ve all seen that there can be unwanted consequences.”

“I broke his nose,” Percival mumbled. Mordred squeezed his arm tighter. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Well then, Percival, my darling friend, you’ve come to the right place. One of their specialties here is making people cease to think about things.”

Mordred rolled his eyes. Definitely not healthy.

“More importantly, Percival,” he added, “if no one was really harmed—except for Leon’s nose, I’m aware, but Merlin likely set it right with magic the second they were out of the court’s view—then there’s no reason to add harm to the world that wasn’t there in the first place by beating yourself up about it. That’s not helpful—although I would add that drinking yourself into oblivion isn’t, either.”

“When did you get so wise?” Percival asked. There was a tentative, hopeful relief in his voice.

Mordred shrugged. “Gaius must be rubbing off on me.” He’d also done a lot of thinking since Camlann, but they all knew that already and he wasn’t going to bring down the mood by inserting it into the conversation. “Now, I’m pretty sure that Gwaine is waiting to buy you a drink as the first part of his apology.” He waved Percival towards the bar, where Gwaine was indeed waiting with two tankards of ale. “I’m going to wander for a little bit and see if I can catch up with a few of the barmaids. Give me a wave if you need my help stopping Gwaine from punching anything."

Percival started towards the bar, then paused, and glanced over his shoulder at Mordred. “That trick you did in the meeting today might be useful if one of us gets into trouble. Keep it in mind tonight, alright?”

Mordred hadn’t even been aware of how guilty he’d been feeling until Percival’s easy acceptance and forgiveness washed over him. He moved to say something, but the knight was already parting the crowds on his way to the bar, and Gwaine was looking up with a soft smile. Mordred nodded to himself, and turned to the mass of unknown faces that he hoped to have attributed names and stories to by the end of the evening. All was right in their little corner of the world, for the moment. The winter wind wailed on outside the doors, but within them, all was warmth, laughter, and light. It felt just a bit like coming home.

***

“Mordred! I won’t pretend I’m not glad to see ye here again, though I understand that your absence might have been better for you than the alternative. Come, dear, let me pour you a drink.” The innkeeper grinned jovially at him. She filled a mug of spiced cider from the pot boiling over the woodstove, uncaring as a few drops of the hot, sticky liquid splashed onto her arms. “There you go. It’s on the house,” she added when he reached for his coin purse. “Call it a celebration.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t rightly know, dear. Let’s call it Yuletide, or my Inn having brought in enough coin to buy my wife and niblings a good roast for our holiday feast, or the return of my favorite conversation companion to our humble establishment.”

Mordred blushed, grinned, and leaned his elbows on the bar. The innkeeper flapped her white towel at him until he straightened up again, then wiped the offensive, non-existent smudges off of the polished surface. “You know, sometimes I think you don’t like me as much as you claim to. You never make Gwaine stop leaning on the bar!”

“Gwaine is Gwaine,” she told him. “And besides, tonight I wouldn’t disturb him for the world—I’m waiting to see what happens between him and his very handsome companion.”

Mordred spluttered, grateful that he hadn’t taken a sip of his drink yet, for then he really would have made a mess of the bar. “Gwaine and- and Percy ? I mean, I know that they care about each other…” He trailed off. Across the room, Percival was oh-so-tenderly lifting Gwaine’s hair away from his eyes. Gwaine leaned into the gesture, and caught Percival’s hand in his own. “But what do I know?” Mordred finished wanly.

“Absolutely nothing,” the innkeeper chortled. “That’s why you’re such a delight to talk to. Tell me though, young knight, how have you been faring? I hear more about the goings on at the castle than most who live there, and from the gist of what I’ve gotten, you haven’t been having the best time of it.”

This time, when he leaned his weight against the bar lest his exhausted legs fail to support him, she didn’t brush him away. “It’s been more than I thought I knew how to handle, but I’m still here. Getting better, maybe, day by day. I think it’s almost too soon to tell.”

She reached across the bar and rubbed his arm. “You hang in there, kid. I’ve been in some damned dark places before myself. I ain’t gonna tell you there’s light on the other end, because they always say that like it’s meant to fix what’s going on right now. What I can tell you, though, is that there’s light to be found in even the darkest of days.”

“I think I can get behind that.” Mordred took a sip of his drink, and felt it warm him to his core.

“Speaking of the darkest of days, did I hear that King Arthur has you running around trying to concoct a solstice celebration?”

“Stress on running around and trying. I’m not quite sure how much celebrating is going on.”

“Ah, well. That’s often how it seems at first. You know, I think I remember- pardon me for a second.” The innkeeper crossed to the other end of the bar in two steps, then slammed her way out of the little half-door that separated it from the rest of the building. “Excuse me, sir, but I thought I was very clear about you not being welcome here the last time you were in town.”

“Ah, but it’s the season of the solstice!” Sir Everett smirked. “Isn’t that the time to forgive and forget? I promise I won’t cause any trouble, on my honor.”

Across the room, Gwaine was rising from his seat even as Percival tried to hold him down. “Let Rosa handle this,” Mordred whispered, and made sure that they could both hear him. “The younger barmaids are one thing, Gwaine, but she’s more than capable of laying down the law if Sir Everett decides to test her, and it might do all of the new arrivals a bit of good to see that first-hand.”

Gwaine nodded, though both he and Percival stayed primed and ready to jump in at a moment’s notice. Though no one in the bar was aware, the air just behind Sir Everett’s neck was also humming with magical energy, ready to drag him straight out the door if he tried to lay a hand on any of those that Mordred cared about. The Inn was under the protection of the knights of Camelot in all their glory, and most would soon know better than to test that particular fact.

“I forgive those who have earned my forgiveness. You have accomplished no such thing, and a night where I cannot have my eye on you as frequently as I would want to is no time to start trying to do so. I expect that there are other establishments in this town where you have yet to blacken your name, and if there aren’t, then perhaps you ought to look at yourself before you look to me for forgiveness.”

“Madam, I assure you-”

Sir Everett was the second knight of the day to end up with a broken nose. He clutched his face and squawked in dismay as blood stained the plush lining of his sleeves. The innkeeper handed him her towel. “Consider this the extent of my generosity.”

The Inn was as silent as a tomb until the door had closed behind Sir Everett with a slam—courtesy of a perfectly timed surge of energy from Mordred’s fingertips—then the entire room burst into applause. Rosa the innkeeper bowed, grinned, and stalked back behind the bar like a house cat hunting for grackles.

“I would steer clear of that one if I were you, dear,” she told him companionably.

“I- I’d gotten as much. What did he do, if you don’t mind my asking?” Despite the front that Rosa occasionally had to put up, she was usually an exceedingly accepting woman. That she would hold such a strong opinion about someone Mordred would be having to converse with for the next week at least had him worried.

“No one touches the girls who work here unless they explicitly say that they want to be touched. Every patron knows that rule, and those who don’t learn it soon enough. That prick, on the other hand, was a very slow learner.”

“And anyone who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘no’ isn’t welcome in these walls.” It was a phrase Mordred had heard time and time again, and loved a little bit more each time.

“Precisely.”

“He asked me for a tour of the castle the other day." He found himself speaking before he even knew he'd begun. “He’s been asking me all sorts of things, Rosa… I’m a knight of Camelot, and it feels silly that he makes me so uncomfortable, but I don’t know what to do when he’s around me. I wanted the Solstice to be good this year,” he added, trying not to sound too petulant, “and now he’s here mucking everything up.”

Rosa turned away to pour a few mugs of ale for two of the guests. When she returned her gaze to Mordred, her eyes were filled with sympathy. “Unfortunately, I don’t have jurisdiction over who is welcome within the castle, although I wish that I did. My advice for you would be the same as always—steer clear of the situations that you won’t be able to act like your best self in, and live as beautifully as you can despite the fact that the world will still place you in some such situations. And speaking of living beautifully, I think I have something that might make your Yuletide plans a bit more manageable.”

“Really?” Mordred burst out, then swallowed, realizing exactly how eager he’d sounded. “Sorry, it’s just that Gaius is teaching me, but in terms of actually doing everything I’m all on my own, and I don’t even know where I can find a good tree! I don’t want to kill a tree that has a lot of growing left to do just for us to burn one log for the night, but it seems too meaningless to take one from the woodpile. Beyond that, even, the log is supposed to be lit with a piece of the old Yule tree, and it feels like we’ve broken the tradition if we can’t keep the chain going.”

Rosa smiled secretively. “I’d guessed as much based on how many times I’ve seen you wandering through the woods this season, looking like the universe has it in for you. You weren’t here for the winter feast last year, were you?”

Mordred shook his head. “Sometimes I forget how little time I’ve really spent here. It feels like I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“That’s how it tends to be, when you find your home.” She bowled on ahead before he even had time to consider that statement. “Last year, King Arthur and Queen Guinevere brought in a tree that had fallen in the forest and used it to decorate the Great Hall during the final feast. It was something about making young Merlin happy—apparently his mother used to do the same where he came from. Really, it’s a wonder that no one figured out that either of you had magic sooner. Even if Merlin wasn’t so bloody obvious about it, the way you both speak of your childhoods should’ve given it away.”

Ignoring the intended slight, Mordred asked, “Do you know where the tree is now? If I could cut the trunk from it, and maybe a branch to light it with..."

Rosa thought for a moment, then threw her head back and roared with laughter. “Aye. I’m sorry, my friend, it’s only… they gave the tree to my wife for the goats to play with.”

“The goats?” Mordred felt dread creeping up his spine. “Is it still with them?”

Rosa laughed again, though there was pity in her gaze this time. “Aye, dear. You’re welcome to it if you can rescue it from their clutches—but none of us have really wanted to try.”

“Bloody hell.” Mordred rested his face on the cool wood of the bar, and ignored the new, cleaner towel that was now flapping around his ears. “Why can’t anything ever be easy?”

“Would it be even half the fun if it was?”

“No,” he had to acknowledge, and finally leapt to his feet to save the back of his neck from the beating it was receiving. “I suppose that it wouldn’t be.”

***

After retreating from Rosa’s joking wrath, Mordred made his way back to his friends. As a result, he got to bear witness to the truly spectacular sight of Percival attempting to pretend that he was annoyed about Gwaine falling asleep on his shoulder. The man was as still and quiet as a mouse, staring down at the other knight with pure affection in his eyes and his lips pressed together into a straight line of pure (if pretended) frustration. Mordred did his best not to tease him, but it was very difficult to restrain himself. “Every time he doesn’t get into a fight, he ends up as dead weight," Percival growled.

Mordred snorted. “You don’t mean that, Percy.”

“Of course I do! Look at him. He’s not going to be of any help at all when we’re dragging him back to the castle, and he’s going to be a mess during the meeting tomorrow morning. How the hell I ended up friends with such a beautiful disaster of a human being is beyond me.”

“Beautiful disaster,” Mordred parroted with a perfect imitation of Gaius’ raised eyebrow. “That certainly sounds like something someone would say if they were actually annoyed.”

“Oh- leave off, Mordred.” Percival shook his head, but did it gently so as not to dislodge Gwaine from his shoulder. “I’ll have you know that I am very annoyed, as a matter of fact!”

“I can see that.” There was no sarcasm in his tone, now, only a bit of good-natured concern. “It’s just Gwaine, Percival. What’s got you so upset?”

Percival frowned down at the table. “He told me he brought us here so that he could apologize.”

“Did he muck it up?” Mordred asked sympathetically.

Percival shook his head, and to Mordred’s alarm, he looked as though he was about to cry. “He said it all perfectly. He genuinely promised to be better, and he spent the whole evening acting like I was the most important person in the world. No one has ever treated me like that, Mordred, ever .”

“Did it make you uncomfortable?” Mordred was beginning to think he’d read the situation entirely wrong. “I can tell him to-”

“Why does he only act like he loves me when he’s drunk?”

“Oh, Percy.”

