"You want me to – but I'm not a barber!"

Arthur knows exactly where they are, even with the snow landing fast and thick around them. He knows the woods they’re in better than anyone in the kingdom, recognises every laden bough as he would a brother, and all Merlin’s talk about being lost is just wasted air. Arthur could never be lost in Camelot, not on these lands he’s ranged over since boyhood, this soil he’s fought and lost and bled for.

“...where we’re going, Arthur,” Merlin is saying, and Arthur turns to him with a sigh, because apparently ignoring Merlin isn’t going to make him stop talking. “We’ve passed that stump four times now.”

When Police Sergeant Lance Dulac begins to investigate a crime in the small Welsh village of Camelot, it stirs up decades of secrets.

"You're being annoying, so no, I'd have to say this seems perfectly normal."

"I didn't know for sure until Ealdor. Your friend Will would've turned me into a toad ten times over if he'd had a drop of magic in him."

Obviously, it was not just any sort of egg.

In which there is a quest, a test, and maybe some kissing.

It was the fifth in as many nights and each one had been more elaborate than the last. Camelot was playing host to several powerful barons from the borders of the kingdom and King Uther seemed determined to awe and impress them with Camelot's wealth and might by any means, including killing them with partying."

It would have been all right if it had only been the one time. Merlin could appreciate that people celebrated near-death experiences differently. Merlin slept; Arthur shagged.

Because, really, why wouldn’t the slash dragon’s fire create a slash sword?

Merlin is not the only one for whom words have power.

In retrospect, Arthur really should have known. How could he have been so oblivious? It wasn't as if Merlin was being even the least bit subtle about it. Arthur knew Merlin was born with less than a thimble's worth of tact, but this was just ridiculous. Arthur was ashamed of how long it had taken him to work it out. The only good news was that it seemed the rest of the castle had yet to work it out themselves. Arthur could hardly blame them for their ignorance, however, considering it had taken Arthur this long to work it out himself, and he was possessed of a vastly superior intellect inherent in his status at birth. And, after all, if everyone else in the castle had a mad crush on Arthur, it was no wonder they'd missed the fact that Merlin did, too.

"I have heard of such things before," he said. "During the early years of Uther’s reign, a beast ravaged the countryside. We all saw the claw marks it made in its victims, but no one saw the beast itself."

Arthur is the Royal Arbiter for Suitable Suitors' Disputes. He (and his trusty companion, the golden-dragon-tasselled hat) alone can determine who is fit to woo royal servants and other assorted courtiers in Uther's court.

Merlin is older and wiser now than he was when he first arrived at Camelot, and he thinks that Gaius is perhaps not as brilliant as Merlin had always assumed him to be, if he can’t see the way that Merlin is glowing inside.

"When I was small, we used to have peaches," Arthur said, sounding a bit distracted. Apparently even strawberries were not enough to tempt him to his breakfast; Merlin would have to pester Gaius to check him over again. Perhaps he had some lingering touch of fever.

"I've got a plan," Merlin says, and Arthur groans. "Oy, there's no need to be like that," Merlin says, as though Arthur doesn't have the perfect right to groan at the thought of Merlin having a plan. Bad things happen when Merlin has plans or ideas. Or actually, when Merlin is anywhere around.

"But you could do it, couldn’t you?" Arthur insists. "You’ve conquered life and death - surely a little thunderstorm won’t pose much of a problem."

Why waste his energy for running, he wondered, if his magic could do the running for him?

Five times Uther knew Merlin was using magic and chose to ignore it.

When King Uther dies, Merlin knows exactly where he has to be. He returns to Camelot after years in exile to help Arthur in his new role as king.

You see, there were parties. And Arthur liked parties. Merlin, on the other hand, did not like parties. Parties meant about a hundred different people in a crowded room with many, many ways of trying to kill Arthur. And that was not something he particularly wanted them to do. The other thing that happened at parties was lots and lots of drinking.

As much as Merlin despised the idea of being forced into carrying out a destiny (generally), and having that destiny involve Arthur (specifically), he still secretly thought that being able to consider The Last Dragon a chatting partner was pretty wickedly cool.

"I believe that you've been—unconsciously, of course—coercing people into lying with you."

"It figures that even as a dog, you’d be a prat."

By the time he is twenty one summers old, Arthur Pendragon is perfectly cold enough to be king of Camelot.

Arthur closes eyes, turns his face into the pillow, and promises himself that it’s only the sunlight refracting, even though they only make love with the curtains drawn in the darkness of night.

The first time Merlin had burst into flames (and Arthur made a note to remind Merlin, the next time Merlin complained about a 'life of forbearance and servitude to a man who makes no allowances for his advisors, and is in fact so unyielding, so sulkingly unyielding, that he will not even wear the thicker-soled boots with the yellow stain on the heel unless it is the second hunting Tuesday of the month, even when it is clearly raining outside', that Arthur’s thoughts regularly featured statements such as 'the first time Merlin had burst into flames')—the first time Merlin had burst into flames, absolutely without warning, Arthur had not managed even the moment of calm he was desperately grasping at now.

"Well, you see, once upon a time, there was this scraggy-looking maiden called Merlin who was awful at everything."

When Merlin first hears that Arthur has been betrothed, his ribs pull inwards with an odd little hitch, and he only allows himself a second—which he needs in order to coordinate spinning in place without falling on his face—before he’s running to Arthur’s chambers.

Merlin is 20, Arthur is 22 and 10