#also fyi i know we haven't discussed the broader worldstate of this AU and you're welcome to change anything i chose to use here

[panharmonium]

the edge of seventeen [fic]

summary: Daegal forgets his own birthday.  Merlin has a conniption.  Daegal has a crisis.

context for newcomers: This is the next installment in an ongoing AU that @once-and-future-gay​ and I have been playing around with, wherein both Will and Daegal survived into Season 5.  The background for that AU can be found here, and the associated fics (plus one art post) are at the following links: be good / persistence / tournaments / daegal post-carpentry (art).

a/n: @once-and-future-gay​​, this was actually written for your birthday XD  I started it that Tuesday intending for it to be a very short snippet that I could post the same day, but I quickly realized that it was turning into a bigger piece, and now, a week and a half later, it’s a 10k story.  I apologize for how belated it is, but I hope you'll accept it as a birthday gift anyhow - I figured that if it were up to me, I’d rather have ‘more fic’ than ‘on-time fic,’ so - happy (belated) birthday to you, and here’s some more of this AU for you, featuring Daegal and a wide supporting cast! ��

“Are you trying to slice that thing or just beat it to death?”

Will stared incredulously down the table at Daegal, who continued to hack at the seedpod held between his fingers even though his aggravated chopping did little more than squash the unyielding capsule down into the wood of the table.  “It’s my knife,” Daegal muttered, stabbing at his botanical nemesis.  “It’s dull.” 

“So sharpen it.”  

“I did,” Daegal replied.  “It’s old.  It doesn’t hold an edge.”

Will beckoned for the knife.  Daegal scooted it down the table to him like an innkeeper sliding drinks down the length of the bar, even in defiance of Merlin’s exasperated, “Don’t - !”  But Will caught the knife easily, handle-first, and gave it a disapproving once-over.

“Use mine,” he said, and slid one of his own blades down the table.

“Don’t - !” Merlin bit out again, then sighed and returned to the text he was copying after Daegal intercepted the blade without injury.

“Careful,” Will warned Daegal.  “It’s - ”

Pop.  Daegal startled out of his seat at the first enthusiastic slice of the knife, as the capsule burst and sent hundreds of tiny black seeds scattering in every direction, the dried granules rolling off the edge of the table and pouring onto the floor with a rain-like hiss.

Merlin sighed and rubbed his forehead.  Will picked up his own half-finished carving again and gestured at Merlin’s face.  “You’ve got a bit of ink on you, you know.”

Merlin shot him a flat look.  “Have I?”

“Yeah.  Just over your nose there.”

“Maybe it’s because you keep doing things that make me want to pull my hair out.”

Will gave Daegal a knowing grin across the table.  Daegal, doing his best to contain the spilled seeds, couldn’t help feeling pleased, even if the smile he offered to Will in return was slightly sheepish.  

“Do I?” Will asked Merlin, utterly unconcerned.  “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Stop giving him knives!” Merlin burst out, gesturing broadly at Daegal’s end of the table.

“He’s fine!” Will said.  “He’s a big lad.”

“And he’s making a big mess.”

“I’ll clean it up,” Daegal assured Merlin, scooping the runaway seeds into uncooperative piles.  “I didn’t think it would cut so well, is all.”

“You need better tools,” Will declared.  “Merlin, the man works for you.  Why haven’t you got him outfitted properly?”

Merlin opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, he was interrupted by a rap at the door.  “It’s open,” he called, frowning.  It was a bit late for visitors.

The door swung open, revealing Gwaine, who took only a single step into the physician’s chambers before pausing at the loud crunching sound under his boot.  “Hallo,” he said curiously, lifting up his foot.  “What’s all this, then?”  

“Seeds,” Daegal supplied helpfully, at the same time as Merlin grumbled, “Never mind.  Don’t come in; you’ll track it all over.”

Gwaine obliged, bowing at the waist in deference to Merlin’s directive.  “Don’t mind me,” he said.  “I only came by to see if you lot fancied an excursion.”

“What sort?”

“The lads and I are off to see the sunrise.  Thought you might like to join us.”

It was only after a moment’s confusion that Daegal realized Gwaine was talking about the tavern, in some sort of post-curfew, plausible deniability-laden way.  Daegal wiped seeds from his palms and looked hopefully between Will and Merlin, not daring to believe that they would say yes.  It wasn’t often Gwaine heard the word “no” from someone he’d propositioned, Daegal was willing to bet, but Daegal knew trying to drag Will and Merlin out of their nest two whole bells after curfew, especially when the weather had frosted all the windows, was an extremely optimistic maneuver, even for Gwaine.

Will, predictably, snorted, not even bothering to pretend he was interested.  Merlin did a better job of feigning regret, holding up the heavy text he was copying as if it explained everything.  “Can’t,” he said simply.  “Sorry.  Too much work.  Too late.  Too tired.  Too cold.”

“Any other excuses?” Gwaine asked, the corners of his mouth twitching up.  

“Pick whichever one you like best,” Merlin said, returning to scratch away at his manuscript.  “I’m comfy in here.”

Gwaine gestured amicably at Daegal.  “How about you, lad?”

Daegal’s eyes widened.  Merlin always made tavern nights with Gwaine sound legendary, and the fact that Will groaned every time they came up in conversation made them even more intriguing, but Will, in a surprisingly swift intervention, interrupted before Daegal could even open his mouth.  

“Not a chance,” he said, when Daegal tentatively started to rise from his chair.  “Sit down.”

Gwaine did not seem offended, but simply leaned against the doorframe and grinned in that careless way of his.  “Can’t the lad have a bit of fun?”

“Not with that lot.  Not at this hour.”

“I’ll look after him.”

“You?  By the time you’re done drinking you won’t know him from Bruta.”

Gwaine shrugged.  “Suit yourself.”  He pointed at Daegal.  “Invitation stands, lad.  Another time, maybe.”  

Daegal nodded wistfully, and Gwaine bade them farewell, departing.  Will, shaking his head, returned to his whittling, muttering, “Not ruddy likely.”  He brushed wood shavings off his knees, adding to the mess on the floor.  “Lunatic.”

“He’s a good lunatic,” Merlin said, absorbed in his copying.

“If you say so.”

“I could still go, maybe,” Daegal said.  “I could look after myself.”

Will raised his eyebrows.  “At the Rising Sun?  After curfew?  You’d wake up with your head in a snowbank.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Yes, you would,” Will said, not budging. “Don’t go courting trouble.  You’re too young for that crowd.”

Daegal scrunched up his nose.  He knew that in a contest of stubbornness, Will would win by a mile, but still - “I’m not too young.  I’m seventeen.”

