A/N: Prompt #5 - Shadow. Naturally, I decided to turn it into a Peter Pan AU.
. . .
Merlin takes the ones that feel unwanted, and only if they want to come.
There have been a lot of unwanted children in Camelot of late.
Most of them have magic.
. . .
He hovers outside of the cage the girl is curled up in. "Hello," he whispers. "Would you like to get out?" His hands are already on the lock.
She cringes back. "Run," she hisses.
"They can't catch me," he assures her with a grin.
The girl is shaking. "I'm a monster. At midnight, if I'm free - "
"Not in Neverland," he promises. The cage pops open. "Let me show you." He extends a hand.
She takes it.
. . .
Will is easier to convince. His parents are dead, and he's an outcast in his village. He likes the idea of a bit of adventure.
He's a little less enthused about the dust. "Think happy thoughts?" he asks incredulously.
"Unless you want me to carry you upside down all the way there."
"Happy thoughts it is."
. . .
Most come quickly.
Most.
. . .
Arthur is eight when he first sees the flying boy. The boy flies right through the window and perches on the bed.
"Hello. Would you like to come with me?"
Arthur screams and throws a pillow at him.
The guards come running in. The boy dives out the window.
In all the chaos, no one notices the boy's shadow, trapped by the pillow and the warding spells Gaius had hidden in it.
One of the servants finds it in the morning. Not knowing what it is, he folds it and puts it in the prince's wardrobe.
. . .
Arthur awakens the second night to a quiet, "Aha!" His eyes jerk open to reveal a ransacked room and the boy holding his shadow and looking highly triumphant.
Arthur grabs the wooden sword he'd snuck into the bed and points it at him. "What are you?"
The boy slowly lowers the shadow. "I'm Merlin. I'm a boy, like you."
"You're magic," Arthur accuses. He knows he should call for the guards again, but maybe if he takes the boy down on his own his father will be proud of him.
Arthur badly wants his father to be proud of him.
"And it's a good thing too, otherwise I'd never get this thing reattached," the boy says, shaking the shadow. The moonlight dances around it, and a ray hits Arthur's face.
It's not the only thing to have recently hit his face.
The boy hisses. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"
Arthur raises his chin defiantly. "I won't abandon my duty." The words have been drilled into him by tutors. "Guards!"
The boy flees again, but not before declaring grimly, "And I won't abandon mine."
. . .
Arthur sees a lot of Merlin after that, even if it's only out of the corner of his eyes.
. . .
Arthur is thirteen when Morgana sneaks into his room at midnight and announces, "I'm leaving."
Arthur blinkers the sleep out of his eyes. "And hello to you too, Morgana."
"I require an escort," she says imperiously.
This is not actually the first time this has happened. Morgana has snuck out before. His father told him to look out for her, so Arthur usually follows.
"Fine," he groans, rolling out of bed. "Where are we going?"
"Think happy thoughts," a cheerful voice says from behind him.
Arthur turns just in time to get a face full of dust.
Apparently, even magic dust can make you sneeze.