Percival turned his face away and pressed his forehead against Gwaine’s hair so that Mordred didn’t see the hot tears streaking down his cheeks. “And I can’t talk to him about it. I can never find the right words to tell him exactly how much I mean it when I say I love him and that I wish, just once, he wouldn’t only say it back when he was joking or sloshed. And f*ck it, Mordred, I know that he’s been through sh*t in the past that makes it so bloody hard to offer anyone anything when he’s sensible enough to feel their rejection, but I wouldn’t reject him, and I feel rather like I’m the one being left out in the cold here.”

“Perce…” Gwaine blinked his eyes open and stared dizzily up at Percival’s face. “Why you soundin’ sad, Perce?”

“Because of you, you bloody idiot,” Percival choked out, but Gwaine had already slipped into delirium again.

“Percy,” Mordred murmured again, then, when he couldn’t find the words, he flung his arms around the larger man. “Thank you for trusting me with that. It’s none of my business, except that I’m your friend, so maybe it is, but… I think it might mean the world to Gwaine, as well, if you trusted him enough to be that honest with him. The two of you can’t keep going like this for long before it breaks apart one of the most caring relationships in all of Camelot.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Just keep it in mind, alright? The solstice is meant to be a time where new, better things spring from what’s left of the old, after all."

“Let’s just head home,” Percival begged. “The sun will be rising in only a few hours, and we need to be at our best tomorrow.”

Mordred agreed, and slung Gwaine’s other arm over his shoulder. Sparing one last grateful wave to Rosa, they stepped out the door into the cold night, and prepared for the trek back to the castle. “Do you think he gets heavier when he drinks?” Mordred asked. It was a rhetorical question, but Percival nodded readily. “He definitely gets heavier when he drinks. Nope, Gwaine- we’re not going that way-”

They wrenched Gwaine out of an offending snow drift and continued to drag him along the path.

“Solstice is coming,” Gwaine slurred. “It’s cold, but it’s gonna be warm and so, so pretty. I believe in you, Mor. I do!” He practically shouted the last bit, upon which both Percival and Mordred hushed him. They might all be awake, but most of the town had already drifted off into a well-earned rest.

“Thank you for that, Gwaine, but for now I’d rather you believe in our ability to get you back to the castle without waking Arthur.”

“I believe in that too!” Gwaine cheered.

Mordred barely resisted placing his free hand over the man’s mouth.

“Gwaine, please try to walk in a straight line,” Percival begged, though he knew from past experience that it was entirely useless. “I know that you like dancing, but we are not- we are not dancing!” He squeaked as Gwaine broke free of Mordred to whirl him around in the snow. “Really, Gwaine, we have a council meeting in the morning—oh gods!” The last comment came as Gwaine, deciding that he was the lead, attempted to dip Percival, resulting in them tumbling into the snow. Gwaine landed directly on top of Percival’s chest.

Modred stifled a giggle behind his hand.

“Just leave me here,” Percival moaned dramatically.

“If it helps, I think that he’s fallen asleep,” Mordred offered with a smirk.

Percival stared up at the stars, seemingly praying for respite from the companions that the universe had seen fit to give him. “Alright then,” he said, patience gathered back to him through sheer force of will. “Up we go, then.” In a feat of strength that would never cease to stun Mordred no matter how many times he saw it, Percival rolled to his feet, picked Gwaine up like a sack of potatoes, and threw the knight over his shoulder. “He can scold me about it tomorrow,” he defended his actions to Mordred, who really hadn’t been complaining. “It’s his own fault, really.”

Mordred didn’t respond, but he held the door of the castle open gallantly when they arrived.

“What would I do without you?” Gwaine sang from Percival’s arms. “Hey, why is the world upside down?”

“You’d get yourself banished for treason, probably,” Percival scolded without heat. “Now, if you would stop wiggling ..."

They made it up three flights of stairs before the universe decided that their night had been too quiet, after all.

“Need some help there, my good fellows?”

“Bloody hell,” Mordred whispered. It seemed that he hadn’t been quiet enough, for Sir Everett cast him an offended look.

“Here I am offering my assistance, and this is how you treat me? Really, Mordred. I thought that we could have been friends. Speaking of friends, is something the matter with dear Sir Gwaine there?”

“Nothing at all.” Mordred remembered Rosa’s advice—to keep himself out of situations that he knew he wouldn’t be at his best in—but Percival and Gwaine were both in a worse state than he was, and he wanted to expose them even less to Sir Everett’s tendency to pick a fight than he wanted to be exposed to it. “Percy was just taking Gwaine up to bed, weren’t you Percy? Don’t worry,” he added, and though his voice was light, he made sure the other knight knew that he was truly able to handle whatever was thrown at him, “I’ll just make sure that our guest finds his way back to his quarters and then follow you up.”

“Taking him to bed, eh?” Sir Everett wiggled his eyebrows. Mordred placed himself very carefully between the man and Percival so that Sir Everett didn’t get his nose re-broken after Gaius had gone to so much trouble to set it.

“I would never take advantage of Gwaine’s state like that,” Percival growled.

“Isn’t he your boyfriend, though?”

“First of all, even if Gwaine and I were there yet,” Percival started, and Mordred felt his heart swell at the acknowledgement that there could be a possibility for his two best friends, “I wouldn’t do anything to him when he was too inebriated to consent. Second of all, Gwaine isn’t into any of that, no matter who his partners are, and I really don’t care either way as long as I get to love him in ways that we both enjoy.” Realizing he’d revealed a bit too much, likely because the night had rubbed raw parts of him that had already been wounded by the give-and-take between him and Gwaine over the past few months, Percival shook his head and started up another flight of stairs.

Mordred looked back at Sir Everett, and wondered if he really even wanted to make it out of this confrontation without bloodshed. “What are you doing near the King’s quarters? Your rooms are on the other side of the castle, as is the tavern that I know you were sent to.”

“I got lost.” Sir Everett shrugged. “Sue me, I have a poor sense of direction. You know that by now. That’s why I asked you to give me a tour of this place, you see, but you ran off so quickly after the meeting ended that I didn’t get the chance to catch up with you. Perhaps you’d be willing to make up for forgetting your promise now?”

“I didn’t forget. I just figured that you wouldn’t want to spend so much time with me after what I said to you during the meeting.”

“Oh, my dear.” Sir Everett laughed, and reached out to pat Mordred’s cheek. Mordred flinched back into the wall with a hiss. “Fiery, eh? That’ll serve you well in the years to come, I’m sure. And darling, why on earth would I be angry at you for being so misguided? Of course you believe in King Arthur—he keeps you locked up here in your gilded cage, lets you do whatever tame little spells you want to under his watchful eye…” He reached out again, and with nowhere to go, Mordred could only press further back into the stone as Sir Everett snatched Nicolas from his hip. “All while keeping people like that dear little girl—what was her name, Ellie?—in the depths of poverty.”

“Give her back,” Mordred hissed, and reached for Nicolas. His arm was lightning-fast, but not fast enough. Sir Everett darted away from him, and before Mordred could lay hands on the little dragon, she had tumbled over the railing and fallen four floors into the empty entrance hall below. Mordred let out a sharp cry. For a second he’d been sure that it was Ellie falling, instead of the little dragon, a noose wrapped around her neck, but by the time he was halfway down the first flight of stairs after her, the scene had resolved itself again.

By the time he was at the bottom of the second, he wasn’t quite sure why his breath was rasping in his throat as if he’d just run a marathon. He glanced behind him, but could see no cause for alarm.

By the time he reached the ground floor, he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing there at all. But Nicolas was resting on the floor by the wide-open door, so Mordred eventually reasoned that he must have dropped her when they were carrying Gwaine in and come back to get her. It didn't feel quite right, but really, what else could it be? He'd let Nicolas fall because he was distracted, and he didn't want her to sleep on the cold stone all night. That was all. He really ought to be more careful with her, Mordred scolded himself.

He scooped the little dragon up into his arms, dusted her off, and tucked her back into the side of his belt as Gwen’s head appeared at the top of the landing, framed in an arc of candlelight from her doorway.

“Mordred, are you quite well?”

“Perfectly well!” Mordred called. “We were just carrying Gwaine back to the dormitories from a night of drinking. I’m sorry if we woke you.”

“Oh,” Gwen laughed. “Was that the conversation I heard? I’m sorry, it sounded like you were arguing with someone.”

“Arguing?” Mordred laughed. “Perhaps you heard Percival and Gwaine.”

“Perhaps,” Gwen agreed, then, “Are you sure you’re quite well, Mordred?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason. Get some rest.” Gwen offered him a sympathetic look and closed the door of her room softly behind her.

Modred frowned, then, when something didn’t feel quite right, lifted a tentative, trembling hand and wiped the tears from his eyes.

He took the stairs two at a time, all-too-ready to be safely under the covers, where the chill of the winter night couldn’t reach him.

Chapter 7: The Yule Log

Chapter Text

“You couldn’t possibly make this easy for me, could you?”

The goat bleated coldly at him. Her fawn-colored fur was sleek and thick; she was clearly used to being pampered and wasn’t prepared to let any of her luxuries slip away from her.

“No, of course you couldn’t.” Mordred rolled his eyes skyward. “Why did it have to be goats? Of all the creatures… well, nothing for it.” He unclipped his cloak deftly and hung it over the side of the fence. There was no way that it would survive unscathed if he wore it into the pen, and he didn’t want to try to explain to Arthur why his knight’s attire was covered in goat dung. Then, he slipped through the rough-hewn gate and closed it quickly behind him. Unlike some of the more well-bred knights, Mordred took pride in the fact that he was the sort of person who would always remember to shut the gate. He tugged on it once to make sure that the latch had closed fully, nodded in a self-satisfied manner, and turned to find himself face to face with the fawn-colored goat.

Her sister, who was white with black spots, bleated faux-apologetically from her place atop the skeleton of the tree.

Mordred hit the fence so hard that he was pretty certain he’d seen the inside of his skull. He groaned, shook himself, and glanced over his person for any glaring injuries. Two hoof-shaped dents could be seen in the breastplate of his armor, which had made it through multiple scraps with bandits as-of-yet unscathed. Mordred groaned again, this time in frustration, and levered himself to his feet.

“I’m not leaving without that tree,” he told the fawn-colored goat firmly.

(Goats don’t tend to care much about what tone people use with them. Mordred’s armor was sporting four more dents—two hoof-shaped and two horn-shaped—by the time he retired behind the fence again.)

***

“Gwaine?” Percival’s voice felt three times louder than it should’ve been. He cleared his throat. “Gwaine,” he tried again, and this time he managed to keep his volume on a more even level. “Could we talk for a moment? I’m not feeling so great about last night, and… Mordred said that you’d probably be happier if I talked to you about it instead of just trying to move on.” Pulling in Mordred’s authority was a bit of a dirty trick, he was aware, but wrangling Gwaine into a conversation had always been akin to pulling teeth.

However, as Arthur had pointed out, Percival tended to be the exception.

“‘Course, Percy.” Gwaine’s voice was softer than his own had been, half because of the pounding headache he was sporting and half out of kindness. “Why don’t we see if Gaius needs us to do any collecting today, and then we can talk while we get a bit of fresh air.”

Percival always felt more comfortable when he was outside of the grand, claustrophobic walls of the castle, and his heart warmed. Perhaps there was a chance for them, after all.

Orders procured from Gaius, the two knights headed out past the training fields and into the woods beyond, peering into the snow beside the known, trampled trails for glimpses of green or silver leaves. For a time, the rustling of small clumps of snow falling from the trees and landing softly on the forest floor was the only sound. Then, eventually, Gwaine twisted the half-filled bag of herbs in his hands and broke the silence. “I know I made a fool of myself last night, Perce. I’m sorry that I made you so uncomfortable. You just say the word, and I promise you that I’ll never do it again.”

“No!” Percival burst out, then forced the hands that had reached for Gwaine to halt in the middle of the empty space between them. He lowered them to his sides. “It didn’t make me uncomfortable, only sad.”

Gwaine kicked a large tree root that curled around the path, sending up a puff of snow. “I think that might actually be worse than having made you uncomfortable.”