Merlin’s head snapped up from his book, his copying abruptly forgotten.  “You’re sixteen.”

“No,” Daegal said, bewildered by Merlin’s sudden bizarre intensity.  “Seventeen.”

“Since when?”

“I had my birthday last month.”

“You what?”

Daegal, confused, looked between Merlin and Will, the latter of whom sighed.  “Oh, lor.”

“What?” Daegal asked.  “Have I - is that bad?”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Merlin demanded, ignoring Daegal’s question.

“I don’t know,” Daegal replied, taken aback.  He hadn’t even thought of it at the time.  What was there to think about?  It was just another day.  Sometimes he didn’t even remember his birthday had happened until it was already over.  Once he hadn’t remembered until the last week in January, when he’d taken a courier job and been forced to lie about his age.

Merlin looked incensed.  Will, by contrast, looked like he was trying not to laugh.  “Right, then,” he said, getting up and tucking his carving into his pocket.  “I’m off.  You two have fun.”

Daegal had an absurd urge to beg Will to sit back down, because Merlin was starting to get a frankly loony look on his face and Daegal did not understand what was the matter.  But Will just patted Daegal on the top of the head on his way out - tap tap - and let the door swing closed behind him.  

Merlin, his hands on his hips, assessed Daegal with narrowed eyes.  

“I’m sorry?” Daegal ventured, unsure what he was apologizing for.

Merlin pressed his lips together.  “You and him,” he said, pointing to the door where Will had just exited, “you’re two of a kind, you know that?”

Daegal did not know.  He had no idea what Merlin was talking about, in fact, and he was afraid to ask.  He did not exactly want to apologize again, though, because that felt sort of like apologizing for being like Will (although why Merlin seemed to think this was the case was a mystery).

“Right,” Merlin said after a moment.  “Not to worry.  I’ll take care of it.”

Daegal hesitated.  “Take care of what?”

Merlin sighed and shook his head, but did not answer.  Daegal decided that perhaps it would be best if he did not needle Merlin with further questions right now.  His mentor was acting very strange, and Daegal could not possibly imagine what had gotten him so worked up. 

He would just have to ask Will about it later.

As it turned out, Daegal did not have a chance to ask Will about it later.

The next day, Will did not come by.  The day after that, Merlin sent Daegal out to collect more dried seedpods to replace the ones Daegal had mangled, which took all afternoon and was exhausting enough for Daegal to go straight to his little chamber in the servants’ wing and flop into bed after supper.

The morning after that, he woke to find a smiling Elyan hovering barely two inches above his face.  

Daegal stifled a gasp and only just barely stopped himself from whacking Elyan across the nose.  He scrambled upright in the bed, his back pressed against the wall.  “El - Sir Elyan!  What - ”

“Good morning,” Elyan said, as if he could not possibly have been happier to have gotten almost-smacked in the face.  “Merlin sent me down.  Said it’s your birthday.”

Daegal goggled at him.  “My what?”

“Your birthday,” Elyan repeated.  “Isn’t it?”

Daegal shook his head, certain that he was still asleep.  “No.”

“Merlin said you might say that.”  Elyan whipped the covers off Daegal’s legs.  “Up you get.  It’s time for breakfast.”

Daegal shivered violently, his sleep clothes providing little protection against the cold.  “I don’t normally - I’m supposed to go and help Gaius - ”

“Not today.  You’ve been given the day off.”

Daegal stared.  “What for?”

Elyan chuckled.  “Still asleep in there, I see,” he remarked, tossing Daegal a shirt.  “It’s your birthday.  Haven’t I just said that?”

“It’s not, though,” Daegal said, feeling as if he were speaking a different language.   “My birthday’s in November.”

“Not this year, it isn’t.”  Elyan grinned.  “Get dressed.  We’ve got all sorts of things do today.”

When Elyan had said ‘all sorts of things,’ Daegal had not expected one of those things to be a full breakfast served in the King and Queen’s personal chambers, catered by the King and Queen’s personal serving staff, and attended by the King and Queen themselves.

“I didn’t know,” Daegal whispered frantically to Merlin, as Elyan ushered him inside the room.  “Why wouldn’t you tell me?  I would have worn something else!”

“You don’t have anything else,” Merlin shot back under his breath.  “Relax.  Arthur put his undershirt on back to front this morning; he’s hardly Sir Stylish.”

Daegal gave Merlin a panicked, pleading stare, but Merlin just plunked Daegal down in a seat and left to pour the drinks.

“We’ve been meaning to do this for ages,” the Queen told him, sitting down next to Elyan.  “Merlin keeps you very busy, doesn’t he?”

Daegal’s mouth was too dry to formulate any sort of reply.  Only a few short months ago this very same woman had been standing at Morgana’s elbow, plotting Arthur’s assassination, and at the time, Daegal had not even realized there was anything wrong with her.  There was, after all, nothing hard to believe about a servant-turned-queen who’d gotten a taste for power and decided to keep climbing the ladder, and while Merlin had always been very adamant that Daegal would never have believed this of Gwen if he had ever met her previously, it was hard for Daegal to look at her and not remember how she had willingly embraced the woman who later tried to murder Merlin and threatened to do the same to Daegal, if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.

Merlin, busy setting out the ewery on a sidetable, heard Gwen’s comment and spared Daegal the necessity of replying.  “Arthur keeps me very busy,” he said, directing a pointed look at the king.  “If you’d like me to arrange your subjects’ social schedules on top of my other duties, Sire, perhaps you ought to hire someone else to look after your washing.”

Arthur waved a hand.  “Guinevere likes that funny thing you do with my socks.”

“Guinevere,” corrected the Queen , “thinks her husband is perfectly capable of rolling his own socks, thank you.”  She smiled encouragingly at Daegal.  “But enough about the laundry.  We’d been meaning to have you round for a meal, to say thank you, and Merlin mentioned that it was your birthday, so we thought now would be the perfect time.”

Daegal barely even heard the bit about his birthday, instead fixated on what had come just before it.  Thank him?  What for?  He had nearly gotten the king killed.  

“Merlin tells us you’ve been helping Gaius?” Arthur prompted.  

Daegal nodded. 

“He’s a fine physician.  If you’re pursuing a path in the healing arts, you couldn’t ask for a better teacher.”

“Is that something you’re interested in?” Guinevere asked, warm interest written across her face.

Daegal’s eyes darted helplessly to Merlin, who nodded encouragingly.  Daegal cleared his throat.  “Er - I think so.  Maybe.  Merlin says I’m picking it up quickly.”

