Pustilius is an idiot, but Arthur's seen him fight and he's dangerous. Of course, this is Merlin; Pustilius doesn't *need* to be dangerous. He can just be competent. Hell, he can *sit on Merlin* and end the match in slow, undignified suffocation.

"I left my key, and Gaius won't let me in."

In the not so distant future, Merlin builds a tower. That's not suspicious at all.

"If I confess to sorcery, will you let me sleep in the dungeons? They're very cool, or so I've heard."

Here's what they know: they did not have sex. But no one will ever believe it.

"What happened?" At her hesitation, Merlin leans forward. "He set himself on fire in the kitchen the last time she visited. To avoid eating in her presence."

They would pay any price that was asked, Nimueh whispered at the end, trembling with exhaustion, desperate, pleading, anything, anything at all. Just give her this child. Give her the son he stole from her.

"I'd hate to wonder who else you could be expecting."

Getting up, Arthur opens the cupboard and pushes aside another shirt, finding it trapped innocuously between a treatise on medical herbs and Cicero, book dusty beneath it from disuse. So much for Gaius' insistence on education, Arthur thinks, taking it back to the bed and flipping it open, scanning the pages quickly. Magical creatures, a footnote in a different hand than the rest of the book, faded from age, not dangerous, it reads, and Arthur sighs, looking at the spell above it that brings sleep to any creature before putting it away with any and all memories of long hours reading Cicero's speeches and wishing heartily for the executioner's axe himself.

What the fuck, Merlin thought in utter shock, staring at Uther--Uther--across a rich mahogany desk in rural Suffolk, fate was like a bad Hollywood remake, then?

"Spock. Just say 'I don't trust Starfleet not to mess up the only captain in the fleet who I can train up to my expectations and enjoys running into danger wearing a blindfold as much as I do'."

The Federation and the Romulan Empire have been on the verge of war for what sometimes feels like forever; this is the place where what passes for peace might end.

"Yeah, no, we're not playing analyze the human for fun and profit tonight, thanks. Either get me out of here or get the hell out and I'll figure this out for myself."