“This isn’t coming out how I wanted it to.” Percival shook his hands out to let the numbing cold and trembling anxiety exit his body through the tips of his fingers. “Gwaine, you know I’m not good at talking. And don’t argue with me on that- actually, just don’t say anything for a second, okay? I have to… I have to get my words into the right order again because I care so bloody much that this comes out right and I don’t understand why that makes it so much harder to say it.”

Gwaine fell obligingly silent, though he worried at his lip incessantly.

“I… care for you,” Percival finally grit out. “More than care. Or. In a way that’s more than how I feel about the other knights.” He held up a hand to stall the joke that Gwaine looked ready to make. “I want nothing more than for you to feel safe around me, but you only act like you do when you’re too drunk to be scared of what people think anymore, and I don’t know how to f*cking deal with that. I don’t want to be something that you feel so… so gross about liking that you can’t even act affectionate towards me around our best friends. And before you say anything, I know that you don’t want sex. I don’t care about that in the slightest. That’s not what I’m talking about. I just mean…”

“Love?” Gwaine queried simply.

Percival felt as though he was about to cry. “We joke about loving each other as friends, but that’s the thing. It’s either a joke or you say it when you’re too drunk off your ass to mean it or even remember in the morning.”

“You know, I’ve found that men tend to be more honest when they’re drunk,” Gwaine suggested. Percival wanted to take his words at face value, but he found that he couldn’t. It wasn’t enough.

“And yet they act more like themselves when they’re sober. Please.” He finally bridged the gap, lifting his hand oh-so-slowly to cup Gwaine’s cheek. “I don’t need all that much, I just want to know that I’m not crazy.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Gwaine laughed bitterly, and Percival flinched. Gwaine pressed his face into Percival’s hand to keep him from moving away. “You don’t need all that much, but I want to give you the world and I’m scared that if I start I’ll never be able to stop myself and we’ll crash and burn just like everything relationship I’ve had."

“Oh,” Percival squeaked.

“Perce?”

“You want to give me the world?”

“A man acts more like himself when he’s sober, love.”

“Can we try to figure this out?” Percival asked, and wiped a tear from Gwaine’s cheek with his thumb.

“I bloody well hope so.”

***

Mordred gasped out a tragic laugh as he hit the ground for the seventh time in as many minutes. He’d taken to leaping off of the fence and sprinting across the paddock to the tree. While this strategy usually ended in him making it much closer to the tree than he had before, it also usually ended with him face-first in water troughs, empty grain bins, piles of hay, or—the least preferable but second softest option—piles of goat dung. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, glanced around surreptitiously, and cast a cleaning spell over his face. He wouldn’t waste his magic on his armor, not when the ban hadn’t officially been repealed yet and he was in a public space, but he didn’t want the stuff in his mouth .

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the black and white goat, who had come over to investigate the new intruder in her paddock. She looked back at him, loudly chewing a mouthful of hay and dropping splinters of it onto his face. Mordred closed his eyes and rested his head against the cold ground. At the rate things were going, he was to be knocked over at least twice more before he even made it to the tree. He wasn’t a knight of Camelot because he lacked resolve, though, so after another moment of cursing whatever god had created goats, he rolled back over onto his stomach, planted his forearms, and prepared to scramble to his feet once more.

“Oh good,” called a kind voice. “I was beginning to think you’d been knocked unconscious and I was going to have to save you. I’ve done enough saving people in the past few months, I think.”

“Elyan.” Mordred could have cried with relief. (If he did shed a few tears, that was no one’s business but his own.) “Save me, please.”

“I would, if I could figure out for the life of me what on earth you’re trying to do.”

“I need to get that tree out of the paddock,” Mordred admitted sheepishly.

Elyan, to his credit, didn’t immediately begin to laugh as many of the other knights would have. Instead, he asked with a smirk, “And what, pray tell, is so important about that particular tree that you needed to brave the ire of Checkers and sh*thead to reach it?”

Mordred stared at him, deadpan. “Those aren’t really their names, right?”

Elyan placed a hand gallantly over his heart. “On my honor as a knight, I’m telling the truth.”

This time, they both laughed. Mordred’s ribs ached from the beating they’d received, but the tension in his shoulders bled away. “It’s a tradition among the Druids to light the Yule log with a piece of the old one. Rosa suggested that, since I’m starting fresh, I use the trunk of the tree that Arthur and Gwen brought inside to decorate for the winter feast last year. The only problem is that Gwen decided to be an angel and a menace all at once and donate it to the goats.”

“An angel and a menace… hm, that does describe my sister. And I’m not surprised—she loved these goats with all of her heart when we were little. Luckily for you and our Yule celebration, a bit of her goat-taming knowledge trickled down to me.” Elyan hoisted a wooden bucket over the fence and shook it. The mix of corn and grain rattled enticingly, and both of the goats abandoned their posts to gallop towards the sound of their dinner. Checkers felt the need to climb over Mordred to get there, but after he’d recovered from being stepped on by all four of her hooves, the tree was his to claim.

He had it over the fence within a minute, then lay on his back in the snow and gasped for breath as the two goats fought good-temperedly over the pile of grain that Elyan had poured out for them. After a little while, Elyan came over and sat down next to him, the empty bucket in one hand. “I thought that Druids were supposed to be good with animals,” the knight teased.

Mordred scowled at him.

“I mean, aren’t goats one of the lucky symbols of the Winter Solstice?”

“I didn’t actually know that,” Mordred admitted. “Thanks, Elyan. And for helping me with the tree as well—I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“No, you really couldn’t,” Elyan agreed.

“Thanks,” Mordred repeated, with less gratitude in his voice this time.

“I live to serve. Now, you rest for another moment while I take this bucket back to the feed-shed, and I’ll see if I can be of any help in wrangling that tree back to the castle.” Elyan snickered as Mordred groaned once more, having entirely forgotten that, though the hardest battle was over, the war was not yet won.

***

With the two of them working together, the journey to the castle passed quite simply. Elyan carried the front of the tree and led the way while Mordred took up the rear, holding as much of the weight as he could. Elyan moved stiffly, and Mordred could tell that his right arm—which had been the victim of an unfortunate encounter with Morgana’s sword—was still paining him. It was when they reached the front of the castle and Elyan hissed as they had to turn the tree towards the stables that Mordred decided enough was enough.

“Elyan,” he called. “Put the tree down for a second.”

“I’d rather not. If I put it down, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make my arm work well enough to pick it back up.”

“Which is exactly why I’m telling you to put it down. You shouldn’t have offered to help if you knew that it would hurt you so much,” Mordred scolded.

Elyan shrugged, regretted it, and finally lowered his end of the tree to the ground. He rolled his shoulders back as he spoke, encountering some concerning resistance from the right one. “I wanted to be supportive. You and Arthur had a long talk about your plans to celebrate the solstice, but you haven’t spoken to the rest of us knights about it, and I didn’t want you to think that you couldn’t come to me for help with the things you care about. I guess I just didn’t think it through fully.”

“No, you didn’t, but I appreciate it nevertheless. Just remember that I’m not gonna be happy if you’re in pain, alright?”

Elyan tried to roll his shoulders back again, and winced.

“Can I see?” Mordred requested gently.

Elyan turned the offending limb towards him. “Do what you will. If Gaius can’t fix it, though, I’m not sure what you can do to help. The blade was magical, enchanted to find my heart, and it was only through sheer luck that I survived it at all. Gaius says that the wound will linger until it’s met its goal, and since we don’t want that to ever happen, he’s not sure how much we can do for it.”

“Magical swords are nothing special when you’ve been taught how to heal by the Druids. If you’re okay with me using my magic to heal you, that is,” Mordred added, noticing that Elyan had stiffened. He tried not to feel hurt, but he couldn’t help but admit that it was hard.

“Do it,” Elyan bit out. He kept his gaze pointed firmly away from Mordred. “If it means that I’ll still be able to fight and protect my sister, then nothing else matters.”

“Isn’t that how you got into this mess in the first place? Protecting Gwen?” Mordred gently lowered his hands. “I’m not going to heal you until you actually want it. Disregarding even the fact that my magic will react differently based on how you respond to it, I have a code. If someone says no, so long as they aren’t actively dying, I won’t use my magic to heal them until they say yes and mean it. And you’re not dying,” he added, “even if you’re whining as though you are.”

His words had the intended effect: a grin broke through the nervous mask that had fallen over Elyan’s face.

“It’s not because I don’t trust you, or your magic,” Elyan assured him.

“I didn’t think it was.” Strangely enough, Mordred noted, he was being entirely honest. That was why he’d been so startled by Elyan’s response at first—the older knight had never seemed afraid of Mordred’s magic, and aside from Gwaine and Percival, he’d been one of the first knights to return to their old, gentle camaraderie after Camlann.

“Years ago, before Gwen became Queen, a sorcerer tried to save our father from an illness that it was impossible to recover from. I know that they didn’t mean to do any harm—there was nothing evil in that spell, Mordred. Nothing. King Uther accused Gwen of witchcraft. I found out months later that my little sister had come within a hair’s breadth of dying because someone else had tried to be kind to our family. I want my shoulder to be healed, Mordred, but not until after the law itself has been changed to support you doing so.”

“Of course, that’s perfectly reasonable,” Mordred agreed. “Thank you for telling me that, Elyan. Besides," he added, raising his voice, "you don’t have to carry the tree anymore—we have a willing friend here to help us!” He waved Merlin over. The man had been hovering by the doors of the castle, looking rather nauseous. Part of Mordred wanted to know why. The logical part of him, on the other hand, really didn’t. “Can you help us drag this tree over to the stables? It’s bad luck to bring it inside of the castle before we’re going to light it, but I don’t want to be trying to decorate it out in the snow.” A few fluffy white flakes were already falling, heralding a blizzard to come.

Merlin nodded, and though he didn’t say anything, he supported the tree with as much care as Mordred on the walk to the stables. They navigated the doorway with some hardship, nearly hit Arthur’s long-suffering mare in the face as they entered, then proceeded to drag the tree down the aisle where the knights’ horses were kept and into the building that belonged to the guests’ steeds. Here, they encountered a bit of difficulty.

The stable having been built on a hill, the room they were currently standing in was a good meter higher than the one that they needed to end up in. The floor dipped away through a thin doorway and down a set of stone steps, then abruptly was taken over by a mess of saddlebags, saddles, blankets, and bridles. When the stable was originally constructed, no one had planned for the sheer number of objects that would arrive along with the guests and their horses.

Merlin glanced over his shoulder at Mordred with a questioning air, but they both knew that for the tree to be as out of everyone’s way as possible, it had to be stored in the grain room beyond.

Merlin navigated the staircase first, then beckoned Mordred to push the tree forward into the opening. Amazingly, only a few branches broke off of it on its way through. The branches weren't that important, anyway, Mordred thought. (Come to think of it, he realized, this would have gone much more smoothly if he'd broken some of the branches off before they entered the stable, but there was nothing for it now.)

Mordred hesitated at the top of the staircase as Merlin picked his way over the first saddle and pile of blankets, but the warlock nodded to him, and he pushed the tree forwards. Unfortunately, Mordred had been too busy watching Merlin to keep his focus on where his own feet were, and h is boot, caked with snow, slipped from the top step. He found himself flying backwards and pushed the tree away so that the thickest part of the trunk didn't land on his already sore ribs. Consequently, the tree flew directly forwards and knocked Merlin right off his feet. He fell backwards over a saddlebag, rolled head-over-heels in a way that couldn ’t possibly have been comfortable for his neck, and landed in a heap among the fallen branches, piles of blankets, and all of the odds and ends that had tumbled from the saddlebag across the stone floor.

“Is everything alright in there?” Elyan called in a voice that suggested that he really didn’t want to know the answer.

“Fine,” Merlin mumbled. “Absolutely peachy. Mordred, watch where you’re…”

“Yes?” Mordred couldn’t help but snap the word a bit, feeling incredibly needled by Merlin’s response, and by everything else that had gone wrong so far. The rough bark of the tree had scraped his forearms, and he knew that he’d be sporting bruises until well after the winter feast, despite his armor.