“Well, you’ve already saved one life,” Arthur said with a grin, gesturing at himself, “so if that’s any indication of your capabilities, I expect you’ll do well.”  He offered Daegal a platter of pastries.  “Tell us about your studies.”

The meal continued on in much the same fashion, with Gwen and Arthur asking Daegal questions and Elyan occasionally putting in a comment or two of his own.  Daegal did his best to answer honestly, even as he was plied with heaps of food, most of which was comprised of dishes he had never had the chance to try before and all of which flavors he was certain he would never be able to remember later, given how worked up he was.  Arthur was gracious and charming throughout, very unlike the man who often featured in Merlin’s grumbling suppertime complaints.  Elyan talked to Merlin as much as he did to either of the royal guests, which was probably a breach of some kind of protocol, though nobody seemed to mind.  And the Queen - the Queen looked exactly the same as she had when Daegal had first met her, minus the cloak and surreptitious glances, and if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought nothing had changed.  

Except - 

There came one moment, towards the end of the meal, when Merlin put a goblet down in front of Gwen with a playful and very exaggerated “Your Majesty,” and Gwen jabbed his knee with a fork under the table where Arthur couldn’t see, all the while both of them keeping their eyes locked on each other as if daring the other one to laugh first, and it was then that Daegal knew with absolute certainty that this was not the same woman he had met that night in the woods.  

“I hope you’ll accept this token of the Crown’s appreciation,” Arthur said to Daegal later, when they had finally finished their meal and risen from their chairs.  “You’ve done this kingdom a tremendous service, and I’m indebted to you.”  He passed Daegal a very official-looking bit of folded parchment stamped with the royal seal, which Daegal knew it would not be appropriate to open now.  He took it and bowed the way Merlin had shown him.

“And there’s something from me, too,” said Guinevere.  “Only it would have been a bit difficult to get it up the steps - Elyan will take you to see it instead.  I think you’ll find it useful, given that you’re apprenticing to our physicians.”

Daegal could not possibly imagine what on earth could have been so unwieldy that she could not get it up the stairs, but he bowed to her as well.  “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Thank you,” she said, in a more solemn voice.  “For helping, when I couldn’t help myself.”

Daegal straightened, hesitant.  Her eyes - it seemed ludicrous to Daegal, now, that he had not recognized the enchanted version of her for what it was.  That hollow shell had had no soul.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” he blurted out.  “I wish I could’ve done more.”

“You’ve done more than enough,” Arthur said, wrapping a steady arm around his wife’s shoulders.  “For both of us.  We owe you a great deal.”

Daegal bowed to both of them again, and Elyan escorted him to the door.  “Oh, and Daegal?” Gwen added.  

Daegal stumbled over his own feet trying to turn around.  “Your Majesty?”

She smiled at him.  “Happy birthday.”

“What did Arthur give you, then?” Elyan asked, once they were out in the street.

Daegal fingered the mystery envelope.  He did not know, and honestly, his head was spinning too much for him to even think about puzzling out a jumble of words right now, especially when he was only just learning his letters to begin with.

“Can I have a look?” Elyan asked, and Daegal willingly handed him the parchment.  Elyan slipped a finger under the seal and unfolded the document, parsing it with a speed Daegal had pretty much despaired of ever achieving for himself.

“Mm,” Elyan said.  “Thought so.  Typical kingly stuff.”

“What is it?” 

“Land grant,” Elyan said, handing back the parchment, and then, as if this were nothing to worry about, he turned and ambled into the stables.

Daegal stared after him.  “What?”   

“Land grant,” Elyan repeated.  “You know, like a knight’s fee.  For services rendered to the Crown.”  He wandered deeper down the central aisle of the stable, stalled horses on either side of him lifting their heads.  “Come on.  It’s through here.”

Stunned, Daegal followed him, his fingers clutching at the incomprehensible slip of parchment.  “I can’t own land,” he protested.  “I don’t own a second pair of shoes.”

“You do now.  Or you can afford to, at least.”  Elyan glanced back at Daegal.  “Don’t worry, it’s a small plot.  Just a little square out in the Sprawl.”

Outside the city walls, then.  “I don’t - what am I supposed to do with it?”

“You could live there.”

“But - ”  Daegal stared at Elyan’s back uncomprehendingly.  “I live in the Citadel.”

“Rent it?”

Daegal’s head was going to explode.  “Will says landlords are leeches,” he said faintly.

Elyan laughed.  “Herb garden?” he suggested.  “Merlin’s always sending you off to gods know where, searching for things you could grow yourself.”

Daegal hardly knew what to say to that, but Elyan stopped walking before Daegal could think of anything coherent.  “Here we are,” Elyan announced, clapping a hand down on top of a stall door to his left.  

A wave of misgiving flooded Daegal, temporarily wiping away the lingering shock of the land grant.  “Are we riding somewhere?”  

He had not considered this, and he did not want to admit that the only way he was going to be able to ride anywhere at all was on the back of someone else’s saddle.  He had never had access to a horse himself, and had only had the opportunity to ride twice in the past - the first occasion had been extremely brief, and the second had ended in him being thrown, so he was not quite sure that it counted.

“Not today,” Elyan said.  “Unless you count the training ring.”

“Sorry?”

“Merlin says you don’t know how to ride.”

“Yeah,” Daegal said.  He could feel himself turning red.  “I mean - no, I don’t know how.  Not well.  I don’t need to.  I don’t have a horse.”

“Didn’t have a horse,” Elyan said, as if making a correction.

“What?”

Elyan gestured at the stall they were standing next to.  “Couldn’t get her up the stairs.”

Daegal’s mouth popped open.  The creature Elyan was pointing to was a dark bay with an irregular, splotchy white blaze down her muzzle, her smooth coat appearing nearly black in the dim light of the stables.  She was stout and smoothly muscled, watching them with a calm, composed energy, and even as Daegal stared, she stretched her neck over the stall door and sniffed at Elyan’s hands, perhaps searching for any remnants of his recent breakfast.

“My sister,” Elyan said proudly, scratching the horse’s cheek, “is aces at presents.”

“She’s not for me,” Daegal croaked disbelievingly.

“Of course she is,” Elyan assured him.  “She’s the same stock as Merlin’s.  Steady temperament, friendly, not likely to spook.  Not like Arthur’s beasts.”

A horse, Daegal thought numbly.  A horse. 

“I can’t take this,” he mumbled.  “It’s too much.”

“Of course it’s not too much.  You saved the king’s life.”

I almost killed him! Daegal wanted to shout, but Elyan would not understand.  

“And you’ll need transportation, anyhow,” Elyan continued.  “You can’t be jogging along behind Merlin on foot.  Apprentices in the royal household have mounts, or they can’t do their work.”

