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The moon was exactly how Arthur liked it: a silver crescent suspended in the night sky like a cosmic smile. Unfortunately, that same moon also illuminated the castle corridors far too well, making his nightly escape significantly more difficult.
The king slipped along the shadow of a column, his leather boots making as little noise as possible against the cold stone floor. He wore simple clothes—a dark tunic and trousers that didn’t scream “king attempting to escape his own castle.” Slung over his back was a small pouch containing the true royal necessities: a piece of cheese, some bread, and a handful of chocolates that he and Gwen had bought a few days earlier.
The Servants’ Door was only twenty steps away. Ten. Five.
“Hey!”
The voice came out of nowhere—or, more precisely, from the shadows above the door. Arthur reacted like a warrior trained from birth: his sword hissed out of its scabbard before his brain had fully processed who had spoken.
The blade stopped an inch from a familiar neck.
“Merlin!”
The court sorcerer raised his hands in an exaggerated gesture of surrender, a mischievous smile dancing on his lips. “Hey, my king.”
Merlin’s fingertips nearly brushed the wooden beams above, and Arthur realized that his magical advisor was floating slightly above the ground—one of those subtle displays of power that always made the hair on the back of Arthur’s neck prickle.
Arthur did not lower the sword. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Merlin replied, his golden eyes gleaming with amusement in the dark. “Planning a midnight escape without your faithful servant? I’m wounded, Arthur.”
“I’m not escaping,” Arthur protested, even though the sword still pointed at Merlin’s throat contradicted his claim of innocence. “I’m… just going for a walk. To get some air.”
“With cheese and chocolate?” Merlin tilted his head toward the pouch. “A new weapon against the Saxons, perhaps? Throw dairy at them until they surrender?”
Arthur clenched his teeth. “Merlin…”
“So?” Merlin pressed, hands still raised, posture completely relaxed.
“So what?”
“Nice sword.”
It was, in fact. Excalibur gleamed in the moonlight, the runes along the blade seeming to drink in the silver glow. Arthur felt a familiar surge of pride—not only in the weapon, but in the knowledge that Merlin had given it to him.
“Yes, it is,” Arthur said casually. “My sorcerer polished it this morning.”
The joke came out drier than he intended, but Merlin laughed anyway—a bright, joyful sound that echoed down the silent corridor.
“Right…” Merlin paused dramatically. “Are you going to lower the sword?”
Arthur studied Merlin’s exposed neck. It was, he had to admit, a tempting sight—the line of the jaw, the curve of the throat, the soft pulse just beneath the skin. Years ago, he would have refused to notice such details. Now they were as familiar as his own breathing.
“Hm… Nice neck.”
Merlin didn’t seem bothered. “Yes, thank you, I know my neck is perfect. Genetically speaking, it’s one of my best features, along with my well-proportioned ears and my seductive eyes.” He tilted his head the other way. “So could you lower your sword? I’d like my neck to stay that way, if you don’t mind.”
Arthur smiled—slow and challenging. Then he lowered the sword—not to the scabbard, but to point it threateningly at Merlin’s trousers.
“Easy, easy, easy!” Merlin protested, though his eyes still sparkled with amusement.
“I lowered the sword,” Arthur observed, his voice a silky thread of provocation. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“My king, think of our future heirs,” Merlin joked—but Arthur noticed a genuine nervous note beneath the levity. “If you do that, there won’t be any.”
Arthur arched an eyebrow. “What heirs?”
The smile that spread across Merlin’s face was pure mischief. “Lower the sword and we can start making them now.”
For a moment, Arthur was so shocked he nearly dropped Excalibur. Then a laugh escaped his lips—soft, involuntary, entirely inappropriate for a king. “You’re such an idiot, Merlin.”
But he lowered the sword.
That was all Merlin needed.
In a movement faster than any ordinary man could manage, Merlin surged forward. In an instant, Arthur’s back hit the cold stone wall, Merlin’s hands braced beside his head, pinning him in place.
“Hey! What—”
“Just fulfilling my part of the agreement, sir.” Merlin’s face was inches from his, his warm breath against Arthur’s cool skin. “I’m thinking six.”