“Hold on for a second.” Merlin untangled one of his legs and hopped over to the saddlebag, not bothering to free the other from the blanket that dragged behind him like the train of a dress. “Something in here doesn’t feel right. Can you sense it?”

The question seemed to catch both of them by surprise, but Mordred obligingly closed his eyes and reached out with his magic. The feeling that greeted him was akin to the sound that the mice made when scurrying up the walls of the castle late at night. It grate against his magic with a feeling of intense wrongness, but when he attempted to grasp onto it, it retreated beneath a baseboard or into a crack in the wall and hid there, quivering with anxiety but untouchable. Mordred drew back and attempted to rub the prickling from the back of his neck.

“I can tell what you’re feeling, but I can’t quite get a read on it,” he admitted. “What do you think it is?”

“It's just... wrong,” Merlin hedged, looking just as baffled as he felt. "Something's off." Mordred didn’t know whether to feel comforted or concerned that they were equally flummoxed by the contents of the bag. Merlin steeled himself, then opened the leather flap and plunged his hand in.

“Get away from there, boy!”

Mordred would forever deny the un-manly squeak that left his mouth. Sir Everett marched through the doors of the stable, eyes blazing with righteous fury. “What gives you the right to go pawing through other people’s things? Get off ,” he growled, and lifted Merlin up by the collar of his shirt. Merlin, to Mordred’s shock and alarm, didn’t fight back, only hung limply, looking like he was about to pass out. The fall must have rattled him more than he’d let on, Mordred thought.

“I have plenty of right, considering-”

“Considering that we accidentally knocked your bag over while bringing the tree in and Merlin was trying to put your things away,” Mordred finished quickly. Merlin might have been ready for a confrontation with Sir Everett, but everything already felt oh-so-very wrong, and Mordred couldn’t stand the prospect of it getting worse. “He was just trying to pick up, sir. It was my mistake, too. I tripped over the top step and hit him with the tree. We don’t mean any harm.”

Sir Everett hesitated, which, in the end, was entirely his mistake. The man stilled as a shimmering, silver blade was pressed flush with his neck, and everyone in the room held their breaths. “What, precisely, is going on here.” There was no question of whether Sir Everett would answer, Mordred thought, falling back against the stone and letting the ceiling spin overhead. There was no question at all. Leon’s words had been pure command, and Mordred was infinitely grateful that he wasn’t on the other end of them—and that they had placed a tangible barrier between himself, Merlin, and Sir Everett.

Elyan caught Mordred’s shoulder and encouraged him upright as Merlin stumbled up the steps after them. His hands were shaking, Mordred noticed, and didn’t feel all too bad when Sir Everett began to babble apologies in the face of Leon's wrath. Mordred, Elyan, and Merlin stood stiffly beside the door, listening to the ensuing confrontation, until Sir Everett had gathered up his things and his saddle bag and stomped off into the snow, promising rather desperately, if petulantly, that it would never happen again. Mordred felt himself sag in relief when Leon appeared in the doorway, his eyes narrowed in anger.

“Are you all well?” he demanded.

Mordred and Merlin both nodded, but it was rather easy to tell by the way they held themselves like frightened kittens that they weren’t alright in the slightest.

“Dammit,” Leon hissed. “Never have I so badly wanted to drive someone out of the kingdom myself, but we can’t threaten the peace between Camelot and Mercia. You stay out of his way, alright?” There was a desperation in his voice that sent chills down Mordred’s spine. He flattened himself slightly against the wall as Leon stalked past him, gripped Merlin by the shoulders, and stared pleadingly into the warlock's eyes. “I don’t want to think about what that man is capable of. There’s something off about him, understand me?”

Something… off. Mordred was certain that the phrase rang a bell, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was referring to, anymore.

“He’s been hanging around Gwen too much for my liking,” Elyan confided. “She promised me that he hadn’t tried anything yet, but I don’t want any of us to be alone with him, alright? There’s safety in numbers, and each and every one of us has the right to experience that safety. You’re not alone,” he reminded them firmly.

Mordred nodded. His eyes were damp, again.

“What even happened?” Leon asked them. “I came in and he had Merlin by the throat , and you weren’t even struggling-”

“They dropped the tree and knocked over his saddlebag,” Elyan explained. “Merlin said that there was something concerning in it, and I think he was going to take a look when Everett arrived. Merlin?”

Merlin nodded, but he didn’t seem too sure.

“Right then,” Leon decided. Mordred was glad that the oldest knight was taking initiative, for neither he nor Merlin had the wherewithal to make a plan at the current moment. “We’ll keep an eye on him, and I’ll inform Arthur this evening, but unless you’re actually certain what you saw…?”

Merlin shook his head. He looked ready to cry, as well.

“It’s alright,” Leon murmured. “We’ll just have to keep an eye on him, that’s all. He’ll be gone within a couple of weeks.”

For the first time all month, Mordred found himself wishing that the Solstice was over and done with already, if only so that Sir Everett would leave them well behind. As Elyan and Leon shepherded them out of the stable, he met Merlin’s eyes, and saw his own alarm reflected there. Neither of them could remember what had just happened.

Chapter 8: Morning's Calm

Chapter Text

Despite Sir Everett, or perhaps in spite of him, the preparations for Yule continued on with a defiant festivity. The nights grew darker and longer, but Mordred woke each morning to a world white with snow, and the lingering anxiety in his core soon dissipated, leaving him free to throw himself into each day with fervor. Scraps of fallen pine boughs, sprigs of holly, and even a few bunches of mistletoe found themselves tucked into Mordred’s satchel each time Gaius sent him herb-gathering. For certain special treats, though, Mordred needed more assistance than the spirits of the forest could grant him. He was on his way to the kitchens to procure one such ingredient when he ran straight into Leon, who had, regretfully, been balancing several delicacies of his own on a large, wooden tray.

“Ah, Sir Mordred!” squeaked Leon. He tended to shroud himself in several layers of professionalism when he ended up in a situation he couldn’t handle, Mordred had found. “How do you fare on this fine morning?”

“Better than your breakfast,” Mordred said regretfully. “I’m deeply sorry; I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“I’d already eaten,” Leon assured him. Little bits of beige oatmeal stood out brightly against the deep scarlet of his cheeks. “I mean- what did I mean?” He stared desperately at Mordred.

“Were you hungry after training?” Mordred queried tentatively.

“Yes! Exactly that!” Leon reached out a tea-soaked hand and shook Mordred’s dry one. “Good to see you, Mordred. Have a lovely day! Ta!”

Mordred stared as the knight moved off down the corridor, two bread rolls poking out of each of his back pockets. “Did… did Leon just say ‘ta’?” he asked the wall. The stones of Camelot had seen many stranger things in their time, and declined to comment.

***

“Good morning, Madam Cook,” Mordred called gallantly into the kitchen.

Mordred had a relatively friendly relationship with Cook Nina—especially after he’d spent several hours in the kitchen hiding from the other knights during his first weeks in Camelot—so he was surprised when her response, instead of her usual brusque welcome, was to throw her hands up in dismay and cry out, “Not another one!”

“Another one?” Mordred felt put off by the comment. “Another what?”

“Another knight,” cursed the cook. “You’re the third one to come down here this morning, Sir Mordred. You know I like you well enough, and you’re welcome here on an ordinary day, but this morning I’m beginning to feel rather overrun.”

“Who else has come down here? I ran into Sir Leon in the hallway—literally ran into, mind you. Was it Elyan? He seems to hate the drafts in our quarters; I wouldn’t be surprised if he sought out the warmth down here.”

“If Sir Elyan comes down here,” Cook Nina declared boldly, “I’m sending him straight back up to his quarters unless he’s willing to wash the dishes. No, the other knight was Sir Gwaine—he wanted to learn how to bake raisin buns, for some reason. Why should he need to bake raisin buns? He has us to do it for him—does he find something wrong with mine? No, he says, but he won’t tell me what he wants them for, so I scolded him out of the cellar. Please tell me you’re here for something that’s actually in my job description, Sir Mordred. I’m not a tutor, and I’m not someone who makes extra breakfasts just because the knights are too hungry to wait until luncheon, either.”

“I’d like some oranges and some cloves, please?” Mordred asked. He wasn’t sure quite what reaction his request would garner, but Cook Nina grumbled good-naturedly and went to fetch them for him.

“Ah yes, I heard about your little Solstice celebration. Here: an orange for each knight, the King and Queen, and one for the King’s manservant. Will this do?”

“You’re an angel, Nina.” Mordred darted forward and kissed her cheek. “An absolute and utter angel. Never change.”

“I’m old enough to be your grandmother,” she grumbled, but she smiled as brightly as ever. “Thank you, lad. I’m sorry to have been so short with you, now, but it seems that everyone in this castle is getting stranger and stranger as the years go by. When I first started here, the thought of a commoner being knighted wasn’t something my little boys even dreamed of. Now, a handmaid is Queen.”

“Do you mind the change?” Mordred asked.

“Not a bit—it is exhausting, though. Even good change is unexpected, and half of my job is knowing the rhythms of this place like they’re my own heartbeat. Now the knights want to learn how to cook. You don’t think I was too brusque with Sir Gwaine, do you? He caught me at a bad time, is all.”

“I think your kitchen is yours, and you have the right to decide who spends time in it, regardless of our status. I also think that Sir Gwaine might not have been asking for himself—I’ve recently gotten the feeling that there’s someone he wants to impress.”

“Ah. Sir Percival? I should’ve put that one together much earlier. Well, if you see him, send him back my way. I’m pretty free this afternoon, and I’d be happy to give him a few pointers. He’s one of the strangest men to ever enter this castle, that’s for sure, but he’s also one of the kinder ones. If he wants to spread a bit of bright romance among the darkness at this time of year, who am I to stop him?”

“See?” Mordred said kindly, “An absolute angel. Thank you, Madam. I’ll pass on your message to Sir Gwaine when I see him. Shall I also ask Sir Leon to stay out of your hair?”

She rolled her eyes fondly. “He’s been sneaking down here for snacks since his father was the knight and he was barely old enough to walk. At this point, I don’t think that anything will dissuade him. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was looking to cause a bit of romance, as well.”

With that utterly confusing statement, she shooed Mordred out of the kitchen. She was an enduringly patient woman, but she was also very attached to her daily schedule, and Mordred knew better than to get in between her and it.

***

Having procured his oranges, Mordred wandered down to the armory so that he could decorate them in company. After training, there were always a few knights to be found there, chattering away with the servants who came in to polish the armor, or polishing their own armor, not quite ready to release the thrill of the fight and go about their days. This morning, Gwaine, Percival, Leon, and Merlin could all be found among piles of chain mail and helmets, chattering on as they polished and repaired. Mordred seated himself on the bench in the middle of the room and crossed his legs beneath him.

“Mordred!” Gwaine crowed welcomingly, likely in an attempt to offset Merlin’s frown upon seeing him there. “How are you?”

“Likely better than you,” Mordred told him. “I heard that you got your ears boxed this morning. Also Cook Nina said to tell you that she wants to see you this afternoon.”

Gwaine over-dramatically hushed him, gesturing wildly to Percival. Percival blinked in confusion.

Mordred turned to Leon. “I’m sorry about earlier, by the way. And I’ve been meaning to tell you, about the mistl-” This time, Leon shushed him. There is a certain feeling which comes after being shushed by Sir Leon—a very unpleasant one, mind you—and Mordred found himself frowning down at the oranges in his hands, abashed. “Sorry. I’m putting my foot in it this morning, and I’m not even sure what I’m doing wrong.”

“Don’t worry,” called Elyan, striding through the doors with an armful of polishing rags. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“Or maybe you never will. I certainly don’t,” Percival groused.

“That’s because you’re too pure for this world, my darling,” Gwaine reassured him.

Percival turned a spectacular shade of red. By this point, he’d learned not to try to talk when he was flustered, so he just smiled brightly at Gwaine and returned his attention to the work at hand. Elyan settled in among the others and took up a helmet.