Daegal bit the inside of his cheek.  “I don’t even know how to ride her.”

The horse cocked her ears in Daegal’s direction and swung her blocky head around to inspect him, her dark brown eyes sedate and trusting.  “What do you think we’re here to practice?” Elyan asked cheerfully, retrieving a halter and lead rope from a hook on the wall.  “Go on, say hello to her.”

Daegal’s hand came up of its own accord, hovering in the air below his new mount’s nose.  She lipped at his fingers curiously.  “Hello,” Daegal breathed.

He didn’t deserve her.  He knew he didn’t.  

But he was falling in love with her anyway.

It was a very windswept and breathless Daegal who climbed off his horse later that day and ran to greet Merlin at the fence.  

Evening was coming on, and the temperature had sunk as quickly as the sun, but Daegal did not even notice the stiffness in his fingers or the tightness in his cheeks.  He was too carried away with the elation of riding, and the dizzying knowledge that he now had the means to go anywhere he wanted, anytime, without begging for rides in the back of strangers’ wagons.  Months ago he would have killed for this kind of ability to roam.  

It was strange, now that he finally had the freedom to run away whenever he pleased, that he no longer felt he had anything to run away from.

“Having fun?” Merlin asked, elbows resting on the fence.

Daegal did not think fun was the right word.  There was just no good way to explain that he felt like a menagerie bear whose shackles had slipped, or a noblewoman’s bird escaping out a cracked window.  “It’s brilliant,” he said, settling for a completely inadequate adjective.  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

“And he’s good at it!” Elyan put in, walking Daegal’s horse over to the gate.  “We’ve only been out here one day and he’s got her cantering already - I think this beast is talking to him.”

If Daegal’s cheeks had not been whipped rosy by the wind already, they were certainly turning pink now.  “No,” he said to Merlin, “not - talking to me.  Obviously not.  Just - I sort of feel like I understand her, is all.”

Merlin did not seem to think this was strange at all, and produced a chunk of some sort of winter root vegetable from his coat, offering it to the horse.  She snapped it up eagerly.  “Animals talk,” Merlin said, shrugging.  “It’s people as don’t know how to listen that get kicked in the nethers.”  

He untied the gate for Elyan, who led the horse through it and started up the path back to the stables proper.  “How was your day?” Merlin asked Daegal, as the three of them walked, Elyan leading the horse on one side, and Merlin and Daegal on the other.

Daegal had to think before answering.  It had been, by a wide margin, the strangest day he had ever experienced in Camelot, starting with Elyan’s surprise appearance that morning and punctuated by a number of other unexpected visitors.  Leon had arrived in the stables not long after Elyan and Daegal, bringing with him a collection of exquisitely embroidered tack (“Part of Her Majesty’s gift,” he’d explained), and then he’d spent the next hour walking Daegal through the various bits and pieces, guiding him through the process of putting them on his mount and taking them off again.  Percival had dropped by with his own mount and accompanied Daegal on a slow ride outside the ring, along the edge of the woods - Elyan had ridden in the saddle behind Daegal, just to be safe, but he had not had to take the reins from Daegal once, and they had gone on a nice plodding walk around the frostbitten perimeter of what would be fairgrounds, come summer.  Even Mordred had made a brief appearance, in his oddly intense way - apparently out for a ride of his own, watching Elyan and Daegal lungeing Daegal’s mount for a few minutes, before nodding to the both of them and continuing on his way, his own horse cresting the hill so smoothly that it appeared as if it were not touching the ground.

“It was strange,” Daegal decided.

Merlin walked along beside him, his boots crunching on the frostbitten grass.  “Why?”

“I don’t know.  All these people - ”  Daegal paused, brushing a hand against his horse’s flank.  “I don’t see why they’re taking an interest.”

“It’s your birthday,” Merlin replied.  “People are supposed to make a fuss.”

Daegal was not sure about that.  It had not ever been his experience in the past, at least.  “It’s not really my birthday, though.”

“Only because I didn’t know about it.”

They continued walking, Daegal worrying at his lip.  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said abruptly, after a minute.

“You’re not enjoying yourself?”

Daegal shook his head quickly.  “I am.”  Too much, he thought.  His exhilaration at being taught how to ride had driven it from his mind for a while, but now - 

Elyan waved to someone up ahead, interrupting Daegal’s thoughts.  There in the stableyard was Gwaine, lounging against the edge of the open doors, dressed not in his crimson surcoat but in plain clothes, and tossing a small pouch from hand to hand.  

“You’re early,” Merlin called to him.  “We’ve still got to groom and water this creature.”

“I thought I was supposed to be in charge of the watering,” Gwaine replied, which seemed like a very odd thing to say.  “Wasn’t that the plan?”

“I’m talking about the horse.”

Gwaine pushed himself off the wall, joining the little group as they entered the yard.  “Our guest of honor,” he said, indicating Daegal.  “This fellow’s been doing our job for us, Elyan.  Saving the king is knight’s work, isn’t it?”

Elyan led the horse past Gwaine with a smirk.  “How would you know?  You’ve never done a bit of it.”

Gwaine shook his head, glancing at Daegal in a comradely way.  “Why does everybody think I only took this job for the food?” 

Daegal, who had only rarely interacted with Gwaine before, did not know what to answer, but Merlin saved him the trouble.  “Because we know you,” he said, and then smiled when Gwaine gave him a crooked grin.

That was utter nonsense.  Even Daegal knew that Gwaine had nearly died during Morgana’s occupation, specifically while fighting to keep a number of his fellow prisoners from starving - but Merlin and Gwaine were a bit like Merlin and Will in that way, at least to Daegal’s limited experience, wherein Gwaine did not always want people to see him for what he truly was, and Merlin always chose to see him anyway, if only from behind a mutually agreed-upon smokescreen of affectionate teasing.

“Well, let’s hurry it up,” Gwaine said, tossing his little bag in the air.  “I’d like to get on with my bit.”

His bit?  

Gwaine paused in front of the empty stall while Elyan gathered what they would need for a post-ride grooming.  “I hear it’s your birthday,” Gwaine said to Daegal, and then before Daegal could explain that it wasn’t, exactly, Gwaine handed Daegal the little leather bag.  “There’s for you, then.”

Daegal, surprised, loosened the cinched string at the top of the pouch and tipped the contents into his other hand.  Out tumbled four dice, the smoothly-carved cubes clacking against one another as they fell into Daegal’s palm.  

Daegal looked up at Gwaine, confused.

“I thought you could use them,” Gwaine said.  

“For what?”

Gwaine grinned and exchanged a knowing look with Merlin.  “My bit.”

