Lady of Magic

Chapter One

"Twenty-one-year-old male Moor, presenting with high bile," Merlin recited to the magic recorder that she kept hidden so people would not be too unnerved. Patients knew she was a sorceress, but sometimes they irrationally still fear spells. She opened up the man's eyes to look at his sclera, "Fatigue, nausea, pain in the upper right quadrant of the abdomen. What color is your stool, sir?"

"Pardon?" The young man looked bewildered.

"Your excrement." When he gave her a blank look, Merlin sighed. "Is it paler than usual?"

"Uh, yes, it is."

"Likely gallstone blockage," She murmured, ignoring the man's awkward expression, "And likely in the common bile duct, judging from the icterus. Are you comfortable with magic, sir?" Merlin made a point of asking this question to every patient, but this time she was honestly hoping this man would say yes, because getting rid of gallstones and curing whatever gall bladder inflammation might have gone along with it would be much much faster than doing it the non-magical way.

"Uh—erm, what's the difference?"

"If I use magic you will feel a some odd shifting in your abdomen," At his blank look, she sighed. "Your belly. Here." She gestured at her herself right under the curve of her ninth and tenth ribs. "It will take only a moment. If you do not want me to use magic, it can take hours, and I have to cut you open and remove your gall bladder, during which you can die from blood loss or infection."

The patient swallowed. "Yes, I'm comfortable with magic."

"Alright. Lie back, please."

The patient lied back, and Merlin ran a diagnostic spell over his liver and gall bladder. There was some liver damage, the gall bladder was obviously inflamed, and there were gallstones lodged right around where she thought they would. She placed the two organs in a stasis before removing the gallstone, and then checked the gall bladder for any stones that might have formed.

"I suggest laying off fatty foods and hard drinks, sir," She told the patient as she worked, "Moors don't seem to get gallstones that much, though, and you're male. I wonder if it was an infection?" She ran another diagnostic spell. "Ah. There we go." She got rid of those, before moving up the ribs to heal the liver. "Nasty business, these. All done now. How do you feel?"

The man sat up, bewildered and yet happy. "I feel much better! Thank you, Healer!"

"Good," Merlin stepped back and allowed herself to feel the exhaustion that had slowly built up during the day. "Take it easy for now, give yourself a day to rest. Some parts must be cleared but it is best done the natural way, for once." She smiled when he thanked her again profusely. They made smalltalk as he collected his things, and she tried not to breathe a sigh of relief at the knowledge that he was the last patient of the day.

She saw him to the door just as she heard the clanging of armor stumble her way.

Oh no, she thought. Not knights.

"Healer!" A faintly familiar voice called out, "Healer!" He looked up as he and the other knights seemed to support an injured man between them, and Merlin's mouth ran dry as she beheld Gwaine's shocked countenance.

When Arthur found out Merlin had magic, it was not the way she planned it. He had been face to face with a sorcerer intent on killing him, and it had been either that or reveal herself, even though it was in front of all of Camelot. The banquet had been jolly, bordering on cacophonous, when the sorcerer had stepped through the gates and held everyone in their seats with a mighty burst of magic.

Merlin had been trying to deal with him for an entire week, but she had always been one step behind. Arthur becoming King had taken a toll on her as well, and she had simply not found the time to get her act together. The final showdown had been terrifying, and she did not have as much experience fighting as this sorcerer obviously did. She was hit in the chest with a spell, one that sent her flying into the wall, and the next thing she knew, Gaius was tending to her, his face solemn even as he pushed other healers aside, and Arthur was staring wide-eyed at her bare chest.

Two secrets out at once.

"I didn't want to get attacked while traveling to Camelot," She tried to explain later, and she was not even sure if he was angrier about the fact that she made him believe she was a man or that she practiced magic. "It was just to protect myself—and then I didn't know who you were, you were bullying that poor servant. Then the King thought I was a man, and what could I do?"

"I said things in front of you I wouldn't even say in front of—in front of my wife!" Arthur roared, slamming the table and looking so furious that Merlin was honestly terrified for her life. "And a sorcerer too—you—get out of my sight! Get out of my sight! I don't want to ever see you again!"

"Punctured left lung, looks like it missed his heart by a hair," Merlin focused on the injuries and not the man who sustained them, "Fractured humerus." She shooed away the other knights. "Give me room!" She barked.