“Six?” Arthur stammered, his mind struggling to keep up as Merlin purred near his ear and pressed kisses to his neck.
“Of course.” Merlin’s eyes darkened—not with magic, but with something just as powerful. “How many babies do you think I could put in you? Dragons usually have twelve to fifteen hatchlings the first time, but I suppose thanks to my hybrid state and your humanity, we could manage six.”
A shiver ran through Arthur—half excitement, half genuine fear at the image Merlin painted. Six. Six children. Six small combinations of Arthur and Merlin running through the halls of Camelot, causing chaos with magic and wooden swords.
“You’re insane, we’re men, how—” he breathed, but his hands had already released Excalibur, which clattered to the stone floor.
“Really? That’s your concern, my king? I’m magical. I bet I could get you pregnant if I tried,” Merlin teased.
Arthur shoved him back. Merlin stumbled away laughing, his grin softening as Arthur tried to regain his composure.
“Anyway,” Merlin said, “are you going to tell me where you were going without me, sir?”
“I just wanted to see the stars,” Arthur muttered, as if that explained everything.
“I knew it.” Merlin bent down, picked up the sword, and returned it with an exaggerated bow. “That’s why I brought a blanket. And wine. And that honeyed sweet you like—I bought some the last time I went to the city.”
Arthur looked at the extra bag Merlin carried, one he hadn’t noticed before. “You knew I’d try to escape tonight.”
“Arthur,” Merlin said patiently, “you escape every waxing moon for over three years. It’s more predictable than the tide.”
Arthur’s favorite field was a short walk from the castle—a gentle hill overlooking the lake and, more importantly, free of trees to block the view of the sky. By the time they arrived, the moon had risen higher, bathing the grass in silver light.
Merlin spread the blanket with a gesture, letting it unfold on its own before settling perfectly on the grass. Arthur sat down with a sigh, feeling the day’s tension—the audiences, the territorial disputes, the endless petitions—melt from his shoulders.
“What if I really were running away?” Arthur asked suddenly as Merlin unpacked the food.
“From me or from Camelot?”
“From both.”
Merlin considered the question as he filled two cups with wine. “Well, I’d have to find you, obviously. Bring you back. Possibly chain you to a tower for a week or two to make sure you learned your lesson.”
Arthur laughed, the sound strange to his own ears. “And who would rule in the meantime?”
“Oh, I’d leave Gwen in charge. She’s better at it than the two of us combined anyway.”
It was true, and they both knew it. Guinevere had a gift for ruling that blended Uther’s firmness with the compassion Arthur had always tried to cultivate.
For a while, they sat in silence, drinking wine and watching the stars. The Milky Way stretched above them like a river of spilled diamonds, and Arthur felt that familiar sense of smallness—not demoralizing, but comforting. His problems were insignificant before the cosmos. His life was a blink on the scale of time.
Except that—
“How do you see all this?” Arthur asked suddenly. “Not as a man, but as… what you are.”
Merlin stretched out beside him, his back against the blanket. “In a way, I’m an eternal contradiction. My soul is human, yet I could never truly be human. To me, the stars aren’t just light. They’re… souls. Some are ancient, others young. Some died millennia ago, and we still see their ghosts. I feel small when I look at them, but I also feel bigger than they are. I’m so young, yet older than the creation of some planets… I’m human, but I am magic. I’ve lived only a few decades, and I’ve probably existed since before the first creature ever thought.”
Arthur turned to look at him. “That’s terrifying.”
“It’s my life,” Merlin shrugged. “Everything is born. Everything dies. Even stars. Even kingdoms.” He paused. “Even kings.”
“But not you.”
“Oh, I’ll die too, one day.” Merlin took Arthur’s hand, intertwining their fingers. “Just… much, much later. And even then, not completely. Part of me will always be out there—in the wind, in the planets, in the stars… I am everything and I am nothing. It’s terrifying to try to understand all that I am.”
Arthur squeezed his hand. “Do you really want children? Or do you just want to leave heirs behind, have others like you out there?”