Daegal stared at at the dice in his hand, then snapped his gaze up to Merlin, suddenly seized by a burst of excitement.  “Are we - ”

Merlin held up a finger.  “On three conditions,” he declared, obviously trying not to smile.  

Daegal closed his fingers tightly around the dice, trying not to appear too eager.

“One: you’re going to untack and groom your mount.  The stablehands will do that for you, when you ride out with our party, but she’s your responsibility.  You have to know how to take care of her.”

Daegal had no objections to that.  He already loved this horse better than anything he’d ever owned.

“Two: weak drinks only.”

We’ll see, Gwaine mouthed behind Merlin.

“Three - ”  Merlin held up a third finger.  “You leave when I leave.  Will’s right about the after-curfew crowd.  That’s a sort of trouble you don’t need.”  He looked expectantly at Daegal.  “Agreed?”

“Agreed.”  Daegal nodded fervently.  “Is it - who’s coming?”  

“Everybody!” Elyan supplied happily, uncinching the horse’s girth.  “You saved our king.  We owe you a night out.”   

Merlin, who had perhaps understood Daegal’s question better, said, “Everybody who likes drinks and dicing and general uproar.” 

This statement prompted appreciative, anticipatory grins from Gwaine and Elyan, and Daegal refrained from asking any follow-up questions, having understood the answer perfectly well.  He had been working with Merlin long enough to know that if there were one thing Will avoided more assiduously than King Arthur, it was large groups of loud people losing their heads over absolutely nothing.

“Let’s get started, then,” Gwaine said.  “D’you think you can untack this beast and learn the rules to Hazard at the same time?”

Daegal stuffed the dice into his pocket and grasped the bridle’s noseband buckle.  “I can try.”

Gwaine grinned wolfishly.  “That’s just what I like to hear.”

They ended up staying a bit later than they’d intended. 

By the time Merlin finally had the sense to bring the evening to a close, Daegal had turned the single half-penny he had started with into several silver pieces (“Alchemy!” Gwaine had proclaimed triumphantly, knocking his cup into Daegal’s so that some of the drink had sloshed over), and Daegal had become very popular with some of the tavern regulars, who were beyond tickled to see a seventeen year-old boy flatten strangers’ smug expectations of victory.  Daegal had not won every time, of course, but he had gotten extremely lucky at several critical moments and had at the very end miraculously thrown his chance number twice, after the odds had already been declared heavily against him (and thus after the other players had upped their contribution to Daegal’s stake with the expectation that he would lose).

Merlin had pulled Daegal from the game after that, sitting him back down at the knights’ table, which was piled high with food and drink.  “First lesson,” he’d said, offering Daegal a very watered-down ale, “and one you won’t learn from Gwaine - quit while you’re ahead.” 

They had stayed for a long time after that, socializing and eating their fill, until Merlin had finally seemed to take notice of the time (or perhaps of the slightly seedy-looking characters who had started to wander in through the back entrance).  Merlin, at that point, had prompted Daegal to gather his winnings, say his goodbyes, and make his exit, pursued by a chorus of enthusiastic farewells from the knights, none of whom showed any sign of abandoning their seats anytime soon.

Stepping out into the night air was like diving into a frozen moat.  Daegal drew his cloak tighter around his torso as he and Merlin wound their way through the town.  The Rising Sun’s interior had been as stiflingly hot as its namesake, overflowing with a press of bodies and thrumming with a constant cacophony of conversation, and even from the outside its closed shutters leaked driblets of light and noise, as if the building were bursting at the seams.  The town, by contrast, was stone-silent and frigid, everybody shut up in their homes waiting for the weak light of morning. 

“You did well,” Merlin said, as they approached the citadel.  “You’re sure you’ve never played Hazard before?”

Daegal shook his head.  His mother would never have let him, before, and after - 

He pushed that thought away, watching his breath mist in front of his face.  He’d never had enough money to gamble with after that, that was all.

“You weren’t helping me, were you?” Daegal asked Merlin.

“No, you got lucky.”  Merlin chuckled.  “The look on that fellow’s face...”

Daegal smiled faintly, remembering.  Daegal had taken rather a lot of money from a beefy, belligerent fellow who had been bothering everybody all night, which had resulted in a vastly improved tavern experience for all when the man had stormed out in a rage, and which had also earned a round of free drinks for Daegal’s table.  “He wasn’t too pleased, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t.  Not quite the sort of evening he was expecting to have, I don’t think.”

They walked on, approaching the retracted drawbridge, and detoured to the parallel pedestrian crossing instead, passing through the smaller door to the bridge’s left and entering the courtyard, Merlin offering a hello to the familiar guards as they went.

“How does it feel to be older?” Merlin asked, as they crossed the darkened square.

Daegal shrugged.  “I don’t know.  The same, I suppose.”

But that wasn’t exactly true, Daegal thought, as they entered the base of the North Tower.  Last year, things had been very different.  A few months ago, he could never have dreamed of the sort of day he’d been having today.  And now - 

He hesitated at the bottom of the stair leading to the physician’s chambers.  Merlin, oblivious to the fact that Daegal was not right behind him, kept climbing.  

“Why are you doing all this?” Daegal asked.  His voice sounded strange in his own ears, or maybe that was just a function of the echo in the hollow space, his words bouncing off the stone shell on either side of him.

Merlin turned around, surprised to see Daegal still standing at the bottom of the stairs.  “All what?”

Daegal made an uncertain gesture.  “This.  All these things today...I don’t understand.”

“It’s your birthday,” Merlin said, as if that made any sense at all.

“It’s not, though,” Daegal said.  “Even if it were, I don’t see - I mean, it doesn’t matter.”  He shrugged uncomfortably.  “Who cares?”

Merlin stared levelly at Daegal.  “I do,” he said.

A long silence ensued.  Daegal could not possibly have formulated a reply to this even if he’d known what to say, but Merlin did not ask him to respond, instead descending a few steps and putting a hand on Daegal’s elbow, nudging him up the staircase.  “Come on,” he said quietly.  “It’s late.”

Daegal followed him without a word, stunned and silent, seven stories straight up.

“Isn’t it a bit past your bedtime, old man?” Merlin said, immediately upon opening the doors to the physician’s chambers.  

Daegal, trailing behind, thought this was a very unusual way for Merlin to address Gaius, but as he peered around Merlin’s shoulder, he realized it was not Gaius to whom Merlin was speaking, but Will, who was sitting by the little hearthfire at the left of the room with his feet propped up on a stool.  

“No,” Will replied, though he did look like he was ready to doze off.  “It might be a bit past Arthur’s, though.”

