Wow, did not expect such positive responses so soon after posting that last chapter. Thanks for that, it really motivates me to pick this up and continue! Haha, that and guilt for leaving you all hanging for three years prior to this! Oh, and I decided to take everyone's suggestions and go with the knight's POV. I'll give you Merlin in the next chapter. Anyway, here's Chapter 4. Enjoy!

As Arthur and his knights traveled deeper into the forest, they began to notice that the tracks of the missing woodland creatures all seemed to lead in the same general direction. Reasoning that this fit with their potential sorcerer drawing an army of animals to one place, they decided to follow the tracks cautiously until they came upon the sorcerer's camp, which would hopefully include a captive, but unharmed Merlin.

As they drew closer to the source, the animal signs began to grow closer together and overlap, and a few sleepy squirrels and lightly chirping birds made themselves known.

Dismounting from their horses lest the sorcerer took control of them, or directed some other woodland creatures to spook them, the search party continued on foot, moving forward as quietly as if on a royal hunt.

Arthur took the lead, insides twisting as he imagined what terrible fate could have befallen his manservant at the hands of a sorcerer who could control wild animals. He hated to admit that any servant could make him feel so torn up, but he was also long past the point where he could easily convince himself that Merlin was no more than a servant to him.

Behind him and slightly fanned out to each side, the rest of the knights followed with similar determination set in their faces. No matter what powers this mysterious sorcerer wielded, they would overcome any trial to rescue their clumsy, golden-hearted friend.

Soon they started to come across sleeping creatures clustered in clumps across the forest floor. Clearly enchanted, as it would otherwise prove impossible to find rabbits and foxes tangled peacefully together with snakes, weasels curled around mice, a wild boar snorting in its sleep beside a badger that Arthur could swear was actually snoring.

The scattered forms grew thicker and more difficult to step around as they drew quietly closer to a clearing ahead that seemed to be the center of this enchanted mass of woodland creatures.

There was a tense moment when one of the wild boar raised its head to peer blearily in their direction. However, they all froze in place, knowing that a boar has naturally terrible eyesight, and the sleepy creature quickly fell back asleep.

Continuing forward, Elyan suddenly stopped and staring at something, motioning the others to look in the direction he was pointing a finger. Following the focus of the knight's attention, they realized that he was pointing at the form of an actual faerie, draped across the snout of a slumbering wolf.

Shocked at the sight of this rare magical creature, it took them a moment to realize that the wolf, and several of its companions, were curled up next to a very familiar mare.

Luca, Elyan mouthed. The others quickly caught the unspoken implication. If Luca was here, her master was likely nearby.

Stepping closer, they kept a wary watch on the silent woods around them. This close to the center of whatever enchantment this was, they expected a sorcerer to appear at any moment, likely shouting some slander about the wicked ways of the Pendragon family and firing spells left and right.

It was Gwaine who finally spotted Merlin, muffling a startled exclamation before gesturing wildly at a particularly thick clump of gently snuffling and snoring animals near the center of the clearing.

Drawing closer together, the search party stared in a mixture of relief, concern, and disbelief at the sight before them.

Arthur's eyes automatically scanned what was visible of his manservant's slumbering form, relief flooding through his body and loosening the knots in his stomach as he noted that Merlin appeared physically unharmed. In fact, if not for the fact that he was clearly the victim of a sleeping enchantment, he'd almost call the scene in front of him….adorable. Of course, Arthur was the Crown Prince of Camelot, which meant that his vocabulary contained no such word. Even so, he struggled to find another…

Deeply asleep, Merlin's unruly black hair was particularly mussed and sticking up at odd angles. His face was soft in sleep, expression closer to the childlike innocence he'd worn more often in his earliest years in Camelot. It struck Arthur as a loss to have seen that expression so often replaced with weariness in recent times.

His manservant's gangly limbs were sprawled out carelessly, his legs pinned down by a rather large grey wolf, thankfully also deep asleep, one leg kicking as Arthur had seen the odd hunting dog react in the midst of a good dream. There was a fox under one of Merlin's arms, tucked against his side, another curled around his head like one of the castle cats. The elegant head of a sleeping doe lay across Merlin's thin chest, her ears twitching slightly in sleep. Snugged between her forelimbs and the side of Merlin not occupied by a fox, the snaky body of a weasel lay squished up against the sleeping manservant. A twitching mass of fur at Merlin's stomach appeared to be a mix of squirrels and at least one rabbit. A serpent lay coiled atop his knee, and a faerie–this one naked, was sprawled awkwardly across Merlin's boot.

In stunned silence broken only by the snoring and twitching of animals in deep sleep, Arthur and his knights could only stare in disbelief at this most unexpected development. When they set out on foot to rescue Merlin from a sorcerer, this was not how they pictured to find him!