“Maybe.” Merlin turned his head to meet his gaze. “Or maybe I just want to see what would happen. Your courage and my stubbornness. Your compassion and my power. Your empathy and my… well, whatever it is that I have.”
“Idiocy,” Arthur suggested.
“Idiocy,” Merlin agreed cheerfully.
The wine was making Arthur’s head spin pleasantly—or maybe it was simply Merlin’s closeness. Arthur sat up, looking down at the mage stretched out on the blanket. In the moonlight, Merlin looked almost otherworldly—beautiful in a way that went beyond human.
“Six?” Arthur murmured, repeating the earlier word.
Merlin opened one eye. “Too many?”
“Too few.” The wine gave him courage. “I think we could manage eight.”
Merlin’s laughter rolled across the hill, rich and warm. “Eight children? Gods help me.”
“Gods help everyone,” Arthur corrected, lying down beside him. “But seriously… ever?”
The question came out more serious than he intended. Merlin was quiet for a long moment.
“Ever what?”
“Do you ever think about having that? A normal life. Children. A home that isn’t a castle constantly under attack.”
Merlin rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand. “Arthur, first of all, no life I’d have would ever be ‘normal.’ Second… yes. Sometimes I think about it. But then I remember that to have that life, I wouldn’t have magic. And without magic, my destiny wouldn’t have you in it. And that’s unthinkable.”
Arthur felt a knot tighten in his throat. “Merlin—”
“Hey,” Merlin continued, lighter again, “imagine the chaos. Eight little children with uncontrollable magical powers. Camelot would be in ruins within a week. Not even I could save our kingdom.”
“Oh, Gwaine would love it.”
“Gwaine would love it until one of them turned his drink into water,” Merlin grinned. “Speaking of which, he asked me yesterday when we were going to ‘stop dancing around each other and start dancing properly,’ if you know what I mean.”
Arthur groaned. “I don’t want to know.”
“He offered to give an… educational demonstration. Said he has experience with royalty.”
“By God, Merlin, stop.”
“Elyan also asked—”
“That’s enough! I do not want to hear what our friends think about my sex life!” Arthur covered his ears, making Merlin laugh.
They fell silent again, but this time it was a charged silence—not uncomfortable, but warm and promising. Arthur felt the heat of Merlin’s body through their clothes, the steady rhythm of his breathing.
“Do you know why I come here?” Arthur asked after a while.
“To see the stars.”
“Yes, but… also to feel at peace.” He paused, searching for words. “When I look up, I see the same thing my mother once saw. The same thing my ancestors saw. It’s… a line. A connection. It makes me feel less alone.”
Merlin sat up, his expression serious. “That’s poetic for you.”
“I have my moments.”
“Rare ones, but yes.” Merlin looked at the sky. “For me, the stars are different. They remind me that I’m infinite. That even with all my magic, one day I’ll be alone.”
“That sounds like a nightmare.”
“Sometimes it is.” Merlin picked up his wine again. “But it gets easier when I remember that when I am alone and everything is gone, it means my work will be finished. On the day everything dies, I’ll finally be free to return home. And that makes the universe a little less frightening.”
The honesty of it hung between them. Arthur felt strangely vulnerable, as if Merlin had seen something inside him he hadn’t known was there.
“Home?”
Merlin laughed, but there was bitterness in the sound. “You, sir. When everything dies, I’ll be able to return to you. To join your rest in the realm of the dead.”
Arthur sighed softly. He knew one day they would be separated, and the thought terrified him. They had so little time—so little time compared to Merlin’s eternity.
“Returning to an earlier topic,” Merlin said, his voice a little rough. “Can we stop being sad and fulfill our dream of six heirs?”
Merlin closed the distance between them, his face so close Arthur could count every lash. Arthur laughed. “If you wanted my attention that badly, you could’ve just asked.”
“And where’s the fun in that?”
The kiss, when it came, wasn’t gentle. It was an assertion—of possession, of desire, of years of unresolved tension. Merlin tasted Arthur’s mouth like a man dying of thirst, and Arthur answered with equal fervor.
When they finally pulled apart, both were breathless.
