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Merlin sprinting up the stairs, calling out rushed apologies and bowing his head cheekily when he nearly crashes into another servant was a scene the people of the royal castle were familiar with. The clumsy yet clearly beloved manservant was well-known within the corridors of Camelot's towers, both envied and pitied. But today, anyone who saw the poor boy run past them would have felt the confusion and anxiety that weighed on his mind.
“Gaius!” Merlin yelled as he burst into the workshop. “Gaius, I need your help.”
The wizened physician turned quickly at the noise and tamped down the flame under the boiling cauldron set on the table. “What is it now, Merlin?”
“It's about the legislation against magic being lifted,” Merlin said, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it in exhaustion. “You won't believe what Arthur said.”
Gaius raised an eyebrow and pulled out a chair for Merlin to sit. “I would have thought you'd be overjoyed. It is a reason for celebration, at least for us.” He set Merlin down on the chair and let him catch his breath. “You were happy enough yesterday.”
It was true, Merlin was ecstatic over the heavy bans against magic being raised to allow sorcerers back in Camelot. There were even plans to slowly start the teaching of magic in a more positive light in the future, though they didn't want to push their luck. The majority of the Court had agreed on the new laws; that was how it got passed, but there was a dangerous amount of nobles who were adamantly against it.
The official announcement was declared a week ago, a day that seemed so ordinary with the sun still shining and the grass still just as green, but would change the lives of so many magic-folk. It had taken months of planning and aid from Merlin's very not-suspicious knowledge of magic, after the many more months of converting Arthur away from his father's ideology. It was, no doubt, an incredible turn of fate for the citizens of Camelot and further that had to live in hiding for as long as they could remember as well as for the progression of the city.
However.
“The absolute prat,” Merlin started, groaning into his hands with his head on the table, “wants to arrange a meeting with all the great sorcerers he has met and heard of, to discuss diplomacy or something.”
Gaius frowned, sitting down beside him. “That's innocent enough.”
Merlin lifted his head just enough to peek at him over his arm. “Great sorcerers such as Dragoon the Great, the last Dragonlord, and Emrys.”
“Ah.”
“Yes, ah.”
“Well, Merlin,” Gaius said, placing an arm on his shoulder comfortingly. It did little to make him feel any better, but he appreciated it nonetheless, even if it did feel like Gaius was enjoying this just a tiny bit. “You’d better start thinking about how you can be in the same room with yourself three times over.”
Merlin put his head back down and groaned again.
◇◇◇
Despite Gaius’s implication of letting Merlin handle this by himself, he had stayed up till late at night with him for the next few days, looking up ways they could pull this off. The last two nights had been filled with research and potion-making, and now Merlin was as ready as he would ever be.
Exactly a week after Arthur had mentioned the diplomacy meeting to him, Merlin stood in front of the broad doors barring entry to the throne room. It was a little different to how it usually went; usually, Merlin would just stride in, trailing behind Arthur as they bickered over nothing, or if there were guests, walk a bit more proper with his head lowered respectfully.
This time, he was accompanied by enough knights to take to a small battle and win, followed by a few young sorcerer apprentices brought in from abroad during the current foreign affair negotiation period, as a show of goodwill from countries that had long since legalised magic. All for the one man, Dragoon the Great.
This time, Merlin looked a little different too. His long, white beard lay past his chest, his equally white hair tucked under the lengthy, dark cloak he thought would suit a sorcerer of his status. Most of all, he was old. Every joint in his body ached and creaked like a badly oiled hinge. He really should have more sympathy for Gaius.
Merlin glanced up at the expanse of wood blocking his way in and decided to get in character.
“Where's your great King, then? I've been standing here all day after being kicked out then dragged back in as he pleases!” he said scathingly, whipping around to point at the knights behind him with his staff. They all gave him a wide berth, stumbling back in formation. “You'd think a King would be more punctual! But I suppose not, considering his poor manservants have to run around making sure he's where he's supposed to be at the time he's supposed to be at.”
A beat. The knights look at each other sideways, hands resting on their swords. Merlin spun back around to face the door. “I mean. Probably.”
He was contemplating whether kicking at the door in annoyance would be a grave enough offense to get kicked out, and whether that would really be such a bad thing, when the great King was finally announced present.
The doors swung open to a servant motioning them inside, Arthur having just settled in at his place at the Round Table. Arthur stood back up once he saw him, cringing into a smile.
“My apologies, truly. My manservant was nowhere to be found and I’ve ended up running late,” Arthur said, waving him towards the table. “Take a seat.”
