"Hello sire, would you like your pillows fluffed?" George asked politely "also you have a meeting in 5 minutes"

"FIVE MINUTES!" Arthur jumped out of bed and woofed down a muffin. He quickly pulled on his pants, shoes, and cape about to run out the door only to be stopped by the faint call of sire. Turning around he raised a eyebrow in question.

"Yes George"

"I just thought I would let you know you forgot your shirt"

"I forgot my- Oh!" Arthur looked down to In fact see his bare chest. He blushed and threw on a shirt. Running out he arrived at the council meeting, everyone turned to him and Arthur cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Erm- sorry I'm late" gwaine smiled at him.

"That's alright, we understand it can be hard to dress yourself"

"What do you mean-"

"Your pants are on backwards" Arthur looked down with wide eyes and noticed his pants, in fact were backwards. He cleared his throat and sat in a chair. Earning a bunch of snickers.

"Alright well-" Arthur groaned as Leon went on and on about the newest updates. The only interesting thing whatsoever, had been the complete incline of apple consumption (which turned out to be completely caused by gwaine and a man that goes by Draco). Arthur always hated the routine meetings. Always such a bore. Leaning back Arthur propped up his legs, only to be smacked by Lancelot to which he put them back down.

"-to solve the mushroom attacks it would be best to stop selling them." Arthur popped up mushroom attacks? Gwaine sat there in his chair laughing very hard.

"That may have been the funniest story I have ever heard! Who knew people could get so weird and possessive about mushrooms!" Arthur raised his eyebrow at the story he clearly droned out on but just continued on as if nothing happened.

The second the council meeting ended Arthur raced out to go saddle his bag. Merlin consumes his mind. He was very exited to see the strange boy once again.

"What has your panties in a bunch dear brother" Arthur cursed himself. Morgana is always so noisy. Demands to know all about his life. It's quite annoying.

"Just for a ride"

"Then I'll join you"

"No!" Morgana raised her eyebrow and smiled.

"Hiding things from me doesn't work out for you"

"I'm not hiding anything"

"Then what's with the pile of books in your bag?" Arthur rolled her eyes. So annoyingly observant

"I'm going to read them"

"We both know you can't read"

"Ha. Ha. Very funny Morgana. Goodbye!" She raised her eyebrow but nonetheless walked off. Arthur sped away on his horse too merlin. He had brought very factual books to him hoping to peak his interest.

He reached the tree and looked around. No sign of-

"Oh hello!" Arthur spun around to see the same cheery smile once again. "You came back!"

"Well of course I did! I promised after all." Merlin frowned then picked up his dictionary going through the pages.

"Pro-mis-e, noun, a declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will happen." He read to himself.

"No ones ever promised you something before?" Merlin shook his head and looked at Arthur with those same wide innocent eyes.

"No. Can you promise me something again!" Merlin asked. His voice taking the childlike wonder.

"Umm... sure... I promise to visit you often." Arthur knew that was a promise he would make without even trying before the words left his mouth.

"Really!"

"Really." A switch clicked on in Arthur's brain and he suddenly remembered the gifts.

"I brought you something." He pulled out 3 books and handed them to Merlin. He gasped and took them flipping through each page.

"That looks like vinnie." His eyes skipped down "deer... vinnies a deer!" His eyes sparkled.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you" he ranted on giving Arthur a hug that could give Percival a good run for his money.

"No problem" Merlin smiled at me then went straight to his books. Sometimes he would gaze upon a drawing and would immediately go to his dictionary. Once and a while he would ask a question. Some more stupid like "is that food?" Others more intelligent, "how does a mirror work?" Which happened to be a question that never crossed Arthur's brain, even though he looked at himself through one almost every day. Arthur soon became bored with just watching the warlock read after his questions had deflated.

"So-"

"Shhh I'm trying to read soppywap"

"Soppywap?"

"Yes"

"What even is a soppywap"

"Well going by who I compared it too we can assume it's annoying" giggled Merlin, and unfortunately Arthur had no reply. Arthur once again tried with the small talk.