It was then that Mordred noticed that Merlin, whose gaze he’d been pointedly avoiding, was holding one of the bread rolls that Leon had been smuggling out of the kitchen in both hands, and, when he wasn’t looking at Mordred, the warlock had a small, contented smile on his face. Mordred blinked, attempted to process the implications of that one, and gave up. He settled into his work, puncturing tiny holes in the skins of the oranges and pressing cloves into them, creating tiny, bright decorations that looked just a bit like the sun. The air smelled of citrus, spice, fresh bread, and armor polish, and he felt warm there among those he loved.

Mordred tried not to think too hard about how the days before the Solstice always seemed to get darker just when they were at their most brilliant.

Chapter 9: The Shortest Days

Chapter Text

He would never be able to wash the sand from his hair. Even now, months later—though was it months, or mere seconds—the gritty feeling clung, as sticky as sugar instead of little fragments of rock and bone. He ran his hands through his sweat-soaked curls to rid himself of the sensation, but grains fell from his hair and crawled their way into his ears like spiders until the soft sounds of the other knights sleeping were worlds away. He shook his head desperately, but the sand poured from him onto the dormitory floor in an endless waterfall. Mordred was dragged to his knees by the force of the current, and he tasted the earth like iron on his tongue before he managed to raise his head from beneath the tide.

Tatters of crimson banners hung limply over the battlefield. All their spark and character had been lost amidst the muggy heat of hundreds of bodies colliding. In front of him, a pair of bloodstained boots were braced firmly against the earth that they were destined to heal. Mordred raised his eyes and met the gaze of his King.

Arthur, who had once stood on this same ground with righteous anger blazing in his eyes, only looked frightened, now. He opened his mouth to cry out some plea, but instead coughed roughly. Mordred reached frantically for him; Arthur flinched back. Mordred had forgotten the sword he held clutched tight in his grasp, but when he tried to force his aching fingers to release the handle so that he could embrace Arthur in earnest, the cold grip of Destiny held them tight. Mordred could only watch, helpless, as Arthur coughed again, and scarlet sand began to pour from his mouth.

“Arthur!” Mordred screamed, but his voice was barely a murmur amidst the sounds of battle and the crunching of the sand in his ears. “Arthur! Please!” He sounded like a mouse, squeaking its head off in a trap, not realizing that this would bring its doom sooner than anything else. “I don’t want this,” he begged, just as he had that day, but this time Arthur was too lost in his own pain to hear. “This can’t be right. This can’t be what I’m meant to do.”

Arthur smiled at him, half apologetic and half forgiving, and grasped Mordred’s sword arm in his own, as though they were shaking hands after a satisfactory meeting or a long and grueling training fight. Then, Arthur pointed the blade at his own chest, and drove it straight through his heart.

The wind tore Mordred’s scream from him as the ground disappeared from beneath his feet. Head over heels, he tumbled through the sand, suddenly no more material than the pictures the elders had traced into the fire, until he landed flat on his back with a concerning crunch in a cave full of crystals. He struggled to rise, but his legs failed to support him. He propped himself up on shaky arms and stared in cold horror as his destiny played out on every rock face around him.

He must have stayed there for hours before some movement in the hallway beyond startled him into perfect wakefulness. Unlike the dreams that had seemed to have taken place in seconds once he’d departed them, he remembered every moment with perfect clarity.

The light of the noonday sun stung his eyes as he stumbled from the empty dormitory into the stone corridor. He shivered, the after echoes of what was doomed to be his worst day flickering on the polished rock ceiling above him. A part of him wanted to find Gwaine or Percy and ask to spend the day with them until the shaky, confused feeling finally departed, but Mordred knew that they had better things to do with their time—as did he. It was the day before the winter solstice, and Arthur had given him the morning off to prepare. That was likely why none of the other knights had woken him.

He’d wasted enough time on silly concerns already, Mordred decided. The Yule log was waiting for him in the stable, and the first task of the day was to carve the runes into it that Gaius had taught him for such occasions. He had his pocket knife with him, he knew the runes by heart. He could at least accomplish that simple task before he had to return to training.

Flustered as he was by the dream, Mordred found himself becoming turned around more than once on his way to the stable. The halls wavered before him with images that sent him flinching into the corners, and each time he thought he’d found the right door he ended up at some hidden staircase or storage closet that he’d never encountered before. Was the castle really so expansive? Mordred decided that he’d ask Merlin when he saw the warlock again. Then again, why would Merlin want to speak to the man destined to kill his King? Mordred couldn’t even escape his fate in his dreams; he doubted that he’d be able to do so in reality, in the end.

Merlin was better off steering clear of him.

After dozens of false starts, Mordred made it to the stable and pushed his way into the tack room in a haze. The tree lay where they’d left it, abandoned it for some reason that he couldn’t quite remember. Mordred bit his lip until it bled, staring at the grand shape in front of him, then fell to the task with a fervor that was nothing if not desperate. He snapped each branch and twig from the log itself, turning the tree into a shape that could fit in the fireplace in Arthur’s quarters. The branches scraped his arms, but he kept at it doggedly.

He started with Algiz, for protection, whittling out the stark, straight lines of the deer’s antler. The wood was soft beneath his hands, but not soft enough, for his fingers trembled like a tiny creature hiding in the cold. Before he knew what had happened, the blade had slipped from the rune and there was scarlet blood pooling on the floor in front of him. Mordred watched mesmerized, as a single drop of blood trickled down the sloping floor. He found himself staring, half-unseeing, at the space where Sir Everett’s saddlebag should have been.

“Somthing’s off.”

Mordred flinched and looked around, but there was no one there. For a second, he’d been certain that he’d heard Merlin’s voice.

Merlin. That was a good idea. He’d find the warlock, get something to put on his hand, and maybe the world would straighten out a bit. Something wasn’t right, that was for sure, and as much as they hated each other, Mordred suddenly felt the need to know what Merlin would do. Besides, Gaius was out of town, and his hand was really starting to hurt.

***

The halls of the castle still wavered before his eyes. Mordred was beginning to think that there might be more to it than the after effects of his nightmare, or even the blood loss from his hand. He felt as though spiders were crawling up his spine, but each time he looked behind him to find the source, there was nothing to be seen. He pushed through the doors into the front entrance hall; the sound of their grating against the stone floor sounded exactly like the sand had in his ears. Mordred shuddered, half-collapsing back against the doors, but forced himself to the front of the first staircase. He clutched the banister with his bloody hand and stained the wood slick and dark as he forced his aching feet one after the other up twenty steps to the next landing.

He fell to the floor on his hands and knees and gasped until the breath that rattled in his lungs wasn’t quite so violent or damaging. Then, he half walked, half crawled up the next flight of stairs. Two down, seven more to go. It was a matter of extreme annoyance to him, even on good days, that Gaius’ quarters had to be at the top of the castle. Gaius claimed that the walk never tired him, but Gaius was also too stubborn to be exhausted by anything but a long day of good, hard work doing what he was supposed to be.

Mordred made it halfway up the third flight of stairs before he encountered an equally confused and disoriented Leon, who had been attempting to go the other way. “Leon,” Mordred breathed. He sagged against the wall with relief, then yelped as his arm dangled out of an open window. He made a valiant attempt to straighten his spine and stand at attention.

“Mordred?” Leon, if anything, looked even more relieved than he did. “There you are. I was worried about you.”

“You were?”

“sh*t, you’re bleeding. Here, let me see your hand.” Leon pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and began to clean the blood from Mordred’s palm.

“Something’s wrong,” Mordred told him. He felt dizzy and strange, and he couldn’t quite remember where he was going, or even where he’d come from.

“I’ll say something’s wrong. You’re bleeding! Why didn’t you go find Merlin? I know things aren’t the best between the two of you, but he has one of the biggest damned hearts I’ve ever known, and he would’ve helped you if you’d asked.”

“I think…”

“Mordred?”

“I think that was where I was going. I seem to have gotten turned around.” For now that he was looking about him in the presence of another, Mordred realized that he was nowhere near the series of staircases that led to Gaius’ quarters, but instead in the hallway outside of the knights’ dormitory. “I think I might be going mad,” he confessed.

Leon frowned down at him. “You don’t seem well at all. Here,” he looped his arm under Mordred’s and took most of the young knight’s weight, “I’ll take you to Gaius’ chambers and we’ll see if Merlin has anything that can get you back on your feet and well again. When did you start feeling like this?”

Mordred mumbled some noncommittal answer, stared blindly down at his feet, and gave himself up to being led through the castle that he’d thought he’d known like the back of his hand. Maybe he didn’t really belong here, after all? What sort of a person gets lost in their own home? What sort of person dreams each night of destroying it? Mordred didn’t realize that Leon had stopped abruptly until he continued to move forward and stumbled as the knight’s iron grip held him fast.

“What’s the matter?” Mordred whispered. Leon was staring straight ahead, as pale as a ghost. “Leon?”

Leon shook himself and turned back to Mordred with a cheerful, if false, smile. “Nothing is the matter, my friend. I simply was so focused on ensuring that you were well that I seem to have forgotten where I was taking you. Gaius’ chambers, right? All is well, I know how to get there from here.” Leon pulled them forward again, and though Mordred forced himself to stay aware and alert this time, it didn’t seem to do much good at all. The halls wavered and twisted, and staircases appeared that led into inky black nothingness. Camelot, her walls as sturdy as the principles she was grounded in, had become a labyrinth.

“I don’t know where we are,” Leon admitted sheepishly when they reached their third dead end.

“Neither do I. Leon-” Mordred swallowed. He was about to sound completely insane, but there was a sneaking suspicion growing in the back of his mind. “Were you in the stable with me the other day when I brought the Yule tree in? Everything is rather blurry—I think I must’ve taken a knock to the head when I tripped—but I seem to recall you being there, and something… something tells me that it’s important.”

Leon frowned at him again, this time in confusion. “Of course I was there! I stopped Sir Everett from strangling Merlin, remember?”

“Sir Everett?”

“Yes? Tall knight, purple cloak, took a rather creepy interest in you and Gwen?” Leon’s brow was crinkled in concern, and Mordred wished that the poor, tired knight wouldn’t have to deal with their strange escapades yet again, but it seemed as though something was amiss and they were stuck directly in the center of it.

“I think I would remember that, if it had happened.”

“Mordred…”

“Tell me exactly what occurred that day. Don’t leave anything out, okay? I believe you, but something in me that feels entirely foreign doesn’t want to. Tell me again, Leon.”

“You and Merlin were bringing the Yule tree into the stables, and you tripped. It seems like you remember that part, right? Well, Merlin knocked over Sir Everett’s saddle bag, and when he was putting things back into it, he thought that there was something wrong. I don’t know anything more than that, because Sir Everett came in and pulled him away from the bag, and I came in right after and pulled Sir Everett away from him.”

“There was something in that bag,” Mordred breathed.

“How do you mean?”

“Sir Everett brought something into Camelot that he wasn’t supposed to, and I would bet you my month’s wages that it’s the exact same thing which is sending us down all of these wrong paths right now. We aren’t just confused and disoriented because we’re worried, or haven’t slept well—we feel like this because it gets us out of the way of whatever he wants to do. And I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t think that whatever he’s planning bodes too well for Arthur. He’s had it out for him since he first arrived.”

“He thinks that Arthur isn’t doing enough,” Leon agreed. “We have to get to the throne room.”

Before Mordred could point out that such likely wouldn’t yield any promising results, Leon had set off down the corridor in a flash of red and gallantry. Mordred dashed after him, not willing to lose the only familiar thing he had in the mess of confusion and terror. Leon’s red cloak made him easy to follow, which was lucky, for he took longer strides than Mordred could manage on his wobbling legs, and he nearly wavered out of sight on several occasions. Mordred chased him on through the endless stone passageways, up and down staircases that sometimes seemed to defy the laws of gravity, and finally into the entrance hall again—only to find that they were standing in front of the door to the kitchen.

“I feel as though I’ve just been knighted all over again,” Leon bit out with a laugh that was half sob.

