Uther, the Pendragon of Britain, didn't even remember the Sea being a thing of wonder.

The Sea was the road for the marauding pagan Saxons.  Not that Uther was afraid of it, just faintly angry and worried in the back of his mind.  Not that it kept him away from the Sea, either - after all, if the Saxons did come, that was just where he needed to be:  in the front lines, to drive them back from Britain another day.

(Once again, Uther silently cursed Vortigern, the king who had foolishly invited some Saxons to settle Britain for the first time, in exchange for helping Vortigern against a large rebellion.  They'd helped him for a time, but then they'd invited hordes of other Saxons to settle with them.  Vortigern had been killed for it in the end.  But worse, Britain had been half-killed too.)

And now, Uther was facing another rebellion.  He'd never admit it to anyone, but for once, he half understood what Vortigern had been feeling.  He himself was still sick with festering battle wounds, he'd just put down one rebellion in Cornwall last year (and wedded the duke's widow Ygraine afterwards), and now another rebellion was almost brewing.  And the Saxons were always threatening.  He felt his death looming - maybe.

And his only heir was a months-old son, by that same Ygraine.

So, he was going to the mysterious prophet Merlin, for advice.  He'd heard all the stories - how Merlin had told the builders how to lay a firm foundation for that repeatedly-collapsing house, how he had himself set up stone monuments, how he had told a wonderous tale of dragons to prophesy war, how he'd healed the sick with a song and done so many more marvelous things!  Uther had secretly visited him once before, gambling he might as well try for any advice he could get on ending the Cornish rebellion quickly so it wouldn't weaken Britain even more before the Saxons.  To his surprise, Merlin had answered with something that might work - and it had worked, beyond his wildest hopes.

Now Uther was coming again, for advice on how to protect his son - and, through him, Britain.

Uther saw Merlin standing by the seashore, staring into the sunset, long hair waving slowly in the breeze.

Holding up his hand for his men to stay back, he strode forward, ignoring the pain in his chest and the ache in his knee.  He paused a few yards away.  "Merlin?"

For that, of course, is the name by which Men know him; he always chooses something in the tongue of whatever land he lives in, not wanting to draw attention with a name that would be foreign anywhere in the world. Usually it has a slight phonetic resemblance to his real name, though.

He turns around. "Pendragon," he greets the king; it's a title as well as a surname.

"First - I thank you again for your plan about the last rebellion."

He pauses, wondering if he should say more.  He'd sent a messenger offering gifts in thanks, but Merlin had rejected them.

"Yet - Britain may again be troubled soon, as I assume you've heard."

"Britain has been troubled for the last hundred years, but yes—things do not seem to be getting any better, and may not for some time." Longer than Uther has left to live, certainly; he doesn't say this out loud, though he doesn't really need to.

"I told Macsen, you know, not to bother with his Roman ambitions, that Britain needed a king closer to home, and would be more grateful for his existence than Theodosius. That, I would consider, was the beginning of all our troubles. I am glad that at least you listen to advice, but it may be too late by now."

Merlin knew Macsen Wledig!?

Uther mentally shoves his shock aside; he didn't come to talk history.  He half-succeeds.

"Maybe, but I will give Britain as much time as I can.  Which also, now, means forestalling or putting down this new rebellion that seems to be brewing."

He sees Uther's expression, of course, and answers with a small smile. "However old you are now imagining me to be," he says, "I am a hundred times older than that. But that, I think, is a story for another time.

"I suspect it is too late to put down the rebellion," he continues. "If you had come to me a year ago I would have told you not to take the wife of your defeated duke; it is not the sort of thing that engenders the love of one's other vassals. Yet I wonder if there is not a reason you did not come to me a year ago. I do not see what would have been, but it may be that without Ygraine you would now be no less beset by enemies, but without an heir.

"I do not see the future, not truly, but there is a man in Britain destined for greatness. I used to think this meant you. Now I suspect it means your son."

"A year ago, with all the business of having just concluded a war, I could scarcely leave it all in others' hands and ride to see you.  Especially if the Saxons had taken that moment to attack, as I thought they could."

