merlin slipping up early on around arthur and trying to assuage his fears by assuring that the gods would look out for them and arthur pauses before asking “the gods?” and they have a awkward lil conversation where merlin is like “yeah i worship the gods of the old religion” and arthurs like “why?” and merlin goes “well why do you worship the god of the new religion? we just believe in them” and arthur takes in this new information and is eventually like “yeah. sure. i guess its not illegal in essetir is it?” anyways thats it. it doesnt get brought up again until later on
when arthur + the knights and merlin and in that shrine and the knights aren’t taking it seriously and merlin goes “in the time of the old religion, they built shrines like this to appease restless spirits. we shouldn’t be here” and the knights brush it off but arthur knows merlin truly believes in it all so he redirects the knights away and later on its him and merlin at the well and arthur is there to calm merlin after he sees the visions from the raid. merlin’s crying and pleading with arthur to leave, that they shouldn’t be here. arthur agrees and goes to leave when merlin calls out to him. arthur stops but doesn’t turn. merlin wraps his arms around his middle.
“you were here”
arthur doesn’t say anything more and walks away
