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Arthur was regretting allowing Merlin into the vaults already.
Before, as High Mage, Merlin would attend every council session, be in the planning room for each venture and battle, and even have nightly dinners with Guinevere and Arthur when they were all free. Now, Merlin slunk down into the vaults every chance he got. Arthur hardly saw hide nor hair of Merlin in the weeks following his generous favor, and was growing rather bitter of it. Even when Merlin crawled his way back to the surface and accompanied Arthur on some mission or another, his nose would be buried so deeply into a book that no one could ever catch his eye.
And the worst part? Arthur couldn’t even do anything about it! Any time his frustration would reach its peak and he would finally drawl an irritated “Merlin” so that he could scold him for ignoring his king, Merlin would look up from whatever artifact or tomb or sigil he was inspecting and have look of such utter joy on his stupid face that Arthur could do nothing but simply abort his mission and insult his clothes or his hair or his grin instead. Then, Merlin would chuckle warmly before going straight back to what he’d been doing.
It was infuriating!
After Merlin had missed yet another council session without notice, Arthur was determined not to let Merlin’s positive attitude ruin his chances of retrieving his mage from his distractions again. Who was going to send him a sideways glance when a lord made a preposterous suggestion? Who was going to give him something to complain about on patrol so that his thoughts did not spiral into doubt and uncertainty. Who was going to play servant when George grew too irritating and they both needed to feel some sort of normalcy for just one blasted night?
So, he searched the castle from top to bottom, until he found Merlin in his own drabby chambers, situated neatly some distance between the physician’s chambers and Arthur’s own. It was the prime location for Merlin, really. It was at the end of a long corridor, nestled between a storage room and a seldom used servant’s hall. It had likely once been a storage room, itself, and Arthur found himself pondering if Merlin had a preference for rooms with smaller windows and exposed ceiling beams.
When he opened the door, he saw, not Merlin happily tinkering with a strange device, nor Merlin notating an ancient script, but rather the bottom half of Merlin’s body, sticking out from underneath his bed.
“Merlin?” he questioned.
There was a loud thud before Merlin’s whole body jerked and he let out a whiney, “Ow.” Rubbing at the back of his head, he carefully crawled out from under the bed and glared at Arthur.
“What are you doing?” Arthur asked, cocking his head to the side as though seeing Merlin from a different angle might help him fathom him out.
“Er,” Merlin started, scratching his chin. “I was just, um . . .”
“What?”
“It’s not what it looks like.”
Arthur sighed and began to march across the room, ignoring the way Merlin’s eyes went wide. “You do know you don’t have to hide your magical instruments under the floorboards anymore.”
Merlin began protesting, even going as far as to grab onto Arthur’s sleeve to try and stop him from bending down. Alas, Arthur was the king. He did what he pleased.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he would find under the bed, however. Instead of some hidden stash or an elaborate protective rune, there, just at the center of the underneath of Merlin’s bed, was a bowl.
“Merlin,” he said plainly, staring at the small wooden bowl in disbelief, “what is that?”
“Cream?”
“Wha”—Thud—"Ow!” Arthur whipped his head around to stare incredulously at Merlin. “Why on earth would you want to put a bowl of cream beneath your bed?”
Merlin shrugged, like it was something as simple as choosing whether or not one slept with the windows open. “I just, um, thought it could . . .”
“Attract rats?” Arthur asked, interrupting. “You know it will spoil!”
“No,” Merlin countered, and he smiled like an idiot. “I’ve actually spelled it to stay fresh!”
“Why?”
Merlin sheepishly rolled his shoulders and looked away. “Fae,” he said, clearing his throat.
“What?”
“The Fae,” he said more clearly.
Arthur rose his eyebrows. “The Fae.”
“Mm.” Merlin nodded.
“And what, is that?”
“It’s like, uhh, fairies.”
“Fairies?”
“Fairies.”
“I thought it was fairies who tried to sacrifice me.”
“Not all fairies are like the Sidhe.”
“You mean ‘her’?”
“No, the Sidhe. They’re uh, a rather, uh, politically involved sort of . . . people.”
“And Fae are not?”
“No!” Merlin said, stupid smile returning. “In fact, some Fae helped heal me when I was touched by the Dorocha. The Vilia! Water Spirits. They—”
“And what is the purpose of all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“What exactly do you get out of giving cream to—” Arthur stopped short, eyes crossed to look at the hand that had been plastered over his mouth.
“Don’t say that.”
Arthur swiped Merlin’s arm away and sputtered for a moment. “What?”
“You don’t get anything out of it.”
“Then why do it?”
“Uh, because Fae like cream?”
Arthur stared at Merlin, his mind trying to make sense of the jumbled mess that was his mage.
“Listen, Fae do not do favors,” Merlin explained. “It is seen as an insult, to attempt to do anything in exchange for goods or services. Debts are a sort of violence amongst them, so if you make a Fae indebted to you, it is similar to if you’d put me in shackles.”
“Okay,” Arthur said, clearly barely comprehending the intricacies of Fae customs.
“So you leave cream out, because they like cream.” Merlin smiled, turning to tug the quilt back over the edge of the bed. “I read about them in one of the books from the vaults. I hardly think many people in Camelot have left anything out for them in ages.”
Oh, Arthur thought, it’s like the dragons. Merlin had a tendency to compare himself to any and every magical creature he came across, some more than others. He thought it might have something to do with the fact that he was othered by the other magic users, in a way that made him seem greater than man. Regardless, it was not something Arthur wanted to think about in depth, lest he start to think of Merlin as a creature as well.
“What was it that you needed of me?”
“What?”
Merlin cocked his head to the side. “You, uh, came to see me?”
“Right,” Arthur said, having nearly forgotten why he’d marched himself here in the first place. “You’ve missed another council session.”
Merlin bit his lip. “Yes, uh, I was . . .”
“Hiding cream under your bed.”
“Yes.”
Arthur folded his arms across his chest and raised his eyebrows at him.
“It was . . . very important.”
“And it needed to be done precisely when council was taking place?”
“Yes,” Merlin said, the least convincing he had ever been throughout his entire lifetime of lies.
“Do be sure that it doesn’t happen again. It was one thing when you were a servant, but to have my High Mage put in the stocks would be a rather embarrassing endeavor.”
Merlin’s eyes went wide at the threat, the stocks being one of the only punishments Arthur could actually threaten with some weight behind it. “You’re serious?”
Arthur nodded. “Deadly. So, I’ll be seeing you in council tomorrow?” he said as he turned to leave.
“I’ll be there,” Merlin swore, continuing to tidy his chambers. “Bright and early.”