Personal Property of the

Written for kinkme_merlin prompt: “When Arthur is king he makes Merlin court magician and he gets a new manservant. The manservant has a crush on Arthur and Merlin gets jealous.” And proceeds to properly label his personal property.

In the beginning, everything goes smoothly – which should have made him suspicious, considering his luck and the way things at Camelot always seem to take a turn for the worse when you’re least expecting it.

In the beginning, there are black tapestries in the Great Hall and hushed whispers in the hallways, crimson flags flying at half-staff out of respect for a King more feared than loved. The bells chime once for each year of King Uther’s reign and somber ceremonies ensue in order to give him a send-off proper of a man of his station – but there is no true grieving in them, not really. A wave of relief courses through the kingdom, a kingdom that respected its ruler even when they’d almost forgotten why they did so, a kingdom that followed his every command even though tension and discontent had spread during the last years of his reign – a kingdom that only now feels like breathing freely again.

Only in Arthur’s eyes there’s a piercing grief for his father’s death. Perhaps that is the main reason why people are so willing to pay their last respects to a king many had good reason to despise, because as much as Uther was feared his son is loved fiercely, because the people of Camelot learnt to look at their Prince for guide and support in the last years of his father’s reign, when everything became so unstable and frail.