Merlin swore and stopped dead in the doorway.  “He sent somebody up?”

“Several somebodies.”

“What did you tell them?

Will waved an unconcerned hand.  “I don’t remember.”   

“Will - ”

“Isn’t he waiting for you to turn down his sheets or something?”

“Did you tell them I was at the tavern?”

Will smirked.  

Merlin, cursing under his breath, took Daegal by the upper arms and maneuvered him into the room.  “Drink some water.  Kip on the patient cot - you’re up early collecting pots with Gaius tomorrow; you might as well sleep here.”  He tore off his outerwear and dumped it on a table.  “You,” he said to Will, “on the other hand, can go home, you ass.”

Will tipped his chair back, cupping a hand to his ear.  “What’s that?  ‘Have my bed, William’?  All right, if you say so.”

Merlin flashed Will a rude gesture before tearing out of the room.  Daegal caught the door before it could slam and closed it carefully, so as not to disturb Gaius, who was sleeping behind the screens that had been drawn around his corner.

Will rose from his seat with a yawn, stretching.  “So you had your evening out at last.”

Daegal did not answer him, his mind still trapped back there in the stairwell with Merlin.  I do, he heard again, as he struggled to untie his cloak.  I do.  

“Was it everything you thought it would be?”

Daegal managed to undo the knot, his fingers clumsy with cold.  He pulled his cloak from his shoulders and folded it slowly, first in half, then in fours, and then laid it aside before doing the same with Merlin’s rumpled jacket, single-mindedly focused on his task.

“I hope you at least took something off Gwaine.  Fellow’s too cocky for his own good.”

Daegal, out of things to fold, stared at his hands.  Will came closer, scrutinizing Daegal in the low light.  “How much did you have to drink?” 

Daegal stuck his hands into his pockets, avoiding Will’s gaze.  Not much, was the true answer, but he couldn’t find the words.  

He fingered the coins in his pocket, the silver pieces cold and clinking against one another.  

“Oi,” Will said, frowning.  He tipped Daegal’s chin up to see his eyes.  “You all right in there?”

Morgana had given Daegal a sack of coins just like this, once.

Daegal yanked his hands out of his pockets as if he had been burned, jerking back from Will’s fingers.  

“This is wrong,” he blurted out.

Will blinked at him.  “Sorry?”

“I can’t do this.  It’s - I can’t.  It’s not right.”

“What isn’t?”

“Everything!  The birthday, the money, the tavern, the riding - ”  Daegal's voice was rising, but he could not rein himself in.  He had been trying to tell this to someone all day.  “The horse, the land, breakfast - ”

Will stared at him, confounded.  “Breakfast?”

Daegal struggled mightily not to holler in frustration.  Will, of all people, ought to have understood, but it appeared he was committed to being just as obtuse as everyone else.  “Yes!  I don’t deserve it; it isn’t right - ”

Will’s eyebrows shot up.  He did not give Daegal another chance to wake Gaius, but planted a hand on Daegal’s shoulder and spun him around, muttering, “Go,” in a low voice, pushing Daegal away from Gaius’s sleeping area in the direction of Merlin’s chambers.  Daegal allowed himself to be marched up the little staircase, Will following, until they were both in Merlin’s room, the small chamber chilly and cloaked with shadows, lit only by a single hanging candle.  

Closing the door, Will turned back to Daegal.  “Start over,” he commanded.

Daegal whipped out Arthur’s envelope.  “The King - he gave me a land grant.”

Will snatched the piece of parchment out of Daegal’s hand, scanning it briefly.  “So?” he said, discarding the envelope onto Merlin’s desk.  “He can afford it.”

“But it’s - ”

“Nothing he’ll miss.”

“But - ”

“But what?”

“The Queen - ”

“What about her?”

“She gave me a horse.”

Will shrugged.  “And?”

“It’s too much!  I can’t - ”

“Are you planning to thank her for it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to take care of it?”

“Of course!”

“Then what’s the trouble?  She wanted you to have it.”

“She gave it to me for the wrong reasons!” Daegal exclaimed frustratedly.  “She kept saying I helped her, but I didn’t do anything.  I didn’t even know she needed help.  I thought she wanted the throne for herself - ”

“You stopped her killing her husband,” Will said, interrupting.  “You saved his life.”

“I didn’t save him.  I almost killed him.  I’m the reason he needed help in the first place.  But all of them are acting like - ”  Daegal thought back to earlier that night, to Elyan, who had shown Daegal how to calculate Hazard odds in his head; to Leon, who had spoken to Daegal like one of the adults; to Percival, who had taught Daegal the less savory lyrics to the tavern’s favorite drinking songs; and to Gwaine, who had murmured advice in Daegal’s ear while Daegal cast his dice.  “They kept saying I’d done their job for them.  They - ”  

A horrible, hollow feeling bloomed in Daegal’s chest, strangling his voice.  He pulled the coins out of his pocket and dumped them onto Merlin’s desk, not wanting to carry that cold weight for another moment.  “They don’t know me.  They don’t know what I’m like.”

Will watched him closely, his eyes narrowing.  “What are you like?”  

Daegal shook his head and sank down onto Merlin’s bed, staring at the floor.  He didn’t want to say it.  He shouldn’t need to say it.  Will already knew the whole story; Daegal shouldn’t have needed to retread all the ugly details.  

Will folded his arms, leaning back against the top of Merlin’s desk.  The single candle did very little to illuminate his set expression, but the moonlight in the window behind him threaded his silhouette with silver.

“I shouldn’t have said anything about my birthday,” Daegal murmured, his voice thick.  “I should have just kept it quiet.  That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

Will frowned.  “Who said that?”

“Merlin.  When I didn’t mention my birthday - he said you were - well, he said we were two of a kind.”

Will shook his head.  “I don’t hide my birthday.”

“I think you must,” Daegal said stubbornly, returning to his intense inspection of the floorboards.  “Because I don’t even know when it is.”

“Neither do I.”

Daegal looked up, surprised.  “What?”

“I don’t know when my birthday is.”

“Why - ”

Will lifted a finger repressively, and Daegal realized he was not going to be getting that part of the story tonight, or maybe ever.  “It doesn’t matter,” Will said.  “I don’t care.  I don’t fancy it much, anyhow.  It’s nothing to me.  Merlin, though - ”  He gestured at the room around them, at the mussed bedclothes and the stacked manuscripts and the sketched diagrams pasted to the walls.  “He doesn’t like it when I say things like that.  It bothers him.  He’s got ideas about how these things are supposed to be done, and he thinks it’s wrong, not telling me happy birthday, even if I’d rather he just left it alone.”