“Six,” Merlin murmured against his lips.
“Eight,” Arthur insisted, pulling him down onto the blanket.
Later—much later, when the stars began to fade with the first light of dawn—Arthur lay on his back with Merlin curled atop him, head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
“We’ll have to go back soon,” Arthur murmured, fingers tracing patterns across Merlin’s back, over scars left by other magical beings Merlin had faced for him.
“Unfortunately,” Merlin sighed. “Leon is probably already panicking over our disappearance. Or worse—he told Gwen, and now there’s a search party out looking for us.”
Arthur laughed softly. “I’m the king. I can be away for one night if I want.”
“You’re not just the king,” Merlin reminded him. “You’re also an idiot. And everyone knows they should worry when you’re alone—but luckily I’m with you, so maybe they won’t worry as much.”
“Oh, of course,” Arthur mocked. “Because I, the greatest warrior of all, need your protection, oh mighty sorcerer.”
“Of course you do. Besides, this mighty sorcerer has a meeting with a group of merchants at nine.”
“Cancel it.”
“Arthur—”
“Cancel it,” Arthur repeated, firmer. “We… have important matters to discuss now.”
Merlin lifted his head, eyebrow raised. “Important matters?”
“Yes. We need to discuss our sleep.”
“Sleep?”
“Yes. I only came to see the stars and was attacked by a dragon! I barely rested or slept to recover my strength!”
Merlin laughed—a sound of pure joy that made Arthur’s heart ache.
“You’re a spoiled, lazy man.”
“You made me this way.”
“I like my spoiled king.” Merlin pulled him into another kiss, slower this time, sweeter.
Dawn found them entwined, the blanket tangled around them, the wine gone, the cheese and sweets eaten. The sky shifted from black to gray to pink as the stars vanished one by one.
“We really have to go back,” Merlin said again, sleepy and unmoving.
“Five more minutes.”
“You said that half an hour ago.”
Arthur opened one eye. “I’m the king. I can have five more minutes if I want.”
Merlin finally sat up, stretching like a cat. The dawn light illuminated his body, highlighting every muscle, every scar—a map of their battles together.
“Look at us,” Merlin said softly. “The king and his sorcerer. Sneaking out of the castle like teenagers.”
“We were happier as teenagers,” Arthur observed, sitting up too. “Fewer responsibilities.”
“But also less of this.” Merlin gestured between them. “Less self-awareness.”
He was right, Arthur realized. Back then, they had the dance—the teasing, the denial, the unresolved tension. Now they had this: certainty, familiarity, the trust of knowing the other would be there no matter what.
“Will you still tease me about my age when I’m old and you’re still young?” Arthur asked as he dressed.
“Oh, every day.” Merlin helped him into his tunic, his hands quick and practiced. “I’ll tell everyone that the great King Arthur Pendragon, greatest of warriors, unifier of Albion, was defeated solely and exclusively by time.”
“Sounds like a great legend.”
“The greatest of legends.” Merlin finished tying Arthur’s belt, giving it a firm tug. “And if we have our heirs, it’ll be an even greater one.”
Arthur cupped his face. “Only six if you’re lucky—but if it were possible, I’d still want eight. Maybe more.”
The walk back to the castle was slower than their escape, the two of them holding hands like commoners, not king and sorcerer. In the distance, Camelot rose against the morning sky—not a prison, Arthur realized, but a home. His home. Theirs.
At the Servants’ Door, they stopped.
“Tonight,” Arthur said.
“What?”
“We run away again.”
Merlin smiled—that smile that still made Arthur’s stomach flip. “I’ll be waiting.”
And when they entered, separating to assume their roles—king and sorcerer, lord and servant, lovers and warriors—Arthur felt something he rarely did: peace.
Maybe they would never have a family together. Maybe Merlin would never see Arthur grow old.
But they would have this night. And the next. And all the others they could steal to enjoy the time they had.
And as Arthur realized while Merlin pulled a face at him from across the great hall full of knights and courtiers, maybe that was enough.
Maybe more than enough.
The king and his sorcerer.
The dragon and his warrior.
For this night, and forever.