Temper. It was late, and so easy to fall back to irritation than fear and hurt. Arthur looked no different than when she last left him five years ago, and obviously had about as much sense as he always did, always getting into trouble—

"Healer—"

"I said give me room. Get out of here," She held a hand out over his arm and healed it with magic. If the knights try to arrest her, she intended to turn them all into frogs, Gwaine included. The hemothorax was a little trickier to deal with, even with spells. "Get out of my face now or I swear I will make you regret it."

Gwaine, or Sir Gwaine, quietly ushered the other outraged knights away. Lancelot stared at her, obviously just recognizing her, but he was pushed away before he could call to her, and Merlin ran a diagnostic spell over Arthur's lung to determine where to start. Missing his heart by a hair isn't going to be too helpful if the pressure builds up.

Her head was starting to hurt, and she used a spell to hover the patient so that she could drain the useless blood away where it would not press against any vital organs. Blood was still collecting, so she paused to locate any internal vessels that were still working against her. It took about fifteen minutes of hard concentration to stopper the bleeding, during which she had to artificially inflate his other lung so that he still had an oxygen supply.

An hour later, she stepped out, a full-blown migraine causing auras to flare around the candles. The knights stared at her wordlessly.

"The patient is stable," She said to them, "You may go in and see him, and you can take him to wherever you are staying once he wakes, though I'll have to conduct a few tests to make sure he suffered no neural damage."

Despite magic, her gloves were stained with blood, so she took them off and dumped them in the trash. Her apron was similarly stained, so she took it off and placed it in the laundry. She had a spell for washing clothes, but usually when she worked in the clinic, by the time she was finished she was so thoroughly exhausted she did not want to expend any more magic on these things, so she made a habit of hiring the girls from the town to do her laundry for her. It was a good business affair.

The third knight went in to look at his sire, but Sir Gwaine and Sir Lancelot lingered briefly. She ignored them, preparing to go home. "If you can hurry out quickly, I need to close up shop. I've stayed two hours later than I was supposed to and I have to open up again an hour after dawn, so I would appreciate if you can leave quickly."

By the time she donned her cloak, the patient was already awake, and he was walking on his own, though he was a little feeble. He stared at her in open amazement as she quickly took a candle. The faster this was done, the better.

"Sit down here," She ordered, and he sat down, dumbstruck. "Look at my nose, keep looking, don't look at the candle." She flashed it at him, studying both pupils, before setting it down. "Follow my finger," She told him, and he did not seem to understand. "Do you have trouble understanding what I'm saying?"

"Uh," He blinked, "No, I—"

"Follow my finger please," She repeated, moving it close to his face to see if his eyes crossed properly. "Can you tell me your name?"

"...Arthur. Merlin!" He suddenly exploded, shooting to his feet before swaying dangerously.

"Did I tell you to stand up?" Merlin exclaimed in exasperation, "Well you clearly think you know what you're doing. Knights, you can take him wherever he's staying. I'm closing down the clinic."

"Merlin," He righted himself, even as the other knights came forward to help him, "What—no, you don't get to do that." He reached out to grab her by the arm.

With a swell of fury, Merlin flung him off, adding a little magic just to get the point across. There were a lot of things she was willing to put up with from her patients, but being manhandled was a step too far. "Keep your hands to yourself," She said sternly, before gesturing at the door. "This isn't a bar."

"We found her just yesterday," The old man said quietly, but each word resonated loudly in her ears. Merlin stared down at the body of her mother, wondering if she could not just have waited one day for her daughter to come back and save her with magic, because there had to be some way to save her mother with magic.

There was no way to bring back the dead though. Not truly.

"I'm sorry, Merlin."

Heart attack, Merlin knew, ischemia, leading to heart failure, and it would have been sudden, quick, certainly not long enough for a day to be enough. She was too late, as she was with most things these days. Her mother looked like she was sleeping though, even if her cheeks were colorless, and part of Merlin wanted to reach into her magic, bystanders be damned, and try to wake the woman, make her well again, because...she cannot be dead. Not when Merlin still needed her so much.

"I'm sorry, Merlin."

Merlin had nothing to show from Camelot except some of Gaius's pocket change that he gave to her for the journey. The funeral was meager, and Merlin could hardly remember it all. If she had known that she was going to fail in Camelot anyway, she would have stayed in Ealdor, taken care of her mother as a proper daughter should. Now what did she have? Gaius was all the way in Camelot, and she had no one else, not in this village where she had been sent away from specifically because she had no one there except Will, Will who was no longer around to run through the woods with her or get into trouble, or to hold her when she had a close call with her magic or scold her when she was being foolish.