Merlin looked at the knights pointedly. What did I tell you?
The knights all shuffled around awkwardly, not making eye-contact. Merlin moved to the table and sat down at the farthest seat away from Arthur, beside a knight he couldn't name. The rest of the Round Table was filled the few most important nobles and Court officials as well as knights. Merlin was trying not to look at Gwaine or Lancelot, but it increasingly difficult as Gwaine eyed him suspiciously and Lancelot was not-so-subtly biting back a smile. He noticed there were three more empty seats on Arthur's left—wait, three? There were only supposed to be the Dragonlord and Emrys here, besides himself.
Merlin cleared his throat loudly and arranged his robes around his chair, leaning his staff against the side of the table. “I see there are more guests to come.”
“Yes, yes, the last Dragonlord and the renowned Emrys has also accepted our request to join us today,” Arthur said, uncharacteristically nervous. “As well as a witch I have met before, called the Dolma.”
Merlin stiffened in his seat, slowly turning to look at him. Arthur offered a smile, leaning towards him. “I have always thought so, you do look familiar—”
“The Dolma?” he asked sharply. Arthur had not told him that and he had, clearly, not planned for that last esteemed guest. “She's coming?”
“Ah, yes, do you know of her? She did seem to be a great sorceress, and she did do me a favor a while ago...” Arthur trailed off, glancing at him. “Are you alright?”
Merlin was sitting there with his eyes screwed tight, cursing out every god and deity he could name for his misfortune. Think, think, Merlin, you're the greatest sorcerer to walk the earth and all, just think—
Merlin snapped up, staring at his damned king. “No, I'm not alright. I can't believe this! First you nearly get me executed, then you smash my favorite pot, and now you invite my greatest enemy to a supposedly peaceful diplomatic meeting!” He slammed his hands on the table, making the nobles flinch and the knights raise their guard. “I have never been this insulted in my life!”
Arthur looked like he wanted to kill him and then himself under the questioning looks sent from around the table, then paused in confusion. “I’m sorry, your worst enemy? I wasn't aware you two even know each other. I must apologise again.”
Yes, Arthur, continue your attempts at making amends and diplomacy so I can get away with this a while longer. Merlin sat back down, grumbling and muttering insults that should have sent him straight to the gallows as Arthur politely ignored him.
“I tell you this right now, I refuse to partake in anything with that woman. You'll have to kill me before you catch me in the same room as that—that hedge mage!” He cleared his throat and looked at Arthur piercingly, pointedly tapping his staff. “And you'll have to take my word on this, but I am quite difficult to kill.”
The nobles around the table bristled, nudging each other and whispering darkly. Maybe he should rein it in; he was here to help normalise magic, that was the whole reason he agreed to this ridiculous situation and didn't just reject all the invitations. Merlin drew back his hands and settled into an annoyed silence.
He spent the next hour or so of discussion and negotiation like that, mumbling his approval or adding in a comment or two when prompted by Arthur or Gwaine staring him down. It was getting around the time he had planned what to do about the Dragonlord and Emrys, so he promptly stood and announced his departure, waving away Arthur's questions by muttering about his many imaginary grievances about the Dolma.
With a swish of his cloak, he stepped past the doors and disappeared into the hallways, leaving the few knights that followed him to escort him out scrambling around. Merlin had been the servant closest to the then Crown Prince and now King for years—he knew the castle halls better than any knight.
He ducked into a spare room and shut the door to see Gaius already inside waiting for him. “That went okay,” he said breathlessly, quickly shoving off his cloak and shirt. “But Gaius—”
“I know, I heard,” Gaius said, pulling out a vial. “Never thought you'd get the chance to be the Dolma again.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Merlin grinned, stuffing his clothes behind the door and reaching for the potion.
Gaius moved his hand out of the way, raising an eyebrow at him expressly. “I do think you should put on some clothes before you take it.”
Merlin looked down at his body, shirtless and wearing just his trousers, arm still reaching out. He lowered his arms and covertly drew his hands over his chest. “...Right.”
Gaius gave him clothes he had prepared and left the room after wishing him luck, tutting as he left. Merlin was now dressed much more like the insults Arthur would call him, marginally more girly than usual. He squinted at the vial Gaius had passed him warily, then chugged it.
