Always Be With You - Merthur

Chapter 8

Arthur pov

Arthur skitted to a halt when he reached the armoury. The coolness of the room hit him in his face. It was amplified by the fact that he had just been to training. Practicing with his knights always made him feel better. He didn't have time to think about all his problems when he needed to ward off an attack from his opponent.

Still, he couldn't shake the image of his manservant. He was worried about him. It was probably a good thing he had given Merlin some free time, otherwise he might have passed out from exhaustion.

Maybe I should go check on him later today. Just to see if he's alright.

Arthur shook his head. Why am I so concerned? It's not like he's dying. He let a servant help him out of his armour and changed into a clean shirt. Maybe it was because he...

No.

Arthur didn't like Merlin, he was his first friend. It's probably because I've known him the longest. Yeah...

For a few minutes, he just walked through the hallway, in deep thought. He couldn't shake the feeling of worry for Merlin. There were a lot of people outside now that the sun was out. It wasn't warm there, but it was reasonable. Arthur pushed through the doors and walked into the courtyard.

Yep, it would start freezing in a few days or so. Now that he wasn't training, the coldness outside was easier to feel then when he was just practicing and moving the whole time.

He walked over to the water well and sat down, taking a deep breath to try and drown out his thoughts. Irritated, because it didn't work and his mind kept going back to Merlin, Arthur rubbed his hands over his face. This is not going to go away anytime soon...

He groaned and closed his eyes for a second.

"Arthur!"

Arthur looked up at the voice and saw Gwen coming towards him in high speed. He stood up to great her. "Hello, Gwenny!" She didn't stop when she was near him. Instead, she grabbed him by his shoulder, ignored his protest or the fact that he stumbled to keep up and pulled him to the side of the steps by the entrance.

"Guinevere!" He began in an accusing tone, but stopped himself when he saw her face. "Where were you? I have been running around to try and find you! They told me you were training," "I was, but-" "why can't people ever be where I can find them?" Gwen continued, taking a pause to catch her breath before opening her mouth again. "Do you know where Merlin is?"

Arthur stared at her for a moment. "You're asking me?"

"yeah, obviously."

"Why should I know? I gave him a day off."

"So, you don't?"

"What- no?" the expression on Gwen's face had him a bit worried. "Gwen, why? What's wrong?" Arthur asked, giving her a stern, but concerned look, wich she returned. "That's bad." "What's bad? Did something happen to him?" "Come with me." Arthur made a protesting noise because gwen couldn't give him a straight answer, but reluctantly followed when she just walked back inside.

It was very frustrating that Guinevere didn't answer any of his questions. 'What happened?' 'Is Merlin okay?' 'Where are we going?' When they finally reached Gaius's chambers, Arthur was angry and scared at the same time. Gwen walked in, announcing their presence to Gaius, who immediately put down his stuff and made his way around the table to talk to them.

"Have you found him?"

Gwen shook her head.

That was it for Arthur. "Okay, you're all wonderfully vague, but now can someone please tell me what's going on!?" He demanded in an elevated voice, Gwen just shot him an annoyed look. She had dealt with this for years now. "We think something happened to him."

Arthur's anger faded quickly and his expression turned into one of worry. "Why?" He asked, his voice now quiet. He saw Gaius and Gwen exchange glances and frowned. "Erm, a servant told us he saw someone with a neckerchief forcibly get taken into the forest." Gwen spluttered, not looking him in the eye.

"What?"

Gwen shifted her gaze back to Arthur and looked like she wanted to slap herself in the face. "Why didn't you tell me immediately?" Both Gaius and Gwen gaped at him as he waited. When it became clear that neither of them were going to answer, Arthur walked to the door.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Aren't you coming Guinevere?"

"Right."

She quickly followed him after taking a quick look back at Gaius, who looked very stressed. Arthur went to get the knights and Gwen went to Morgana's quarters to see if she could help.

There was no reason for him to object to that, Morgana was a good fighter, so if they were to find whoever kidnapped Merlin in broad daylight, they could use all the help they needed.

How did this even happen? Arthur thought. I give him one day off and he's already getting himself in trouble. He sighed. Merlin usually had top-notch instincts, he litterally always knew when something was about to go wrong, so the person who kidnapped him would have somehow known that he wasn't a hundred percent today.

Arthur reached the training field where his knights were still practicing and cleared his throat loudly, so everyone would hear. They all looked up in confusion. Leon was the only one who patiently awated what he had to say.

"Alright, listen up everyone!" He walked towards the middle and waited until all the knights were standing in a circle and spoke. "I have reason to believe that something happened to Merlin, has any of you seen him recently?"

"Yeah," Gwaine said, furrowing his brow a bit. "not so long ago, he was over there." he gestured to the hills not far away. 'He seemed fine. We had a chat." "When?" "Right before training. Why do you think something happened?"

He told the knights what Guinevere had shared with him and they all agreed that there weren't a lot of people with neckerchiefs in Camelot, so it must have been Merlin. "We should find him then." said lancelot, stepping forward. Gwaine nodded. They didn't have to discuss long, Merlin was like family to all of them, so pretty quickly, they had different search parties ready.

Arthur went with them. He wasn't about to let Merlin get in trouble after all that they had been through.

~o~

A/N ~ Hi.

I am sorry if this chapter is short, I know it is. There are longer chapters coming, just not all of them are.

Have a fantastic day everyone!

~ Fia