#rstf

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen & Morgana (Merlin), Morgana & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)

Characters: Merlin (Merlin), Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen (Merlin), Morgana (Merlin), Leon (Merlin), Gaius (Merlin)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Rewrite, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Read on Ao3

King Uther is dead. Long live the king. When an old enemy crawls from the grave and cuts Uther down, an inexperienced and grieving Prince Arthur is forced to take the throne. As king, Arthur will be tested by regular magical attacks, his father's conservative council, and his own self-doubt. Yet he faces an even greater foe: Uther's shadow stretches long and dark across the land of Camelot, and if Arthur wants to forge a golden future for his people, he must first unravel the sins of the past. Merlin is used to living in shadow, but serving the new king thrusts him out into the light. Torn between a need for secrecy and his budding friendship with Arthur, Merlin does his best to protect Camelot the only way he knows. But no one can hide forever in a place they call home. Arthur lacks his father's zealotry, but he's no friend to magic either. Can Merlin hold on long enough to soften Arthur's heart? Or will he be forced to spend the rest of his life fleeing the way he fled Ealdor, too strange and wild to ever feel safe? Or; BBC Merlin if Kilgarrah never whispered destiny in Merlin's ear.

At last I've embarked on posting (part 1 of) the Merlin canon rewrite fic I've been working on for the past few months. Please give it a read if you've been at all intrigued by the snippets I've posted so far! Thanks so much to @julia-with-luv and @otsanda for everything 💞

Merlin trailed his fingers along the berry-bushes and new blossoms followed in his wake. It wasn't the season for berries, but Arthur was well ahead of him and would never notice. Ever since the spell he'd cast in Ealdor, Merlin couldn't help but reach for his magic again and again in small ways everywhere he went, only taking his next breath when he felt the world reaching back.

As boring and distasteful as hunting could be, Merlin would be lying if he said he wasn't pleased to be out of the castle. Work had been relentless ever since his return from Ealdor; kings, it seemed, had an endless amount of papers to organize and meetings to schedule and speeches to compose, and where any regular sort of king might have employed secretaries and scribes to do half that work, Arthur had only Merlin.

Arthur had declared he wanted quail for his supper, so he went out to catch himself one. This was the first hunting trip they'd taken since Arthur's coronation, and there could hardly be a lovelier day for it. The sky was a clear, searing blue; summer still lingered in the world, the scent of warm earth glowing all around them, yet a gentle breeze cooled the air on every breath.

They'd been out since late morning. No quail had yet shown themselves, but Merlin was getting the impression that Arthur, mighty hunter he was, was not looking especially hard. He hadn't ordered Merlin to go out beating the bushes, and he hadn't taken so much as a sporting aim at any of the harvest-fat squirrels or pheasants idling in the trees and brush. More or less, they were out for a stroll, if not precisely arm-in-arm the way he might have strolled with Will when skiving off work. Like a sort of woodland creature himself, Arthur would range and then return to Merlin's side, and his palpable relief at the freedom of the day was wearing off on Merlin.

So it was a fine day, and Merlin was in a fine mood when he wandered into a particularly mossy glade and was hit in the face with a miracle.