◇◇◇
A hush fell over the table as the woman, the magnificent Dolma, approached them. Merlin gracefully sat down beside Arthur, mainly to separate him from the silver baby dragon sitting on the table that was currently baring its teeth at everyone in the room. He closed his eyes briefly as he winced internally; the original plan was to switch out his disguise as Dragoon into Emrys and walk in here with Aithusa sent in place of the Dragonlord, but that wasn’t possible anymore.
Well, so what if he had to do a bit of improvising? A great wizard has the ability to adapt to any situation thrown at them, or whatever Gaius had said.
Despite the many years of coming up with hogwash and absolutely insane plans to keep Arthur safe and Camelot still standing, the best he could do was grab one of Gaius' pupils and pull a cloak over them with the promise of teaching them plenty of extremely cool spells.
Just as he sat down, the doors boomed open as a somewhat small person entered the room as well. The silence that the Dolma's presence had commanded was nothing compared to the myth himself, Emrys. The figure walked slowly to the table, each step magnified in sound, making everyone shiver as chills traveled down their spine. The air itself felt electrified, buzzing with energy as if it recognised it was in the same room as Magic itself.
All this was, of course, Merlin's doing. His eyes flashed gold again and again as he murmured spells to heighten sound, change the air pressure and even start a bit of a breeze so the banners tied to the columns and the knight's capes fluttered as Emrys advanced towards them.
The hood of the cloak the boy wore was pulled forward to completely cover his face. He sat down beside Merlin, flinching as Aithusa snorted tendrils of smoke into the air. Merlin quickly pat his knee under the table: just do what I told you to.
“I'm glad you could make it, Dolma,” Arthur said, evidently picking the easier target. He turned towards him, hesitating once he saw his face. Merlin fought to keep his smile up—the potion Gaius made had to be understandably hurried, but it had caused the ageing to be less effective, making the Dolma noticeably younger than the last time he saw her.
Right, he should just commit to it like he did with Dragoon. Last time he had talked to Arthur as the Dolma, he had done a bit of flirting, just to distract him from his manservant's disappearance. So, he should just do the same now. To distract him.
“Well, I had always been open to the idea of a more accepting Camelot,” Merlin said in his pitched up voice, wrapping his robes tighter around him. It was disorienting getting used to a completely different body, compared to just getting older by a century. “I had not despised the idea of conversing with the King once again either. Pity I did not know last time.”
If it weren’t obvious by now, Merlin wasn’t any good at flirting as a girl.
Arthur nodded a bit awkwardly and turned to the boy, actually slightly bowing his head. “And I thank you for your presence, Emrys. Everyone here has heard about your many great feats.”
Merlin held in the urge to laugh out loud, a touch bitter. As much as he was glad that Camelot had begun its journey to treat people of magic like human beings, it was a bit too late to revert the years of damage that had long been inflicted on his people. Watching them act like they had always respected wizards and sorcerers for the sake of diplomacy made him want to hurl a chair, even if it was Arthur.
And Arthur was one of the better ones, too. He had shown actual willingness to learn and question the beliefs his father had instilled in him the past year. Compared to that, a quick scan around the table showed the deep discontent the Court had with the new laws. Most of the officials and nobles, even the ones who had voted in favor, looked at him and the boy with thinly veiled disgust. The fear they showed against Aithusa was more understandable, considering she was a dragon, but he still didn’t like it.
Still, a step towards change and reform was a step nonetheless. “I am sorry to say, the honourable Emrys only speaks with sorcerers,” Merlin said haughtily. He leaned towards the boy, whispering unintelligibly, then sat straight. “He has agreed to confer with the table through me.”
Arthur ran a hand over his face and nodded wearily, turning to address his men. The rest of the meeting went by similarly to how it went with Dragoon, with the exception of a lot more stares and whispers and the knights stiffening every time Aithusa went over sniffing their swords.
Aithusa would keep coming back to him and whining for pats, nudging her head under his hand until she gave up and flopped over to show him her belly, flapping her huge wings and almost knocking out the honourable Emrys off his chair. It took everything in him to not give in to her and stare straight ahead and nod or smile girlishly at Arthur.
The meeting was going just fine until the discussion started turning into shallow, illogical debate, and with two wizards and a dragon against a dozen non-sorcerers, it was getting frustrating for Merlin to keep his mouth shut.
“--I'm simply saying, the more we let them come in as they please and flaunt their, quite frankly, extremely dangerous powers, the more I'm seeing reason to Uther's rule!”