Gwaine looked close to melting into the forest floor, especially when one of the rabbits on Merlin's stomach nestled a little closer to the sleeping manservant with a twitch of soft ears. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to join the dog-pile, or else somehow capture this image to tease Merlin about for the rest of his life–and to secretly peek at whenever he needed a good dose of heart-melting cuteness to boost his mood. There was even a possibility that some of his usual "Princess" jokes might shift from Arthur to Merlin, with a healthy addition of "Sleeping Beauty" references. Looking thoughtful, he considered suggesting that Arthur try kissing Merlin to wake him from his clearly enchanted sleep. If the prince went through with it, Gwaine have enough blackmail material to last three lifetimes.

Arthur was thankfully to absorbed with trying to crush his own traitorous thoughts about how adorable–that cursed word–Merlin was…So he missed Gwaine's unsettlingly wicked grin.

Percival looked like he was itching to step forward and pet one of the sleeping critters. He loved animals, great and small, and seeing so many woodland creatures so close and deeply asleep made him want to test his luck and see how soft and warm their fur was. He couldn't help but feel a little jealous of Merlin's position, even if it was the result of an enchantment. Although Percival was more well-traveled than many of his companions, and, taking in the presence of the faeries, more inclined to feel that this was the the harmless aftermath of some faerie Revel that happened to draw in the local wildlife. And Merlin.

Elyan was simply wondering why the hell all these magical mishaps seemed to take place in one of the kingdoms most renowned for their vigilant persecution of magic. You'd think all these sorcerers would have just settled down somewhere else by now…

Out of them all, only Lancelot looked more resigned than shocked. If any of the knights had been looking his way, they would have been bewildered to see him cast a world-weary "How am I going to get him out of this one?" look to the patches of sky visible between the trees.

While Lancelot was silently bemoaning Merlin's tendency to draw attention to himself and his very illegal magical abilities, Arthur was coming out of his shock and attempting to assess the situation.

Clearly, Merlin had been caught in whatever enchantment had placed all these woodland creatures into a deep sleep. He was tempted to crack some joke about Merlin having the same basic intelligence as a squirrel, but the presence of faeries under the same enchantment meant that this was more powerful than he expected. He was also grimly aware that he, his knights, and the blissfully sleeping Merlin were all at the center of an uncomfortably large number of wild animals. If they did anything to rouse all of these creatures at once, he had no doubt that things would quickly become very ugly.

Most of other knights seemed to have also collected themselves and come to similar conclusions, Elyan shifting glance around at the long tusks of the slumbering boar, the twitching of the wolves, the patterns on the scales of several serpents marking them as venomous.

Arthur looked more closely at the serpent coiled atop Merlin's knee, and his throat tightened as he realized that this creature was also of the venomous variety.

The serpent and the wolf across Merlin's legs were the most troubling.

There was also a chance that the doe, if she woke and panicked, might trample Merlin's unguarded form. Those slender hooves were deceptively sharp, and he could suffer broken ribs or worse.

The faerie at his boot was also worrying. Arthur had little experience with them, but they were magical creatures, and no doubt capable of harming a defenseless manservant.

Gwaine caught Arthur's attention by waving his arms, and then began to make some odd hand motions. At first it looked like he'd made little mouths with his hands, and then started mashing them together, but that didn't make any sense. Gwaine then pointed at his own lips, at Arthur, and then at the still-sleeping Merlin.

From his rather confusing hand gestures, Arthur decided that Gwaine was suggesting that they silently attempt to throw something at Merlin's face, to see if they could wake up the manservant without also waking any of the creatures sprawled across him.

Arthur frowned, shaking his head sharply to veto the suggestion. It would be just like Merlin to wake up shouting and flailing and thereby incite anything nearby to sink teeth into him just to make him stop.

Arthur was about to motion the knights into strategic positions around Merlin to simultaneously lash out and kill the sleeping creatures all at once, when, as was usual, Merlin destroyed his excellent plan by twitching, moaning slightly, and waking with a sleepy yawn before Arthur could make a move.

Everyone stood frozen as Merlin shifted a little before hooded blue eyes opened to drowsily locked onto Arthur. For a moment, he simply blinked, but then his mind seemed to process the fact that his eyes were, in fact, registering the presence of Arthur, his prince, standing right in front of him.

Eyes widening with sudden alarm, now not at all asleep, Merlin took on the expression of a startled deer.

"Arthur!" he shouted, just as loud as Arthur had dreaded. A flailing arm struck the sleeping doe, the fox on his chest squirmed to life, the wolf at his legs let out a short grunt, and the entire clearing exploded into chaos…

Well, this didn't take me three years to put out, so congrats to me! More thanks to you guys for giving me the encouragement to get this out so soon! Special thanks to:

, stormus, RandomAnon, shadowlynx14, shelle-ma-belle, EchoRose480, alexaokami, That-is-illogical, Black Iron, Libris47, MoonlitIvy, Taneya, Yowi, akuryoyakuza, tit'barbare, Guess, StarlightInHerEyes22, mersan123, cyenthia 30,

And everyone else who has reviewed, favorited, and followed my story! You guys are the reason I keep writing!