More Than A Servant

Training

"Are you ready for your first day of training?" Arthur asks.

Merlin was rudely woken up all of twenty minutes ago by the king himself. He had to throw on some chain mail, shove a piece of bread in his mouth as breakfast, and gather all the weapons. Needless to say, he is not all too happy to be out here at this time of morning. He simply grunts in response to Arthur's previous question.

"So, before we start we are going to have to lay out some ground rules. First, you do exactly as I say. No ifs, ands, or buts."

Merlin roles his eyes.

"Second, no magic used in combat or otherwise, unless I ask you too."

"In which situation would you ask me to?"

"To see how powerful you are. Also, I'm the king so it doesn't really matter."

Merlin ponders for a moment, then a smirk appears on his face.

"What if you don't see me using it?"

"If I catch you using magic without my permission, at the least you're taking a beating from me."

Challenge accepted, Merlin thinks to himself.

"Alright, so let's start with the sword. Take your best shot."

Merlin hesitates, knowing this won't end well. Then he swings at Arthur, which Arthur easily blocks. Merlin gets in about three more swings and one block before he gets knocked off his feet. He groans and looks up at Arthur, annoyed.

"Huh... I expected you to fall after the first blow. I'm impressed."

"I picked up one or two things over the past six years."

"Hmm. Well clearly you didn't pick up the footing. Your balance is completely off; as is your grip. You're lucky the sword didn't fall out of your hands."

Arthur corrects Merlin's grip and teaches him the proper footing for sword fighting. Then they go again. And again. By the third time with a few more corrections from Arthur Merlin lasts a good bit longer; almost a full thirty seconds! In the end Merlin looses his grip with a genius move from Arthur. Arthur knocks him to the ground and holds his sword to Merlin's throat for good measure. Arthur looks down at him with a triumphant smile, but then stops. Merlin's face holds a look of terror which he tries to hide with annoyance. Arthur sighs and thrusts his sword into the ground next to him and helps Merlin to his feet.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Arthur raises his eyebrow motioning for Merlin to continue.
"Well... I know it's nothing, but for a second I thought- I don't know. I guess I just got worried because now you know I have magic and all and I betrayed your trust and a couple days ago you almost wanted to kill me-" he stops himself.
"Sorry... I just started talking and I don't really know what that was."

Arthur really does feel bad about that day. He was honestly seconds away from killing Merlin back in the woods. He gives Merlin a pitying look and puts his hand on Merlin's shoulder.

"Look, I know how I reacted when I found out. That was impulsive of me. And while my trust has been... bent, I want you to know that you're safe. Besides, you got Morgana on our side. I couldn't just forget about that."

Merlin gives a half smile, lacking it's usual bright humor. This obviously doesn't go unnoticed. Arthur grabs Merlin and ruffles his hair.

"Hey!" Merlin laughs.

"That's better. Now come on, let's go again."

This time Merlin does even better. He had been fighting for probably 40 seconds before he looses his footing. However, as Arthur is about to push him over Merlin eyes flash gold as he trips Arthur. Merlin looses his balance anyways, but at least Arthur went down with him. This results in Arthur tackling Merlin on the ground. Merlin attempts to fight back, but he can't do much under Arthur's weight.

"Ouch," he gasps.

"What, are you done?"

"There's not much I can do being crushed under your weight."

Arthur slaps Merlin upside the head, earning protest from Merlin. Then he gets off to help Merlin up.

"No magic. Don't think I missed your little trick back there."

"Trust me, you made that quite clear," Merlin says as he rubs his sore ribs.

"Other than that, you did quite well. You're improving fast."

"Like I said, I'm a fast learner."

"Right. Well now you can quickly put all this stuff away and get started on on your chores. I need you to clean my chain mail, wash my clothes, prepare a bath..."

Merlin groans as he picks up the stuff and follows his king. He already knows that he's going to be really sore tomorrow. But he can't help but have a small smile in his lips as Arthur rants about how much needs to get done. This is how it should be.

Here you go!! Let me know how you like it. Thanks again for reading!