Gwaine started to frown and turn to the official who said that, about to run his mouth before Elyan stopped him. Arthur sighed and silenced the mutterings that followed with a raised hand. “My father was wrong in many ways. That is something even I, his son, can admit. He did bring many good things to our land, but his prejudice against people of magic was undeniably harmful. Many of the issues you state as their faults were caused by his laws pushing them to resort to any means of survival.”
Merlin puffed out his chest and sat up a little straighter. Arthur had matured over the months, and he couldn’t help but take some credit.
The official balked at this and pressed on. “But is such power something that should be allowed for just anyone to use? Just—”
“Ah, you mean the power should be for you to use, then?” Merlin asked, coughing lightly.
He turned to Merlin, looking furious he cut him off and flushing red. “I think that some hesitancy to pass such laws is perfectly acceptable considering how they continue to act--”
Merlin raised a finger to stop him and leaned sideways to the boy, Emrys, whatever, looking extremely concentrated. He shot back up, nodding wisely. “The honorable Emrys says, ‘I think that ugly mug of yours should hesitate to open it's mouth, but we don't always get what we want, Edwin.’”
“You—!”
Arthur coughed into his fist, sounding suspiciously like a laugh, and raised his hand to silence them. “I think we have all the information we need from our guests today. The meeting can resume another day to discuss the technicalities with just the Court.”
He rose from his seat and turned to smile at them, much more genuine this time. “I thank you again for accepting my request to join us today. I hope you don't take offense to anything you heard here, and I hope for a prosperous relationship between Camelot and some of the most esteemed sorcerers alive.”
Merlin smiled back warmly, then blinked and remembered he was supposed to be the Dolma. Well, he had gone out of character already more times than he could count. He winked at Aithusa as he got up, the people around the table milling about as they got up to leave too at the dismissal. “Be a good girl, okay?” he whispered. “Fly off with your escorts without torching anyone and we'll meet at the usual spot.”
He left as soon as he could, having to run back to the table to fetch the boy who was still sitting silently at the table, too afraid to leave by himself. “You did good too,” Merlin grinned, nudging him lightly.
The boy peeked out of the hood and looked at him in awe. “Are you really Merlin? What spell did you use to do that?”
He shook his head. “Not a spell, it's a potion. If you ask Gaius—”
“Hello, there.”
A voice called out from behind, voice lilting. Merlin spun around to see Gwaine alone, most of the others out of the emptying room.
“Ahem, yes?” he asked, immediately raising his pitch.
“I just wanted to ask, have we met before? You seem incredibly familiar, it's like I've known you for years...” Gwaine trailed off, squinting as he got closer.
Merlin made eye-contact with Lancelot walking towards them, urging him to hurry. “Oh,” he started, brushing a strand of hair away. “Is that so?”
If only he could tell Gwaine about his magic. He wasn't sure if Gwaine actually thought he was familiar, but he would never let him forget he was flirting with Merlin.
Lancelot came up to him and grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him away. “I'm incredibly sorry about him. We're just about to leave now, have a good evening.”
“And to you too,” Merlin said, wiggling his fingers in goodbye.
As soon as they left, Merlin spun around and stormed to the doors with the boy. One more encounter with someone he knew and he'd actually get caught.
Still. He hadn't gotten caught, and that's what matters. He had realised halfway through the meeting that it was pointless trying to convince the idiots in the Court of anything that they didn't agree with. What mattered was that Arthur understood, and slowly, things would start to change.
Merlin thought about Arthur’s furrowed brows as he thought up another counter to an insulting comment a noble made. He thought about Arthur looking towards him and the boy for their opinion when half the table wouldn't even look their way. He thought about his Arthur, and he smiled.
Yes, things would start to change.
Epilogue:
“Where the hell have you been?” Arthur exclaimed, shutting the door behind them. “I was late to the meeting because you didn't wake me up, if you didn't know!”
“Oh, my, I'm so sorry, sire,” Merlin prattled off drily. “I'll be sure to be there tomorrow to wake you up so I'm the first thing you see in the morning, since that's what you want.”
Arthur started to argue back, then paused, looking a bit flustered, then pointed at him suspiciously. “You know, you really remind me of someone. It's at the tip of my tongue, I just can't—”
“Right, tomorrow, I'll be up before the sun, sire,” he said quickly, fluffing up Arthur's pillows. The sun was just dipping past the horizon, but Merlin knew Arthur slept earlier after big meetings like this. “You can count on me.”
“I'm not so sure about that. I should bring George back in.”
Merlin groaned, throwing the pillow at him. “I said I'll be up, no matter what. Alright?”
Arthur grinned, catching it with one hand. “Alright.”