“What was it like, back then?” Mordred asked. They had places to be, Kings and kingdoms to save, but he got the feeling that they wouldn’t be going anywhere until Leon had managed to process whatever memory was now rising in his mind.

“Grand,” Leon whispered. “And bloody. Violent—we did so much damage. I dreamed about it last night. Sometimes I like to pretend that I know better than that, now, but I can’t forget what I did.”

“You were very young,” Mordred reminded his friend. He didn’t mean it as a forgiveness, per say, for he doubted that either of them could handle that at the moment, but more of an offering of sympathy for a little boy who was haphazardly placed on the other side of this pointless war that had so damaged both of them.

“Right you are,” scoffed Leon. “I was an innocent, naive, stupid little kid who had no idea that this castle was way too big for him to ever understand.” He laughed again, and turned his face towards Mordred so that the young Druid had a clear picture of the tears that were now freely streaming down his cheeks. “Mordred—I fought your people, back then. Uther himself told me that I was the perfect representation of everything Camelot stood for, and now I’m in love with the soon-to-be Court Sorcerer and I can’t even reach my King to protect him from everything that’s trying to hurt him.”

Mordred breathed slowly and calmly in the way that Gwaine always did when it was Mordred himself who was panicking. When Leon tentatively began to follow his rhythm, he met the man’s gaze with an open, honest smile. “Is that why you’re carrying the mistletoe I gave you in your pocket?”

“I want Merlin to know that I’m not who I was back then, and what better way to do that than by showing him that I love him through the traditions of your people? I’ve never been so lost in my life, though, Mordred. Not just in terms of being able to find the throne room right now, but when it comes to understanding what I stand for when everything has been turned on its head. Is this right?” the older knight gasped out. Mordred didn’t know how to answer, for Leon had always been his guiding light for what was truly good and noble. Until now, he’d believed that the man had never faltered in his principles.

(He’d been rather foolish to believe so, Mordred thought. Of course Leon would question himself now, for he cared just as much as the rest of them about what was good and right, and he’d been placed in the position to do what so many would classify as wrong. But they could go on asking these sorts of questions for days, without ever really reaching an answer that either of them understood, all while someone was trying to kill their King. Maybe they would never have an answer, but Mordred yearned desperately to return to the time where they could ask their questions in peace and warmth.)

“No. This isn’t right,” he said finally, firmly. “There’s a lot of things that could be right or wrong, but being separated from our family while someone tries to hurt them isn’t one that we need to question.”

“What do we do?”

Mordred closed his eyes against a wave of fear that had nothing to do with the spell that was being cast on them. There was only one thing that they could do, in the end. There was only one person who had ever been powerful enough to handle a curse of this magnitude, and it wasn’t either of them.

As Mordred knew he’d always represented Arthur’s inevitable loss in Merlin’s mind, he finally had to admit that Merlin represented everything that Mordred was afraid he was going to do. Merlin had hurt him, yes, had left him cold and alone and broken when he was only a child, and again when he was a man who still felt like a child, but in the end, Mordred had given as much hatred as he’d received. Merlin hadn’t just betrayed Mordred any more than Mordred had just betrayed Merlin. They’d betrayed each other.

Gaius had always told him that two wrongs didn’t make a right, echoing a sentiment his father had reminded him of time and time again when he was two young to understand it, but Mordred thought that there was something to be said for building something hopeful where all the cruelty before had burnt itself to the ground in its righteous, stupid fury. Wasn’t that what Yule was about? Creating light where once there had only been darkness?

And so he grasped Leon’s hand in his own for something to ground him against the changing tides of fate, and reached out with his mind into the tangled mess around him. It was stupidly simple to find Merlin’s energy, for as Mordred had begun to suspect, the warlock was trapped in a very similar dream to his own. Mordred brushed against clouds of guilt, and anger, and grief, and dove deeper. There, in the center, huddled into a tiny sphere that pulsed with nervous energy, he found the warm, golden light that was Merlin’s own.

Wake up , he hissed. When that didn’t work, he shouted it, placing all of his magic and each and every plea that he’d ever sent to the man who had once been his god behind the two words. He felt Merlin startle awake, terror shooting out from him in waves. Steady , Mordred soothed. The ripples of panic calmed slightly, but they had yet to resolve themselves into comprehensible words. Mordred kept going.

Take a deep breath, Emrys. You are safe. You have time.

Where’s Arthur? a frantic voice finally responded. Mordred, what’s going on? Where’s Arthur? Where are you? Why are you speaking to me like this? I thought you were afraid of me…

Mordred took a deep breath, and squeezed Leon’s hand tightly in his own. The knight squeezed back, for though he didn’t know what was going on, he cared about his friends just as much as he cared about his King and kingdom.

I’m more afraid of losing my family, Mordred said.

Chapter 10: On Dragons

Chapter Text

“The spell isn’t just meant to disorient us,” Merlin told them once he’d tracked them down using his connection to Mordred’s magic. “It’s meant to specifically keep us away from where Arthur is—and, judging by the fact that you two spent so long searching for Gaius’ tower, it was also meant to ensure that on one could reach me. Clearly, they weren’t counting on there being another talented magic user in the city.” He shot Mordred a rare smile, and Mordred felt his chest warm. Still, there was something off about Merlin’s theory.

“He knows I have magic, or at least that I’m sympathetic to it. Why wouldn’t he consider me a threat as well as you?”

“Let’s just count ourselves lucky that he didn’t, and not question our good fortune quite yet,” Leon cut in. “If the spell is meant to keep us away from Arthur, how do we find him?”

Merlin smirked, and Mordred felt very sorry for Sir Everett. The man likely wouldn’t live to see the next sunrise—not that Mordred was too bothered by the fact. The knight’s presence had cast a pall over the days leading up to the solstice, dashing Mordred’s dreams of a time of cheer and festivity. “We go exactly where we think we shouldn’t,” Merlin told them.

Leon, well resigned to always being a couple steps behind, raised a hand.

“Yes, Leon?”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“Well, my dear sir knight-”

Mordred rolled his eyes. Were they really flirting right now?

“-if you were looking to find the throne room from here, where would you go?”

“To the right and down the stairs.”

“Precisely,” Merlin crowed, then dashed off to the left, and up a twisting, spiral staircase.

“Is this really how you keep saving him?” Mordred called after the warlock. “Throwing things at the wall and hoping that one of them sticks?”

“It hasn’t failed me yet,” Merlin responded, over-eager to be at the chase once again, and Mordred sighed in exasperation. Really, it was thanks to the incompetence of all the previous attackers and Emrys’ unnatural good luck, and not at all due to Merlin himself, that Arthur wasn’t already dead. (It also helped that Arthur was frustratingly likable, Mordred thought, giving up on anything ever making sense and sprinting after Merlin, or he would’ve killed the King himself for getting himself into trouble so often. It felt good to be able to joke about it, even in the privacy of his own mind. Mordred wondered if this was how getting better felt.)

They continued through the castle in this manner, taking each wrong turn as a matter of course, until Mordred was so certain that they were hopelessly lost that he’d never find his way out of the maze again. Though he trusted that Merlin would always try to act in Arthur’s best interest, it was hard to believe that the warlock was getting them any closer to their destination. For one thing, while he believed that the spell could disorient him in terms of left, right, forward, and backward, Mordred highly doubted that the number of staircases they had climbed was going to get them closer to anything, save for, perhaps, arthritis.

Leon had sent him several pleading looks at the bottom of each new staircase, but Mordred wasn’t about to risk his neck by questioning an increasingly frustrated Merlin. He didn’t have any other ideas to offer, aside from the growing panic in his chest that screamed faster, there’s no time left, we have to get there now, and so he overtook Merlin in the next corridor, racing past the young warlock and trying to ignore the tears that had begun to burn in his eyes and blur his vision.

It had all been fun and games for a moment, thinking that Merlin was there now, and so everything would be alright, but they seemed no closer to Arthur than they had before Merlin joined them. The walls and floor still wavered, and all that their path so far had accomplished was causing the spell to cry more fiercely than ever in the back of Mordred’s mind that he was going the wrong way, and that it would be more peaceful and gentler to just forget all of it and go where he truly felt that he ought. He was tired, Mordred thought. That was the worst part of it. His arms were sore from the tree branches, and his hand throbbed, even bound as it was in Leon’s handkerchief. His mind felt as though it had been pulled to pieces and stitched back together upside-down with a rusty needle.

This wasn’t the sort of thing that he was meant to resist, and his soul itself ached from doing so. It was like turning away from Arthur at Camlann all those months ago: the piece of himself that had always known the path it was meant to follow had been lost to the overwhelming confusion of an ordinary, directionless life.

As though thinking of his King’s name had called Arthur to him, the doors of the throne room loomed up before them like an unfamiliar figure only met in evening’s thick fog. “Arthur’s in there,” Mordred told Merlin, though he wasn’t quite sure why it felt as though he was confessing to a crime. “I can feel him.”

“So can I,” Merlin murmured tiredly. “It won’t go away, if you’re wondering. Being bound to someone by fate tends to leave a lasting mark.

Ah. So that was what felt so off about the whole affair. Well, one amongst many of his concerns.

Yet, with a stroke of good fortune that couldn’t have been left to providence alone—for the Triple Goddess was rarely kind, and her more sinister aspect, the Fates, were even less so—incompetence and luck had paid off once more.

Merlin even let him break down the door to the throne room, which Mordred thought was rather nice. There stood Sir Everett, as he’d expected, pacing back and forth in front of Arthur with his eyes wild and impatient. He raised his head excitedly as Mordred burst through the door, then frowned when he was followed closely by Merlin and Leon. “What are you doing here?”

“Why?” Mordred chirped. “Who were you expecting?”

“Yourself and Queen Guinevere, of course.”

“f*cking pardon?” Gwaine asked eloquently, appearing in the doorway as well. Mordred wondered if he and Percival had reasoned their way here just as Merlin had, or whether Gwaine was so used to arriving at places when drunk or hung over that he'd found the throne room completely on instinct. He gave it up as a fifty-fifty chance of each and returned his gaze to Sir Everett. Percival drew his sword behind him, ready to back up his boyfriend and best friend in whatever confrontation was about to go down. “What do you want with Mor and Gwen?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Why don’t you enlighten them, boy?” he asked, turning to Arthur.

Arthur looked just as put-out as Mordred felt. “He thinks that I’m not doing enough, so he’s going to take my place-” he gestured to the Round Table, “my wife, and, um. My heir? I’m not sure how he even found out about that one, really, Mordred. I hadn’t even submitted the paperwork to the committee yet—Merlin had a dozen more edits for it before he would let anyone else read it…”

“f*cking pardon?” Mordred echoed Gwaine’s earlier words.

He glanced back at the aforementioned knight, but he, Leon, Percival, and Merlin were all grinning brightly. Mordred had never thought he’d see such an honest expression of joy on Merlin’s face directed at him and shifted nervously on his feet. “Am I still dreaming? Is this still a dream?” He felt light-headed enough to be certain that it could be a possibility.

“Ah,” Sir Everett cut in as though everything was still going according to his plan. “You remember your dreams, then, Sir Mordred? That little creature I had locked up in the attic leads to the most delicious nightmares. I had quite a bit of fun playing around with them on the road here. Lost a few good guards to it, but I knew that I’d have an army at my command when I reached the Citadel. Tell me, what did you dream of?”

Mordred felt his heart sink. He refused to open his mouth, even as Sir Everett stalked closer. The knights and Merlin bristled, but Sir Everett rolled his eyes, waved his hand, and sent up a barrier of crackling red energy between them and Mordred. Mordred turned in alarm and saw the same reflected in Merlin’s face. The warlock had already begun to throw spells against the shield, but they both knew that he wouldn’t weaken it fast enough. Mordred returned his gaze to Sir Everett, feeling his whole body tense as the knight drew closer. “What did you dream of?” Sir Everett questioned again, breath hot on his face.

