Merlin and Arthur but maybe this continues like this:
Arthur doesn't believe shit. What do you mean Merlin doesn't remember him? HIM?! Who does he think he is? He's been looking for him for weeks like a jilted lover (not that he is one) and when they meet again he doesn't remember anything of what they have experienced but he does remember that Gwaine once split eight apples with his head?
As expected, Arthur lashes out. The guy tends to be a brute when his emotions get too much. Obviously, he clashes with Merlin who doesn't let anyone walk all over him. So the knights are forced to endure a back and forth of sarcasm and bad temper.
«You can't talk to me like that, I'm a prince»
«How could I be sure of that? Memory loss, remember, you royal idiot?»
«I couldn't forget it because you keep repeating it to me!»
«I wouldn't repeat it if it didn't seem like the one with head problems is someone else who isn't me. Could you tell me if there have been many blows to your head or if it's just the nobility inflating it so much that it doesn't allow anything new to enter?»
«I'll show you lots of blows to the...»
I don't need to say that they didn't manage to do much that day. The knights looked for an inn and rested with their hearts heavy with worry for the young ex-servant who seemed to have forgotten parts of his life.
The next day, Arthur goes out to find his knights already talking to Merlin. Everyone seems very happy, chatting and laughing like any other time, but from what he understood from the previous day, it's just him that he doesn't seem to remember. Again, what kind of memory loss is that?
Talking to the knights, Merlin finds out why they are there and offers to accompany them to talk to someone who other townspeople have pointed out as a possible witness and this is because, SURPRISE, coincidentally, he is on his way there. He is a hard-working man whose elderly mother is ill and Merlin has been hired to prepare the medicine she requires.
The truth is that the man was in the area where the whole incident against those who went to look for the sorcerer happened because moments before he had met with Merlin to exchange the brew. And now Merlin wants to know if he really saw something that could incriminate him or endanger the sorcerer he helped escape.
They go to the man's house, do what they have to do, get nothing because the man didn't see anything (bullshit but he believes in Merlin)
So they keep searching and investigating, and Merlin accompanies them because he needs to make sure they don't find the people he's helped move (not just in that town) so he bombards them with verbose until they spill the beans, and no one believes anything bad about it because this is sweet and naive Merlin, please...
And more verbal challenges are exchanged between Arthur and Merlin because Arthur can't stand the tall man acting like nothing happened with everyone but him and he must find a way to get Merlin to admit that everything ut's either a bad joke (which will earn him a few nights of polishing every brick in the castle) or he says something that finally makes sense of how he forgot Arthur and if this way irritates him to the point of his ears glow from how red they get, that's just a bonus
«If I don't remember that he's a noble and I stab him, is it really illegal?»
«IT'S ILLEGAL IF YOU STABB ANYONE, MERLIN"
"What if no one sees it? Is it still illegal?»
«Now you're just playing dumb»
«No, no, Lance, I do think he has a couple of good points»
«Don't encourage him, Gwaine»
Anyway, somehow they end up discovering that the men who were sent to find the accused are a group that every time they are sent they return to Camelot with stories sufficiently disturbing to avoid too many questions since the sorcerers this group Usually look for never make it to Camelot.
Perhaps they find out while they are divided. One group is at the inn eating and it is there that they meet the derailed knights (we would call them the haters)... So the round table connects the dots and a fight breaks out.
On the other hand, half of the round table that was not looking for food finds out about the haters from a survivor who explains to them that these so-called knights seek to exterminate sorcerers by his own hand.
«It is not their right to judge. The king's law must be given by the king» Arthur says
«It's not as if the judging part happens much in front of the king either» Merlin attacks. «more like simply sentence and death. Even if they are not really sorcerers or even if there was no harm or injury»
Lancelot is the one who silences Merlin before a fight breaks out, calming him down by speaking comfortingly because there is no time to waste.They must meet up with the others because if they are lucky perhaps the group of haters will still be around and they can catch them there instead of in Camelot where the situation is still tense as to prove that there are even weaknesses within the army...
The problem is, as we know, that the haters are fighting at that very moment with the other members of the round table and they outnumber them.
So as he opens the door of the inn a dagger immediately flies towards Merlin, who is the one who is going ahead. But it does not hit him but Arthur who somehow quickly got in the way.
Blood blooms like a dam that overflows before Merlin's eyes, eyes that instantly turn golden, causing every Rebel knight (every hater) to fall unconscious. And isn't Arthur supposed to be unconscious at times like this too? Because he definitely shouldn't have seen that, he didn't want to see it and now that he has he must acknowledge that Merlin has magic
I so do love it when there is more to a story <3