And then the news came from Camelot; the court healer had suffered an apoplectic attack. Gaius was not a young man, and Merlin knew the odds were against him from the start. She heard of his death while on the road back to Camelot, pressing the spare horse so it frothed at the mouth, but for all of that it was for nothing.

She should have called the dragon.

She was too late.

Something in Merlin broke, and not even Kilgarrah or the druids could convince her to collect the pieces.

Sir Gwaine was outside her door the next morning when she woke after about four hours of sleep to prepare to go to the clinic. He was a little more clean-shaven than he was before he became knight, but perhaps that was expected. The smarmy, coy air about him was tempered this time though, and it was difficult to tell if that was because of his new position or because he was actually nervous about seeing her. He never did get a chance to talk to her when everything fell apart.

"The King sent me," He told her, when she glared down at him.

"You can go to him then," Merlin shut the door and locked it, "And tell him that the healer sent you back."

"Merlin—"

"I'm not Merlin," She said flatly, "It's Healer Emrys to you."

The knight looked astonished by this, but collected himself quickly, and he followed her as she made her way down the path.

"Are you sure you should go to the clinic today?" He asked, "You didn't get much rest last night."

"No thanks to you lot," She said acerbically, "What kind of tomfoolery did you march into this time?"

He was suddenly right in front of her. "Look, I don't know what your problem is, but there's no reason for you to be like that to me. I haven't done anything to you."

She tried to move past him without answering, but he blocked her path. "Merlin, lass," He sighed.

For all her irritation, he was right, so she relented, even though she kept a tenuous hold on the anger. If she let it go completely, she might burst into tears, and she had never wept since coming home to find her mother dead.

"We tried to find you," Sir Gwaine went on, "Arthur brought us along himself to Ealdor, found out you were gone," He folded his arms, "He could be pretty impulsive back then, but he didn't actually mean for you to go away."

"Arthur is just in shock," Gaius had tried to convince her, "Please, Merlin, don't panic like this, there's no reason to. He'll come around."

"I have to leave before he changes his mind and decides to burn me at the stake after all—"

"He's not going to do that, Merlin! Do you honestly think—"

"He said it kind of clearly," Merlin replied, "And frankly, I don't really care about that. I'm better off here anyway," She gestured around her, "I'm Healer Emrys. All of Albion come here to be treated. I actually get appreciated for what I do, instead of constantly hovering in Arthur's shadow and watching him take credit for anything I do. I can do magic without being worried about getting executed. It turned out to be the best for me."

She moved to the side, and Sir Gwaine allowed her, but he followed her again after a moment.

"You didn't use to care about this. It's not like you, Merlin. You didn't care about fame."

Merlin drew up and indulged him with a patronizing smirk. "Sir Gwaine, you will find that I have changed enough that this is perfectly like me. I'm sure you and the King have better things to do than harass a local healer."

"King Arthur undid Uther's ban on magic. Didn't you hear about this?"

Merlin started walking again. "What's it to me?"

"You could come back to Camelot. You can."

"Why should I go back? There's nothing there for me. You all seem to be doing fine without me."

"Merlin, we're doing fine, but that has nothing to do with whether you can come back or not. You have friends there! People would be ecstatic to have you back—"

"As Arthur's manservant?" She snapped, "So I can go back to washing his linens and polishing his armor?"

"No! As his court magician!" Sir Gwaine grabbed her shoulder, "What happened to you?"

The question managed to do what everything in the past few years failed. Tears welled out, terrifyingly fast, and Merlin turned away even though she knew the knight saw.

"Gaius is gone, Arthur is married to Gwen, you and Lancelot are both knights, have someone else help Camelot unite all of Albion. Why should I serve any king? Why are kings somehow more important than normal people? I run a clinic and I save hundreds of lives every year. I make a difference, I improve the lives of anyone who happen to come here, old or young, man or woman, Moors, druids, wealthy, poor. This is the life I chose. Are you questioning my judgment?"

"Arthur's not married to Gwen," Sir Gwaine said softly, "Where did you get that idea?"

He's not? That was a surprise. At this point, Merlin was certain Arthur would have. "What happened?" She asked, growing truly concerned and not even caring if the knight saw the remnants of tears still on her face, "Is Gwen alright?"

"She's..." Sir Gwaine blinked, "Why don't you come back to Camelot and see for yourself?"

"She's fine," Merlin concluded flatly. "That trick is not going to work. You're not going to lure me back to Camelot like that. If something happened to her, you would have said so."

"You can afford to leave your clinic for a week," He ignored her to state, "Just because the King said something he didn't mean to doesn't mean you should hold it out against the rest of us. We were all worried about you. We deserve to know how you are doing."