Mordred forced his gaze past the immediate threat in front of him to where Arthur was bound to his throne with golden chains. Poetic, and annoyingly flashy. “I dreamed,” Mordred finally admitted, guilt clear in his voice, “of killing my King.” Arthur’s face wrinkled and folded, and Mordred was sure that hatred would soon bloom in his eyes, but all that shone there were tears of sympathy. On a sudden impulse, Mordred forced out through his tightening throat, “I dreamed of killing my father.”

“You dreamed of your fate,” Sir Everett corrected him. “You dreamed of what you will someday do, no matter how you try to escape it. Perhaps a sword can be removed from a stone, but are you really so naive as to think that the future can be changed with a bit of paltry magic? The future will come, no matter how long you hold it off, and the best you can do is let it arrive already and build what you can from the ashes.”

It was a horribly familiar sentiment, Mordred thought. It was also dead wrong, as he’d learned a long time ago.

“The future’s arrival does not have to herald the present’s burning.”

“Doesn’t it? Isn’t that what the winter solstice is all about? It’s about destroying the world so that we can rise from it. That’s why we burn the Yule log.”

Mordred looked past Sir Everett once more, but then his gaze continued on past his King, and to the fierce, white world outside where his only real Queen—the only real ruler that all of them would ever bow to—raged on. She danced among the spires in her wedding gown, whirling pure and soft as silk and cutting red and sharp as blood as she prepared to deliver the world anew. She sung like a lark though her voice was a scream, and though she tasted of nothing but metal and rot, with each cold breath she whispered into the mouths of all she sustained of an energy which could not be destroyed. He’d loved her longer than he’d known what love was, and he’d feared her from the first moment she’d taken a loved one away.

“Look outside, Sir Everett,” Mordred said. When he did not budge despite Everett’s spluttering, the knight finally drew his own gaze to the window.

Mordred moved away from his friends, to the utter dismay of Gwaine and Percival, who protested very loudly. He crossed the stone floor, and his footsteps echoed as though he was one of the Kings of old instead of a knight who hadn’t known right from left until a few minutes ago, and still wasn’t sure he knew it from wrong. He raised his bare hand and placed it on Sir Everett’s armored shoulder as though they were the closest of friends, then held the man in front of the glass with a grip as hard as ice.

“The world has already been destroyed.”

Sir Everett opened his mouth to speak. Outside, a gust of wind sent the broken limb of a tree tumbling across the courtyard; it arced up into the air, and all but Sir Everett and Mordred had the good sense to step back as it scraped across the glass. Sir Everett squeaked and twisted away, but he was held fast. Mordred merely laughed. He thought that she had been listening—she often was, at this time of year.

“We burn fires to keep our little part of it safe and alive for as long as we can. And you, my friend, thought that you could take mine away from me.” Mordred raised his hand, and the energy of the storm itself crackled around his fingers. “Poor decision on your part, really.”

The blow to his chest sent Sir Everett flying towards the far wall of the throne room, but much to Mordred’s dismay, the shield caught him and let him tumble safely to the ground. He rose to his feet, fury burning in his eyes and flames burning in his hands. Mordred reached for his magic again, but the confusion and exhaustion of the past hours had caught up with him upon the failure of his spell and his adrenaline, and blue light merely sparked, fizzled, and died in his hands.

With a laugh that was nothing short of maniacal, Sir Everett raised his fiery hands above his head, forming the flames into a white-hot sphere. “Fine. If you won’t accept your fate, I’ll kill you, and then your King as well.”

Mordred saw the sun itself flying towards him, and closed his eyes. It was a wonder, really, that the tears on his cheeks could feel so cold with the flames inches from his face. His body itself was warm, as though his friends’ love had at once become a tangible cloak around him, that pulsed with warmth. He hoped that Merlin would break the barrier soon, and that the others would be safe, and that perhaps his death would do what he couldn’t in his life, and finally change his fate for good…

On the wind of some long-forgotten winter night, Mordred was certain that he heard the laugh of a little girl. Arthur let out a cry of dismay, long, guttural, and low.

Mordred’s eyes flew open in alarm, and he reached for his King—only to find that the tingling warmth he was feeling on his arms was from fire racing up his skin. Smoke sent the world wavering before his eyes, but, though he searched each and every inch of his body for some sensation, Mordred found that he couldn’t feel any pain. “I apologize, my good man,” he said, turning to Sir Everett. “Only I get to kill Arthur.”

Then, he blacked out for a few minutes and let Merlin deal with Sir Everett’s fate.

***

When Mordred was finally forced to return to consciousness, it was because Arthur was screaming rather loudly and shrilly in his ear. He blinked his eyes open and gazed at the beautiful marbling on the arched ceiling above him. The flames had dissipated, but unfortunately, though he bore no burns that he could see, the aches in his body had not. He frowned over at Arthur. “Not so loud, please, or I’ll really threaten your life.”

It took him longer than it should have to realize that the ensuing burst of sound was Merlin breaking down into peals of laughter. Mordred raised himself up on his elbows, met the man’s gaze, and dissolved into mirth as well. The knights joined them not long after, while Arthur continued to grumble in the background.

Fear and anger finally dissipated, Mordred met Merlin’s gaze in earnest. “Thank you for protecting me. You didn’t have to, and we both know that blow would’ve killed me if you hadn’t.”

“Mordred…”

“No, really. I know I’m a threat to everything you hold dear, but you saved my life, and that means more to me than you know.”

“Mordred.”

“I swear, Merlin, I don’t mean any harm here, and I hope that maybe, if you’ve started to see that, we could be friends?”

“Mordred!” Merlin finally burst out. Considering he’d just asked a question, Mordred forced himself to be quiet and let the other man respond. “Three things. No, four. First of all, you are part of what I hold dear—wormed my way into it and never left, or at least never left for so long that it mattered. Second of all, slightly disqualifying my previous statement, I didn’t save you. Third of all ,” he continued quickly to still the confused and dismayed whispers that ensued, “I would have if I could, but I wasn’t able to get the barrier down in time. You may not think yourself capable, but that was all you. Fourth, yes. Bloody hell yes, Mordred. I'm so damn tired of all of this, and I think friendship sounds rather splendid, don't you?"

“Well then, if we're friends,” Mordred started in a tentative tone that echoed the one the warlock had used to call his name a minute before. “Could you please throw a ball of fire at me?”

“f*cking pardon?” This time, it was Arthur’s turn to repeat the now-familiar phrase.

“Just at my breastplate. You don’t actually have to try to kill me, though you’re welcome to do so if you feel tempted.”

Merlin, who, it seemed, still did feel a bit tempted despite his earlier comments, effortlessly summoned a small flame in his palm and lobbed it at Mordred’s face.

“Thanks,” Mordred deadpanned, spitting out smoke. Though he was a bit annoyed, he found himself grinning.

“What are you so happy for? He just tried to kill you! Mer lin!”

“The flames were barely warm! He would’ve lost an eyebrow, nothing more.”

“And perhaps vision in one eye! Gods know that you can’t aim to save your life…”

“I’m better than you are!”

“Really? Really. Would you like me to show you a demonstration of my aim?”

Mordred just kept smiling like an idiot as they argued, and rubbed his thumb gently over the ears of the well-loved sock creature at his hip. He hadn’t cast a single bloody spell, and he now knew exactly who had laughed when Sir Everett had tried to kill him. Ellie’s offer of protection had paid off after all—not that Mordred had ever doubted her. He’d lived for too long to dismiss the power of a child’s imagination.

Chapter 11: Berkanan

Chapter Text

“The sun will be setting in a couple of hours,” Mordred mumbled when the rubble of the battle had been cleared away. The disorientation spell had dissipated when Merlin had taken Sir Everett out of the equation, but what it had left behind was a clarity that he wasn’t ready for: the past hours had taken their toll. The sky was growing darker still, beyond the gloomy gray clouds, and there was no way that he could be prepared for Yule before the sun tucked herself below the soft horizon to begin her longest rest of the year.

“It will,” Merlin agreed. He walked over to where the young Druid still sat on the floor, and offered his hand. “That means we don’t have much time left to get ready.” When Mordred stared at him in confusion, the warlock wiggled his fingers invitingly. “Come on, you’re in charge of this whole operation—where to first?”

“The stables,” Mordred whispered. “But Merlin, there’s no way we’ll be ready in time. I wanted to decorate Arthur’s chambers, and—and the kitchens were likely affected by the spell as well, so there won’t be anything to eat, and the Yule log isn’t ready, and that’ll take hours in and of itself…”

“Then we should get started now,” Arthur agreed, coming over to stand beside Merlin. “I have to draft an address to explain to all of the visiting busybodies what just happened, but the rest of you are free for the afternoon. After all that happened today, I’d like nothing more than to spend the night laughing and making merry with the lot of you. Take his hand, Mordred,” he encouraged more quietly. “When help is offered, it isn’t the mark of a brave man, but indeed a foolish and prideful one, to turn it away.”

Mordred quickly grasped Merlin’s hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. “We’ll go to the stables first,” he repeated. This time, the words were a command, and the knights and Merlin grinned at the excited fervor bubbling beneath the tone. “Percy, can you walk down to the Inn and get us a keg of their best cider? You can get something stronger, too, if you’d like, but I for one won’t be drinking this evening.”

Percival nodded and turned in a whirl of red cloak. “Thank you,” Mordred called after him, and turned to Gwaine.

Correction: tried to turn to Gwaine. The knight was nowhere to be found, and Mordred felt a spark of panic flare to life in his chest as he scanned the room. “Gwaine?” His voice was high and reedy, and he would’ve been embarrassed had Leon not offered him a sympathetic look.

“He’s down in the kitchens trying to scare us up a bit of a feast. If you’d like-” and here he sent Mordred a look which implied that Mordred had better agree to whatever offer he was about to make, “-I could be the one to decorate Arthur’s chambers.”

Mordred giggled. Who was he to put a wrench in Leon’s best laid plans? “Do what you will,” he offered grandly. Arthur spluttered behind him. “Also,” Mordred added, “if you find Gwen while you’re there, could you make sure that she’s okay? I’m not sure where she and Elyan are, but given what Sir Everett said, I’m a bit worried about them.”

“I’ll keep my eye out,” Leon agreed. “Arthur, would you like to come supervise my decorating choices while you write your speech?” Arthur softened a bit, and Mordred once again thanked his lucky stars that they had Leon with them. He’d known Arthur since they were both barely old enough to walk, and it often seemed that he knew exactly what the King needed, even when he couldn’t say it himself—which, in this case, seemed to be inclusion and to not be alone quite yet. (Mordred also expected that Leon had slightly selfish reasons for doing so, as he seemed to be psyching himself up to ask Arthur a question. If Mordred had to guess, it would be something along the lines of requesting Arthur’s blessing to court his manservant/brother/Court Sorcerer.)

The aforementioned manservant/brother/Court Sorcerer was staring at him expectantly when Mordred stopped grinning after Leon and Arthur. “Well?” Merlin bounced up and down on his toes. “What are we waiting for? It’s Yuletide, Mordred! Let’s get to celebrating.”

For a moment, Mordred wanted to question it. The tired, broken pieces of his soul grated against each other and dragged doubts and anxieties into the light. Yet, Merlin was smiling at him brightly, as one sorcerer to another, as one young person to another on the eve of their favorite holiday. The only question Mordred ever really needed to ask himself was whether that could be enough, at least for tonight.

He took Merlin’s hand again, tugging him towards the stables with a laugh. The answer was a resounding yes.

***

“I didn’t know how to read the old tongue when I first arrived in Camelot,” Merlin confided in Mordred. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor of the stables, the Yule log beneath them, blankets that smelled sweetly of horses and last summer’s hay draped over their shoulders to ward off the chill from the open doors. Outside, the clouds had parted for a moment, and golden sunlight was chasing puffs of snow across the landscape.

“This doesn’t seem like the most advisable place to learn—at least not in the past.”

They shared a secret smile at the thought that the past was quickly losing the power it had held for so long. “It was safer for me here than in Elador. Most of the village knew my secret and accepted it, but there were those among the old guard who were getting more nervous by the day, and new arrivals who posed unknown threats. I didn’t want to be a danger to my mother by staying there.”

