doubt||merthur

chapter 1

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Doubt comes in and all falls silent

It’s as though you aren’t there

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Merlin stands at the window, watching winter fall on Camelot. The city is sullen and silent. Snowflakes drift to their death on the ground and Merlin wants to tell them to stay in the clouds. The air has the all-through chill of stone but he barely feels it. There’s not much he does feel, these days. Sometimes he wonders if they’re all stuck in a spell, if Morgause has trapped them in madness and grief. It certainly feels like punishment for something, grinding through the same task over and over with no hope of release and no reward for effort. He sighs at the sky and thinks at least the changing weather is proof it just feels that way.

‘What are you doing, Merlin?’

‘It’s snowing.’

‘That may be, but I’m sure there’s something more useful you could be doing than watching it.’

Arthur no doubt means seeing to the clothes scattered around his room like corpses on a battlefield. Between pointless excursions to check on apocryphal sightings there hasn’t been much time for tidiness. Merlin runs his hands over his face. Morgana has been missing for so many months he can only remember what she looks like in the wake of dreams where he sees her choking on the floor. Her absence is everywhere, and beneath it Camelot – and all the hope he put into it – is sinking. There are, indeed, many useful things he could be doing. He’s not sure any of them have anything to do with looking for Morgana or picking up after a prince.

‘Merlin.’

‘What?’

‘Close the window and do something.’

Merlin does. He shuts out the comfort of the cold and busies himself at the table, collecting Arthur’s breakfast things in a little pile of clinks. Over a map of Camelot and the outlying regions Arthur rubs at his temple. His eyes sit in permanent shadows. They darken after Uther rages at him, frantic and impotent: I don’t care what it takes – damn it, Arthur, find her. Arthur lets his father pour it into him, turns it into: she was – is – like a sister to me, Merlin. I should have protected her. It was my duty to protect her. Sometimes Merlin just wants to tell him the truth and take it all from him. There are a lot of things Arthur deserves, but this guilt isn’t one of them.

‘We should check the caves in the Forest of Balor again.’

‘Do you really think there’s any point?’

‘Unlike you, Merlin, I prefer action to staring at the weather.’