Arthur spent the early hours of the day moving where he was needed most.
Not because anyone ordered him to but because it felt wrong to remain idle when work surrounded him.
He helped carry grain into storage, steadied a ladder while a cracked beam along the barn roof was repaired, and hauled water from the well when the buckets ran dry.
No one praised him for it and no one questioned it either.
He was simply there, another pair of hands among many, and that seemed enough.
As the morning wore on, Arthur found himself watching the people around him as much as the work itself.
How tasks were divided not evenly, but sensibly. How arguments rarely escalated, ending instead with a few sharp words and an unspoken understanding.
How Ector moved through the estate without issuing commands, listening more than he spoke, yet somehow ensuring things were done.
Leadership without force.
The thought lingered longer than it should have.
When a younger boy struggled beneath a sack of grain nearly half his size, Arthur stepped in without thinking. He adjusted the grip, shifted the weight, and guided him forward.
"Like this," Arthur said quietly. "If you fight it, you'll lose it try to Balance it instead."
The boy nodded, breathing easier as they walked.
Arthur didn't wait for thanks. He simply returned to his place beside the barn, unease stirring faintly in his chest.
He hadn't planned that.
He had just… known.
---
By midmorning, the ache in his shoulders reminded him he was still a child still small, still growing. He wiped sweat from his brow and headed toward the outer pasture, where a section of fence had begun to sag.
Months had passed since he first woken in this place. Long enough for routine to dull the shock.
Long enough for this body too short, too light, too young to begin feeling like his own.
That realization unsettled him more than the soreness ever had.
Arthur worked in silence, hammering the posts back into place. The rhythm was familiar now. Hammer, Adjust, and Hammer again. Each strike grounded him, kept his thoughts from drifting too far.
They drifted anyway.
Sometimes, impressions surfaced without warning.
The imagined weight of armor heavier than any tool he had ever lifted. The sense of steel balanced perfectly in his hands, though he had never wielded more than a wooden training sword. The image of blood drying too slowly on metal, as if the world itself hesitated to let it fade.
They were not memories, Not truly.
They came without context and vanished just as abruptly, leaving behind only unease.
Arthur paused, resting his forehead briefly against the fence post. He breathed in, out, until the sensation passed.
What remained were the things he trusted.
Kay's sharp laughter when Arthur missed a swing and struck his thumb instead. The sting of embarrassment that followed. Ector's steady voice reminding him to slow down, to breathe, to try again.
Those memories were solid. Present. Real.
"You're doing it wrong."
Arthur didn't look up. He already knew who it was.
"Then feel free to demonstrate," he replied.
Kay leaned against the fence, arms crossed, contributing nothing. "I would, but someone has to supervise you."
Arthur snorted. "You haven't supervised anything in your life."
"Incorrect," Kay said smugly. "I supervise you constantly. It's exhausting."
Despite himself, Arthur smiled.
They worked together in uneven silence Arthur fixing fences, Kay passing tools when asked, offering commentary regardless. It felt normal, Comfortably so.
And that too unsettled Arthur.
He had lived long enough now to notice the pattern. When he stopped thinking about who he was or who he might have been things felt easier... lighter and almost peaceful.
But the peace never lasted.
---
Merlin appeared sometime in the afternoon, as he always did without warning and without explanation, At one moment the field was empty.And the next, he was perched atop the fence Arthur had just finished repairing, white hair bright against the sky, expression infuriatingly amused.
Arthur stiffened.
He did not know who the man was, Only that he never appeared by accident.
"You've improved," Merlin said lightly. "Less flailing."
"I wasn't flailing," Arthur replied flatly.
"You were," Merlin said cheerfully. "Months ago. Now you're merely inefficient."
Kay laughed outright.
Arthur resisted the urge to throw his hammer at him.
"You've been watching," Arthur said instead, suspicion sharpening his tone.
Merlin tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Watching, sensing, observing the slow and delightful process of you becoming less breakable."
"I'm not breakable."
Merlin smiled. "Everyone is, Some just take longer."
Arthur turned away, jaw tight.
Merlin always spoke like that half-joke, and half-insult it's all unsettling.
The man never explained himself, and worse, never seemed to need to.
"You don't belong here," Arthur muttered.
Merlin leaned closer, eyes bright with mischief. "And yet, here I am, Curious, isn't it?"
Arthur focused on his work, on the grain of the wood beneath his fingers, on the ache in his arms.
Merlin eventually sighed theatrically and hopped down from the fence.
"Honestly," he said, "you humans are very good at pretending you're small."
Arthur froze.
The words lingered sharp, uncomfortable.
Before Arthur could respond, Merlin was gone, No footfalls, No farewell. Just absence.
Kay frowned. "He's weird."
Arthur exhaled slowly. "That's one word to say it."
---
Evening settled quietly over the estate. Arthur washed his hands at the pump, the water cold and biting, and lingered longer than necessary, watching people drift toward rest.
Complaints about weather. About tools wearing thin. About rumors from farther north nothing concrete, nothing urgent, but spoken with caution.
Arthur felt something twist faintly at those words.
Not fear.
Awareness.
When night came, Arthur lay awake longer than usual. Kay was already asleep, breathing unevenly.
Ector's presence remained steady and reassuring through the walls.
Arthur stared into the dark.
He did not yet know his purpose.
Not the one history would carve into stone. Not the one legends would twist and glorify. Whatever he had been or would be felt so distant, obscured, like a shape seen through fog.
But the pressure remained.
Something in this world was waiting.
Not urgently, Not impatiently.
Waiting the way fire waits for air.
"If this world insists on shaping me," Arthur whispered, voice barely audible, "then it'll have to accept what I become."
Outside, the wind shifted.
Far beyond the quiet countryside, something vast stirred and settled again, as if amused.
Arthur slept.
And Britain waited.