“I didn’t know any of these runes until a few days ago,” Mordred admitted. “Gaius taught me when we were helping out in the village. Some of the people there caught on and wanted to learn too; I wouldn’t be surprised if the old language started to make a comeback over the next few years.”

“Wouldn’t that be something?”

They fell silent for a while. Mordred was concentrating on binding the stems of evergreen branches together, for Merlin had banned him from using the knife after his attempts at carving runes with his injured hand yielded something that looked a lot like Gwaine’s attempt at forging Arthur’s signature while drunk. He tied a sprig of holly to the bunch of evergreen, and added a pinecone on top before looping the final string into a bow.

“You know, a few of the knights haven’t ever laid a fire before,” Merlin said eventually. “But I know that you have, which means that either you’re planning on scaring the socks off of them with the amount of pine branches you’re including, or you’ve forgotten what happens to fresh pine needles in heat.”

Mordred processed for a moment, came to several incorrect conclusions, then turned to Merlin with a horrified grin on his lips. “It’s gonna go up like fireworks, isn’t it? My gods, I can’t believe I nearly did that. Here, give me the knife, I need to untie them—the elders wanted the sparks, you see, to make pictures out of, but I don’t know what on earth I’m doing with them and I don’t want to accidentally burn Arthur’s quarters down.”

“Arthur’s quarters have been through worse,” Merlin said, and held the knife out of Mordred’s reach.

“Merlin…”

“I don’t know about you, but where I came from, the winter solstice was a time where little kids who’d been kept inside for too long got up to more mischief than their parents knew how to handle. The village elders used to joke that there was a curse which befell our town every year at that time—I only realized after I tried to banish it for two years straight that they were just talking about the trouble that myself and the other kids got up to. I know,” he added self-deprecatingly. “I’m well aware, Mordred. What kind of idiot tries to banish a curse that wasn’t there in the first place?”

“One who isn’t safe enough to ask questions.”

They fell silent again, but Mordred abandoned his quest for the knife and let the pine boughs remain as they were. If mischief was to be a part of their tradition, he would welcome it with open arms. He turned his attention to binding bundles of dried apples, oranges, and cinnamon sticks together with twine. They could place them in a pot over the fire with the cider and enjoy all the warmest flavors of winter at once.

“I have a question now,” Merlin said suddenly. By the way he winced as though the volume of his voice had startled him, Mordred got the feeling that he’d been rehearsing the statement in his head for the past few minutes.

“Go on?” Mordred kept his voice even, if a bit sharp.

“My Ma and I used to write wishes on scraps of cloth and tie them to one of the logs in the fire before we burned it. She said that we couldn’t tell anyone we did it, so I thought maybe… is that real, or did she just make it up to keep me entertained?”

“It’s real, by some definition of the word. It’s traditional, yes, and I like to believe that it works, but I’ve never seen any real proof that any of the wishes come true.”

Merlin exhaled sharply and sat back on his heels.

“Did you cut yourself?” This time, Mordred didn’t hesitate to let the sarcasm leech into his tone.

“These runes you’ve written down for me to carve into the log—can you remind me what this one is for?” Merlin met Mordred’s doubtful gaze with a challenge in his eyes. He knew what the rune was, Mordred was sure, but for some reason it mattered to him why he was carving this specific character into their log. Mordred felt his cheeks burn when he realized exactly which inked letter Merlin was referring to.

“Berkanan.” He lowered the orange slice that he’d been fiddling with so that he could trace his fingers over the paper instead. The smooth surface grounded him, stilled the frantic beating of his heart and the little voice jumping in his mind that whispered that if he was honest, Merlin would turn away from this all yet again. How could he possibly want this, no matter how much Mordred did? “It’s for new beginnings.”

“Like dawn after the darkest night… or the darkest age,” whispered a voice in his mind.

Mordred’s breath hitched, but he kept going. “Love.”

“That knows no bounds of blood.”

“Care.”

“To warm us through the coldest, hardest days.”

Mordred swallowed. There were tears burning in his eyes now, and his throat was too choked to voice the final word, so he reached out with the voice that was for his kin alone. “Trust.”

“That we can try again, even after so much has been lost. I think there might be some truth to those wishes after all,” Merlin finished out loud. In his mind’s eye, Mordred caught a glimpse of a little boy, a bright red scarf around his neck, tongue sticking out from between his teeth as he oh-so-carefully penned: I want to celebrate the solstice as myself . When he blinked the wisps of the memory away, Merlin had finished carving, and Berkanan stood white as snow against the dark wood of the log. “That’s the last of it. Shall we carry her up to Arthur’s chambers?”

“Her?”

“You can’t think she’s an it, Mordred. She’s a beautiful spirit, with feelings, a gender, and…”

“Don’t tell me you’ve named her.”

Merlin grinned, as bright as the dawn, and as self-satisfied as a goat. “Yule-ia.”

“I’m going to f*cking kill you.”

Merlin scooped Yulia up into his arms and dashed out the door into the snow. “You’ll have to catch me first!”

***

“What on earth happened to you?” Arthur rose with a huff as Mordred strode blithely into his chambers, carrying the Yule log and covered in snow.

“I fought Merlin over the sanctity and honor of Yule. He made a pun,” he added petulantly when Arthur began to look alarmed. “I hate puns.”

“Ah,” said Percival from where he’d been laying kindling for the fire. “That’s just because you’re not any wood at them.”

“Bloody hell. Listen, is someone going to take this tree from me or not? Because I could just leave it on your carpet, but I’m not sure Gwen wants me to do that.”

“I do not,” the Queen responded, sailing out from her dressing room in all her regal finery. She was quite well indeed, Mordred realized with no small relief. “Don’t worry, Mordred. Just give them a few minutes to burn themselves out, and then you’ll be tree to go about your business.”

“Guinevere,” Mordred moaned, feeling no small amount of dismay.

“Come here, you silly boy.”

Mordred was finally able to relinquish the Yule log to Percival and Leon, and crossed the room to stand with Gwen in the doorway. “Are you well?” he asked her quietly.

“Better than I’ve ever been, love. I heard from Leon and Arthur that you were worried about me, but I assure you, Elyan and I spent the morning feeding the goats and helping out at the Inn, and I didn’t even notice that something had gone wrong in the castle until it had all blown over already. It was sweet of you to care, though.”

“Of course I care,” Mordred said a bit too hastily, then tried to figure out how to swallow back the words that were already hovering between them, dancing with beautiful, terrifying implications in a waltz that none of them knew the steps to.

“Have you talked to Arthur about his plans to make you his heir yet?”

Mordred shook his head.

“Well, then.” Before Mordred could tell what was coming, Gwen had stepped forward and kissed him softly on the forehead. “Mistletoe,” she said, and pointed to the ceiling above them by way of explanation. “I know that you see Arthur as a father, and while I don’t know what that makes me, know that I’m happier than I’ve ever been that you’re part of our strange little family and that I get to care for you.”

“I love you guys,” Mordred whispered, and returned the gesture. They could figure out the details later. For now, this was all that mattered.

***

Gwaine arrived with a covered tray just as Percival was stepping out into the corridor, and they attempted to dance around each other awkwardly to pass through before Leon snorted and pointed out the mistletoe above them. Gwaine froze on the spot and began to turn pale, but Percival, unencumbered by anything in his arms and well aware of the boundaries they’d already laid out for each other, caught Gwaine gently around the waist, dipped him to the floor as though they were waltzing, and kissed his cheek.

Gwaine blushed, though he quickly removed the mistletoe from the ceiling afterwards, pointing out that people shouldn’t be placed in a situation where they might have to do something that they didn’t want. (At that exact moment, Merlin walked through the doorway, and Leon made a noise that sounded rather like a dying goose.)

***

As was custom, Mordred was once more able to light the Yule log as the youngest person present. It meant something different with his family at the camp, when he was the epitome of youth and the pride and hope of all who came before him, and all who had lit the log in their own youths, but still there was something quite hopeful about being placed yet again as the one to herald in the changing of the tides. The knights had all written their wishes on scraps of colored cloth that Leon had offered from his sewing basket—a fact that Merlin clearly found even more sweet than Mordred did, if the way that Mordred saw him looking at the blonde knight was any indication.

Mordred had written no wish on his own, but had tied a scrap of a scarlet banner to the log, and let its disappearance into smoke represent all the hope he had that it need never fly again in battle. Such was likely unrealistic, for he was a knight of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the realm and to expect that he would never have to defend his home was foolish indeed. Still, he hoped that the wish would serve for that, as well, as a hope that this would be the color he would fight under and for until the end of his days.

When the knights had been appropriately startled by the crackling and sparking of the pine branches, and Mordred had conjured a few of the sparks into butterflies that now danced around the rafters, steering clear of anything too flammable, as per his instructions, he lifted the stem of mistletoe that had been left on the low table amid all the movement in the room and crossed to where Leon was sitting in front of the fire. Leon huffed a bitter laugh upon seeing what he was holding.

“This isn’t just about showing Merlin that you care for every part of him, is it? You’ve already done that a million times over, and you both know it.” Mordred crossed his legs and held the tiny twig out to the brooding knight. Leon took it as an olive branch, and twiddled it in his fingers as the fire crackled on. One of the butterflies swooped a bit too close, and Leon shielded the tiny stem in calloused, gentle hands.

“I had a plan,” Leon said wanly to the little plant, as if it had been his co-conspirator and both their hearts had been broken. “It was supposed to be perfect. He deserves perfection.”

“He also deserves to not have to wait any longer to know that his feelings are requited.” Mordred hesitated as Leon sucked in a sharp breath, but the man didn’t rebut him. “Merlin isn’t perfect—don’t fight me on that; I of all people know it’s true. Neither are you. Look around us, Leon. I know that this certainly isn’t what you planned for your life, but now we’re a part of this big, beautiful, idiotic family- ” he raised his voice as an already-drunken Gwaine and Percival whirled too close to the flames. Percival started to apologize, but Gwaine shoved a raisin bun in his mouth and waltzed away again. Percival followed, chewing happily and as lovestruck as ever. “-and we’re celebrating Yule hours after someone tried to kill our King. We certainly aren’t perfect, but I know you wouldn’t trade us for the world. Why does this moment have to be?”

“I’ve always liked to have a plan,” Leon confessed. “Some days, my plan is the only thing I’ve got to hold onto, but every single thing I’ve tried to do for Merlin has gone wrong somehow, and I don’t know where I can find stability in this whirlwind anymore.”

“You find stability in him. And really, Leon—you’re in love and it’s Merlin . Was anything about this ever going to be simple for the two of you?” When Leon still hesitated, Mordred shoved his shoulder. “Go, before I decide that I don’t like him again and give up on helping you.”

Leon chuckled, ruffled Mordred’s hair, and made his path across the room. He met Arthur, who was walking the other way, and Arthur gave him a small nod and a smile.

Mordred turned back to the fire, and let it warm him from the outside as the hopeful fluttering of his heart warmed him like a fiery butterfly from within. He blinked slowly, fighting to keep his eyes open as the sounds of laughter and merriment wove their way into the beginning of dreams. He startled awake slightly when he felt a warm arm wrap itself around his shoulders. Arthur combed his hand through Mordred’s hair, and Mordred let his head rest against Arthur’s.

“I want you to be my father,” he admitted softly, sleepily.

“We can work with that,” Arthur promised. “For now, I think that you should get some rest. Don’t worry,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, “I’ll wake you before the real fun begins, but you won’t be able to enjoy it if you’re half asleep.”

Mordred looked up at Arthur. There was nothing but trust and affection in his eyes, though they flickered in the firelight as they had at Camlann all those months ago. Mordred thought that he’d much rather remember them like this. He rested his head on his father’s shoulder, watched Berkanan flicker among the flames with half-lidded eyes, and let the sounds of his family wash over him as he drifted away on a golden sea. As he neared the world of dreams and his senses wavered and shifted, a familiar scent overwhelmed him.

Wood smoke, dried apples, and cloves.

Winter had arrived in her full glory at last, and he was home again.