Daegal had no trouble believing it, if Merlin’s reaction to Daegal’s skipped birthday were anything to go by.  “But then - ”  Daegal frowned.  “He mustn’t know when your birthday is, either.”

“My birthday,” Will said, in a long-suffering way, “is whenever Merlin decides he wants it to be.  He comes crawling into my cott at some godsforsaken hour of the morning on whatever personally convenient day he’s picked that year, and then he yanks me out of bed and feeds me too much food and drags me all over creation doing the sort of things he thinks I’ll like doing.  I’ve been telling him to drop it for more years than you’ve been alive, but he never listens.  It doesn’t matter how much I whinge about it.  He never forgets.  He can’t help himself.  He thinks it’s important, telling people he’s happy they were born, even if they don’t think being born was such a fantastic thing themselves.”  

Will gestured at Daegal.  “If you’re going to be one of his people now, you’re going to have to get used to that.  You don’t have to like it, but you’ve got to understand it.  That’s who he is.  That’s how he treats people.  He won’t give you a pass on birthday fuss just because you don’t think you’re worth fussing over.  He’s not built that way.”

Daegal heard Merlin’s words again, echoing against the frozen stones of the stairwell.  Who cares? Daegal had asked.  

I do.

He twisted his fingers together.  Out in the physician’s chamber proper, Gaius was snoring.  

“It’s not just Merlin, though,” Daegal said finally, in a soft voice.  “Everybody - all of them are doing too much.”

“Too much how?”

“They keep thanking me.  But the gifts are - I didn’t earn them.  I don’t deserve them.”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t need anyone to tell me; I know.”  Daegal stared at Will, helpless to explain why Will’s inability to accept this simple truth made him feel so utterly lost at sea.  “I don’t understand this.  You’re the one who kept saying I did something wrong.”

“You did do something wrong,” Will replied, as if this entire line of discussion were so obvious that it did not need to be examined.  “But you did something right, too.”

“I - ”

Will held up a hand.  “Who was it nearly got themselves killed saving Pendragon’s gleaming hide?  Who was it betrayed Morgana?”

“Me, but - ”

“Who was it came back to save Merlin’s life?”

“From something I did to him in the first place.”

“From something Morgana did to him,” Will corrected.

“I helped,” Daegal retorted.  “You’re always saying - you said I need to take responsibility.”

“You do,” Will said.  “For all your choices.  Not just the shyte ones.”  He gestured at the door, back towards the rest of the castle.  “You saved two lives.  You nearly got yourself killed doing it.  That’s what they’re all thanking you for.  It’s not about what you did for yourself; it’s what you did for everyone else, when you didn’t have to.  You didn’t have to come back for Merlin.  You didn’t have to follow him to Camelot.  You could have just taken Morgana’s money and run.”

“I tried,” Daegal confessed, his mouth very dry.  “I tried.  I couldn’t do it.”

“Why not?” Will said, as if he already knew the answer.

“I just - couldn’t.”  Daegal remembered it with a nightmarish clarity, hesitating in the thickness of the undergrowth as the encroaching night muddled his vision, knowing that Merlin was suffocating at the bottom of a muddy ravine where no one would ever find his body.  “I felt like something was going to swallow me.  I would’ve rather died than felt like that all the time.”

“That’s because you know what’s right and what’s wrong,” Will said, as if he had been waiting for Daegal to say this all along.  “And you chose right.”

“I chose wrong first.”

Will shook his head.  “Lots of people choose wrong first.  Doesn’t mean that what you choose next doesn’t matter.”

Daegal played with the hem of his sleeve, wrapping a fraying thread around his finger.  Will pushed himself up from the desk and dragged Merlin’s chair over to a spot across from Daegal, then sat down.  “Listen here,” he said.  “I can’t say I’d be too pleased to get a load of gifts that I didn’t think I ought to have, either.  But you can’t give them back, and you can’t convince people that you don’t deserve them, either.”  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.  “You’ve got to just smile, and say thank you, and do your best to be worthy of everyone’s gifts.”

Daegal absorbed this, nodding slowly.  “I’m trying.”

“I know you are,” Will said.  “And so does everyone else.”  Will met Daegal’s gaze unflinchingly, his outline illuminated at the edges by the moon at his back.  “Don’t you ever tell me that lot doesn’t know what you’re like.  They know it better than you do.”

Daegal swallowed, not trusting himself to speak.  

“Now then,” Will said, linking his hands behind the back of his chair and stretching out his arms.  “This is rubbish timing, but you’ve got to start practicing sometime, so let’s just get it over with.”  He withdrew a thin, utensil-sized package from his pocket, extending it to Daegal.  “Don’t have a crisis, now.”

“Oh - no - ” Daegal moaned.

“Oi,” Will warned.  “What’ve we just talked about?”

Daegal took the parcel.

“Smile and say thank you,” Will prompted, when Daegal did not say anything right away.

Daegal managed a wobbly smile, and an even wobblier thank you, which Will, to Daegal’s very great relief, chose not to comment upon.

Daegal untied the parcel.  The cloth casing fell away, revealing a short and sturdy pocketknife encased in a plain leather sheath.  Daegal picked it up and turned it over in his hands, knowing immediately that Will had carved the handle himself.  It fit into Daegal’s hand as if it had been moulded from a plaster cast, and it was the only part of the knife sporting any decoration, inscribed as it was with an angular script that Daegal could not read in this light.  Daegal removed the sheath and found that the blade had been sharpened to a dangerous edge, the point glinting in the moonlight.

“Elyan did that bit,” Will said.  “It ought to hold an edge better than what you have now.”

“No more mashing seed pods,” Daegal murmured.

“Exactly.”

Daegal ran a finger over the symbols carved into the handle.  He hadn’t learned all his letters yet, but he thought he ought to have been able to recognize a few of them, at least.  “What’s this writing?”

“Oh, that,” Will said, as if he had almost forgotten.  “It’s spelled.”

“Spelled?”

“Magicked.  Against slips.  To spare your fingers.”  Will waggled his own fingers in the air, and Daegal had to laugh a little.

“Merlin?”

Will’s face took on a thoughtful look.  “No, actually.”  He pointed at the unfamiliar runes, his tone becoming more serious.  “Mordred says that if you’re going to exploit his people for personal gain, then you’re going to learn something about the culture.”

Daegal froze.  A chill ran through him.  He had never even considered - 

He gripped the inscribed handle with sweaty fingers, mortified.  “He’s angry with me.”

“No,” Will said.  “I don’t think so, at least.  It’s hard to tell with that fellow.”

At Daegal’s dismayed look, Will added, “He offered to spell the thing himself, at least, so I can’t imagine he’s too upset with you.  But he has every right to be, you realize that?”