"Well, you can tell them I am fine."

"You're obviously not." Sir Gwaine moved to block her way again. "Is this what you usually do? Work till the odd hours of the night, stagger home and sleep a wink before working a full day again?"

"No, this only happens with idiot knights come knocking at my clinic at an odd hour of the night after doing something stupid. What mess did you get into this time?"

"We were betrayed," Sir Gwaine scowled, looking truly angry now, "King Arthur went to settle a treaty, but their court magician—your court magician, as it turns out, decided it would be a good idea to try and kill us so that the harlot Morgana can take over Camelot again. We barely escaped, but considering what happened, it's probably not a huge stretch to guess that the witch might be sitting on the throne once we get back."

"You want me to fight her for you?" Merlin stepped back.

"You really intend to just abandon us?"

"Healer, please, help her," The man begged, clutching Morgana tightly in his arms as rain poured outside. A puddle formed rapidly at their feet, streaming from their drenched clothes and the whipping water outside.

"Get in here," Merlin ordered, and it was easier than she expected to lay the pale sickly woman on the bed, drying her clothes with a quick spell and running diagnostics.

"Recorder, on," She commanded, "Twenty-four-year-old female, presenting with high fever, rapid pulse of about ninety per minute, not conscious, signs of pneumonia..."

It was also strangely satisfying to see Morgana bemused and wary when Merlin directed her to the door a day later after pocketing her earnings for the treatment.

"Quit running around in the rain," Merlin told her, "I never want to see you back here again."

"I heard what happened," Morgana said slowly, her eyes searching Merlin's even though the healer was getting ready to see the next patient, "Come with me. It isn't fair, what he did to us. You and I can make it right. Together, we can be a great team."

The day Merlin falls for that was the day she drinks one of those potions for split-mind syndrome to ruin her entire brain. She turned her back on Morgana to address a young woman with a two-week-old child. "Come inside," She told her, instantly switching to her gentle healer-voice, "How is the little one doing?"

"I'm very worried...he's had a high fever for days, I don't know what's wrong and I'm really scared that it's something serious..."

"I'm sure, we'll take a look at him now..."

She left Morgana standing in the waiting room. When she finished treating the child for neonatal sepsis, the woman and her lackey had left. Merlin never saw either of them again.

"Just when I thought I was rid of her," Merlin murmured, before realizing that just because Sir Gwaine asked her to get involved did not mean she had to. "Why do you need me? Go find some other sorcerer."

"Do you not care?" The knight suddenly exploded, "Do you not care about any of us? Do you have any idea what that crazy witch might do? To Gwen? To Camelot's citizens?"

She twitched at this. There were people in Camelot, people she was not precisely close to, necessarily, but who she did care about. The cook in the kitchens who was always trying to stuff her with food because she was 'too thin'. The guards outside her door who made sure that she was properly warm and diverted whenever she was thrown in there for something everyone knew had been stupid. Even at the stocks, there were people there to make sure she was not abused too much, because it was so easy for those in stocks to be helpless, at the mercy of cruel perverts that even a city like Camelot was not free of, and it did not matter if she were female or male. The librarian who occasionally gave Merlin a book that no one else wanted because he knew how much Merlin liked to read.

All of them would be at the mercy of Morgana.

"We need you," Gwaine knelt in front of her and took her hands in his leather-clad ones, "We need you. You don't even have to stay. You can bring your clinic to Camelot, or you can just come back if you hate Camelot so much," His eyes were wide and beseeching, "But we need you. Arthur needs you."

She wavered, thinking about all the patients that might show up today and be disappointed if she had left, the lives that might be lost if she had not been around to treat them immediately, but at the same time...

She was tired. The issue with Camelot, her issues with Camelot, she had responded to by running away, but after five years she really needed to stop. She needed to resolve everything, at least, and not leave everything hanging. It was not good for her or Arthur.

And it would be nice to see Gwen again.

"He better behave himself," She muttered, and wondered why more tears were welling out. "If he steps out of line even once,"

"I know." Gwaine rose and brushed the tears away gently. "He knows, too. Come on, let's go. Arthur has missed you terribly."

"Right," Merlin said doubtfully. "He only kept saying that I'm the worst manservant he's ever had."

"You never use to take these things to heart," Gwaine said cautiously.

"Of course not. I still don't. Why should I? I'm not a man."

"Ha," Gwaine laughed strangely, "I guess you are still Merlin after all. Even if you've become..." He shook his head and did not articulate the rest of that sentence.