"Before I was so rudely interrupted. I was going to ask what do you do for fun" Arthur crossed his legs and looked at Merlin.

"Well I do many things. I like to build things out of tree sticks" Merlin pointed to the pile of beautifully crafted items, bended to perfection. "I like to hang out with the animals." His eyes sparkled with delight "especially vinnie" he then got up. "But one of my favorite things to do is to explore and collect things" he reached into a tree roots exposing a old rusted box. Opening it he revealed ordinary objects you wouldn't glance at twice.

"I'm not sure what this is, but it's very interesting." He turned a fork around in his hand "I think it's a hairbrush" he ran it through his hair and it got caught "but if it is, it's not a very good one" then he brought out a razor like object "I read you use this to clean your face from hair" Arthur then noticed faint scars no doubt from using it wrong. Every boy who didn't have a father in the village had one. That's also when Arthur noticed Merlin was surprisingly well kept. His hair was cut averagely well and he had regular cloths. Though his shirt looked too big and his pants too small. No doubt he found them. Arthur also noticed his lack of shoes.

Merlin continued going down the list of items, Arthur correcting them and teaching him what they were. That's when they reached a beautiful broken locket. Merlin marveled at it.

"I'm not sure what this is but it's absolutely amazing." Arthur reached out to grab it and Merlin opened his hand. With a bit of hand work he got the thing open. On it was the drawing of a young women and a man next to her. Arthur pocketed it, which caused some protests from merlin, to which Arthur shushed.

"I'll get it fixed up for you"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Thank you!" Arthur's reply (a terribly lame one i must say) was cut off by a glass bottle falling to the ground. Merlins eyes flowed and the bottle stopped midair and carefully fell back down. Merlin looked at Arthur very nonchalantly and continued talking.

"So-"

"You have magic?" Most people would believe Arthur was angry or outraged. Maybe even scared, but Instead Arthur felt confusion. Merlin talked as if he barley ever meet humans, he didn't know most of the human language. He didn't even own a spell book, so how in the world did he learn magic. To add to the whole ordeal he didn't even say a spell.

"I have what?" He tilted his head at me which looked very adorable-focus.

"Magic, you know the whole levitating thing." His face turned into one of recognition and he nodded.

"Can't everyone do that." He asked. His voice laced with confusion.

"You mean you never learned that?"

"No how would I learn that? I was born this way" his eyebrows scrunched up and he looked at the ground. "At least i think I was" Arthur looked at his friend with sympathy. He wanted to be angry, follow in his fathers footsteps, do what he would of done, be a good king. But he couldn't. Merlin was the pure meaning of kindness and innocence. Not a ounce of evil even grazed his skin. Arthur could very well sell Merlin and market it as holy water (not that he ever would). Arthur's picture frame of magic had just been tilted a little bit, and now the picture looked clearer then ever. Arthur had never heard of someone BORN with magic. But he didn't want to startle the boy with all this talk of being one of a kind. So instead he smiled and nodded.

"ARTHURRRRRRRRR BEDTIME!" came the loud voice of gwaine. Arthur was already setting up the stock's arrangements in his head, while Merlin just laughed.

"You better get back Arthur it's pretty late" Merlin started climbing the tree once again shooting him a smile and going up leaving no room for argument. Grumbling Arthur walked back to a lazily looking gwaine. Honestly it's obvious I'm not under a rock. Pulling him by the ear Arthur made out while gwaine left a trail of "OW" in his path. Like very painful breadcrumbs.

Arthur arrived and was pampered by very concerned knights. Oh god just wait until they meet Merlin. Arthur's mouth grew distasteful  th second the thought danced in his mind. Merlin is mine. Not theres. Without another word he walked off into bed falling into a dream infected with the plague that is Merlin.

Done!!! Aaaaa this is such a longer chapter then I normally do. I'm already deeply in love with this story. Anyway hope you enjoyed the read!