Daegal nodded quickly.     

“You’re going to go and see him,” Will said, his voice calm, but his tone brooking no argument.  “And you’re going to apologize, and you’re going to listen to whatever it is he wants to tell you.  You understand?”

“Yes,” Daegal said quickly.  “I’ll do it.”  He glanced at the door.

“Not now,” Will clarified.  “Tomorrow.  He might not be angry just yet, but he will be if you yank him out of bed a few hours before he’s supposed to be on patrol.”

Daegal’s shoulders sagged.  Will was right, but Daegal could not stand the thought of waiting.  Yet another guilt-monster was chewing a hole in his stomach, and he was starting to think those gnawing teeth would never let him sleep.  He recalled, suddenly, with a fresh wave of horror, the outrage on Merlin’s face when Daegal’s falsified triskele had smeared away, how tightly Merlin’s fingers had dug into Daegal’s wrist.  

Here was one more stupid thing Daegal had done.  One more person he’d injured.  One more wrongheaded decision.  

His eyes drifted longingly towards the door again.  

“No,” Will said, shaking his head.  “You made that bed, now you lie in it for one night.”  

Daegal sighed, and Will’s tone softened.  “You’ll make it right in the morning,” he said.

Daegal traced one of the Druidic runes with a finger.  He supposed that was the best he could do.

Will stood up and beckoned for Daegal to join him.  “Listen,” he said, pushing Merlin’s chair back under the desk.  “It’s late.  I don’t want you up all night brooding over this, all right?”

“All right,” Daegal said, but he had a feeling he was in for yet another night of lying awake under a blanket of guilt he had woven for himself.

“And - not that this needs to be said, but let’s not tell anyone you’ve got a magic pocketknife, all right?  Pendragon will think I’ve been messing about with enchantments behind his back, and he’ll have me booted out of this kingdom faster than you can say insufferable bastard.”

“But you don’t have - ”

“Yes, I do,” Will reminded Daegal, giving him a significant look.  “And that’s exactly what you’re going to tell people, if anybody starts asking questions.”  He opened Merlin’s door, ushering Daegal through it.  “But let’s not give folk a reason to ask, all right?  Otherwise the next person trying to kill the king might be me, because if Pendragon wants me out of this place he’s going to have to execute me and exile my corpse, no matter if I did sign a stupid promise ‘renouncing the practice of magic in all its forms,’ or whatever other rubbish that idiot asked me to agree to.”

Daegal followed Will across the main chamber, watching while Will pulled on his outerwear.  “I’m guessing he never gave you a land grant, then?”

Will burst into laughter, leaning heavily on the door handle.  He only remembered to clap a hand over his mouth when a slumbering Gaius snorted and rolled over.  “Oh, lor,” he wheezed, trying to recover himself.  “Don’t do that to me.”  

Daegal smiled sheepishly.  Will straightened up, his eyes creased with pure, undisciplined mirth.  “You won’t let all those fancy presents go to your head, now, will you?”

“I won’t,” Daegal promised.   “But - about Arthur’s gift, though.  I don’t actually know what to do with a plot of land.”

“Neither does Arthur,” Will said, rolling his eyes.  “But I do, and so does Merlin.  We’ll work it out together, all right?”

“All right,” Daegal said, as Will unlatched the door.  “Erm.  Will - ”

“Yeah.”

Smile and say thank you.  “Thank you,” Daegal said, trying on a smile for size, hoping it did not falter too much at the corners.  “For the knife, and - everything else.”

Will regarded him in that way of his that was very off-putting when you did not want to be read like a book but somehow oddly useful when you were trying to communicate something unspoken.  “You’re welcome,” Will said finally, surprising Daegal by reaching out and mussing his hair.  “See?  You’ve got the hang of things already.”

Will turned to go, but when he reached the top of the staircase he paused, glancing back.  “And, listen - ” he said, his voice low enough not to wake Gaius, but somehow warm enough to push back the December chill.  “Whether you like it or not - happy birthday, lad.”

Daegal sat tucked away in one of the window nooks, his cloak wrapped around him like a blanket and the glass casement leaching heat away from his side.  Merlin was long since abed, and Gaius’s muffled snores filled the main chamber, a soft drone of sound behind the screens.  Outside, the moon hung chubby and ovoid in the sky, like a pale seed on a black field of soil, like the bulbs Daegal would plant in his new garden, which was out there somewhere, nestled in the farming fields of the Sprawl.

He rubbed his thumb over the unfamiliar runes carved into the handle of his birthday blade.  His sixteen year-old self would have thrown that knife away, just to be safe.  There would have been no reason for him to believe that someone he’d injured would ever magick a gift for him just to be helpful, and sixteen year-old Daegal would have assumed that the spell “to spare his fingers” was in fact a curse to make sure they all fell off.  

But seventeen year-old Daegal was determined not to think like that anymore.  He was not going to think the worst of everyone who tried to help him, and he was not going to throw away gifts, whether he thought he deserved them or not.  He was going to smile, and say thank you, and do his best to be worthy of what he’d been given.

He leaned his forehead against the cold glass, looking down at the flickering lights on the city walls and the dark countryside beyond.  The Sprawl’s rolling jumble of cottages and fields melted into a shadowy sea of forest, and far away, the looming bulk of the White Mountains towered over the skyline, the peaks’ black silhouettes only distinguishable at this hour by an absence of stars.  

It was a very big world, Daegal thought, following the craggy outline of the range with his eyes.  And he had made plenty of bad decisions blundering around within its borders, that was certain.  But there was something beautiful about it still, even in the dead of winter.  

And it was not nearly as bleak as it had appeared to be, this time last year.  

Seventeen was going to be different, Daegal told himself.  Like Merlin always said.  It won’t always be like this.  Things will be better.  Daegal could make them better.  He had chosen wrong first, but he could choose right next.  He could choose right from now on.  He had made a mistake, but he could make it right in the morning.  

And tonight - tonight, it was still his birthday.

It isn’t, his sixteen year-old self snapped.  

“It is,” Daegal said.  “It’s my birthday.”

Who cares, the voice scoffed.

Daegal wrapped his fingers around his unearned mark of forgiveness, the grooves of the rune-etched handle imprinting themselves into his skin.  “I do,”  he said firmly, putting every ounce of conviction he had behind the words.  “I do.”

His younger self shut its mouth.

Daegal smiled slightly.  “Happy birthday to me,” he murmured, and was surprised to find that for the first time in a long time, he actually meant it.  

Curled up against the window, he tucked his knife against his side and fixed his eyes on the horizon, settling in to wait for the sun.