#gwenthur

Knight Arthur immediately bowed with a forceful, “My lady!” And knelt before her in wait of command.

Her confusion continued to grow as the more muscular Arthur stepped forth and smirked at her with amusement, “Need something, my dear?”

The farmer barely acknowledged her presence. Instead he made a break for the door and in response Merlin had to grab him before he knocked her over. Their tussle made Gwen take a step to the side where she bumped into the eldest Arthur, who in turn was stunned and pale as a ghost.

“Is it? Are you really here in front of me, my love?” The king's hand reached out to stroke her face and Guinevere stood paralyzed by the look of love that shone through his eyes.

“Merlin, who is this?” Guinevere spoke as she continued to stare into the eyes of the man holding her gaze with such love and devotion.

The king's face broke into a smile of pure happiness and his eyes held the heartache of his memories. “I was your king. You were to be my queen.”

Merlin watched as Guinevere swallowed hard and took a step back. Taking a breath she took a moment to fully look around the room, eyes resting on the Arthur she knew to be her friend. “What is going on here?”

Merlin and Arthur, his Arthur, looked at each other then back at Gwen. Trying to figure out how to explain what exactly was happening and how it came to be, they honestly had no clue.

“It started at the lake really.” Merlin said, remembering the appearance of the first Arthur. The one which wouldn't stop flirting with him like his life depended on it.

His face began to flush with the memory of Arthur calling him ‘Darling’, and Gwen eyed him with curiosity.

“Well, it's kind of a long story.”

After Merlin had discovered the flirtatious Arthur was in fact not his Arthur he began to panic a bit, worried some assassin was pulling a trick. This led to the doppelganger shoved up against a tree and Merlin’s ruthless interrogation. Which then led to him being kissed just as fiercely by the clone and his brain short circuiting.

Once they parted, Merlin's Arthur had reappeared and was holding a sword to the throat of the imposter. The two had a heated argument of which Merlin barely remembered as he was still reeling from the kiss he'd shared with ‘Arthur’.

The rest was a blur for him as it all happened so fast. Merlin and his Arthur were then trying to stop the Farmer from invading someone's house that he swore was his own. He didn't take kindly to being told what to do by the original Arthur and proceeded to storm off in a huff.

They were then separated and the next thing Merlin knew someone was calling to him by screaming, “Sire!” Through the streets and causing confused looks to come their way. The young knight had told him he had dealt with the situation and for a moment Merlin felt relief before he realized this was definitely not his Arthur and was in fact another problem he had to deal with.

That had ended in Merlin having to magically transport a pile of unconscious Arthur look-alikes to the King's bed chambers where he was reunited with the original, and now they were here.

Guinevere was unimpressed by this explanation and before she could be stopped, promptly left the room in a huff. To be fair, Merlin and Arthur had sort of fumbled their way through the story so they should've expected as much.

Things only managed to get worse once she left.

The eldest withdrew into himself, standing like a statue by the window refusing to look or speak at all. Merlin could sense the overwhelming emotion that once again hurt this version of his friend, but his attention was turned to the other four Arthurs that were once again arguing.

“This is ridiculous, all I wanted was a calm day of fishing and suddenly I'm stuck in some alternate dimension?”

“Hey, I'm not complaining at least here I can actually shag Merls.”

“There will be no shagging of my manservant!”

“How dare you speak like that about the king! I will not stand by while his name is used in such a vulgar way!”

“Calm down, prude.”

“I am not a prude!”

And on and on and on. Merlin massaged his temples and groaned loud enough to catch the attention of all the yelling men.

“If you would all shut up I could think for a few minutes! But no! You're just at each other's throats when we could be working together to find a solution!”

One of the Arthur's mumbled something about Merlin always solving their problems, and the sorcerer glared in their direction. While it was true he usually could find a solution, this was just beyond him at the moment. In all his reading and all his time practicing magic, he had never encountered something like this and he was beginning to spiral.

His Arthur saw this and placed a firm hand on his shoulder, “We'll figure this out, Merlin. Together. Don't be such a girl.”

Merlin shook his head and a smile crept to his face, “Sure. Together.”

The original Arthur clapped his hands together and rolled his shoulders back, “Alright men! We have a serious job to do. We need to come together and try to figure out why you were all sent here and how we can send you back. I'm not promising that we'll find a quick solution, but we must be vigilant! We must fight together and keep our thoughts on the goal! For all our sake.”

Merlin tried to fight the eye roll that came, but gods Arthur was such a king. He chuckled at the speech, it reminded him of many a one he'd heard Arthur speak to get the knights prepared for battle. Some things never change. The only receptive Arthur was the young knight, who begrudgingly nodded his head and took on a more serious demeanor. The king's and farmer on the other hand just shrugged or didn't respond at all.

“Right. Well then! Let's get to work. Let's go over what each of you remember.”

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