The other reason is that - Uther can admit it to himself now - he really does love Ygraine.  Uther sighs; he doesn't think he let out any signs of that while Gorlois was still alive, but he doesn't want to ask anyone.  If it turns out that was what spurred Gorlois to rebel, he'd never forgive himself.

"But yes.  I have an heir.  'Arthur' I named him.  In the Latin tongue, it means 'plowman'; in the British tongue, it means 'bear'.  Britain needs both."

"It's no matter. As I said, I doubt that any advice I could have given you, even then, could have prevented your current troubles. But I will do what I can for your son."

He ponders a moment, then walks over to a huge boulder that stands in the field beside his cottage.

"Give me your sword."

Uther pauses a moment, looking down at his sword, veteran of many battles - and then he draws it and hands it to Merlin.

He takes the sword and sings to it, a seemingly random series of high, piercing notes that cause the metal to resonate, and then plunges it into the rock as though it were soft clay.

"Only you or your rightful heir will be able to draw it out again," he explains. "Thus will the boy be able to prove his true heritage, which you must now hide; if you should die before he is ready to rule, and your rebels find him, they will kill him. I will raise him myself, if you ask me to; it would not be the first time I have fostered a boy who went on to be a king."

Uther reaches out to put his hand on the sword hilt in sudden surprise, but he stops himself before he touches it.

"Yes, if people will accept this to prove his heritage, it would be safer to hide him..."

Ygraine wouldn't like it.  (She's the Queen now; she couldn't go into hiding too.)  Uther himself doesn't like it.  But to give Britain one more fence against disaster, it's worth it.

"When would you recommend hiding him?  I don't know of any assassins in my court, but if you see him in danger soon..."

"It is a very great tragedy to separate a child from its parents; I would not do so while any other hope remains. When the enemy is at your gate, look to my coming from the west, and I will be there to take the boy to safety."

(This will be within the year, he very much suspects; he does not say so, but his face and tone betray that he does not expect Uther to have much longer.)

"Thank you. And" - no reason not to say it - "my queen will thank you as well."

"But I would not have Arthur grow up a hermit with you, if he is to be King.  Would you find some trustworthy village, or knight, to raise him to be a good king?"

It has occurred to Maglor, though he does not want to think about it, that he has lost something essential since the last time he did this. Not that anyone would have described Maedhros as "trustworthy", at that point, but he had taught Elros all he knew of kingship. It was not really Maglor's strong point.

"Yes, that had occurred to me—there is a good knight I know in a village not far from here, where the Saxons will not reach in a thousand years, who always wanted a second son though his wife does not seem able to give him one. I suppose it would not do for me to raise the boy myself—it would attract too much attention, even besides that I am less qualified to raise a king than I once was—" pointless stab of grief that he shoves aside "—but I will be nearby, to watch over him as well."

"Thank you.  I would offer you a reward, if I knew what to offer you."

Uther pauses, then turns, and then turns back again.  "If you would tell me - what are you looking for that you keep watching the Sea?"

"That is a long story. I will tell it if you like, but it should suffice to say that there is nothing I want that you could give me. If we succeed, that will be reward enough."

Uther glances at his attendants (still waiting out of earshot), and then forward at the Sea.

"Yes, tell it, if you will?"

Uther crosses himself several times during Merlin's tale - in shock, in horror, and in wonder.  He can hardly credit it - but he can't disbelieve, either, after seeing the sword in the stone. 

Then he returns home and tells Ygraine the plans he laid with Merlin, just in case.  She weeps, but briefly.  "Better that than his death."

"Or than Britain ruined in the hands of a puppet baby," Uther adds.

And then rebellion does break out - Morgant, whom he had expected; and Llawgat, whom he hadn't - and the Saxons struck just afterwards.  Uther made to ride out with his warriors, but he fell back into his sickbed. It was poison, went the gossip around court.  Uther didn't know, but he knew that either way, it was another disaster for Britain.

And Maglor—Merlin—rides in from the west, as he had promised, accompanied by a knight he introduces as Ector.

"There are some among my people who could save your life even now," he tells Uther, "but not I. I have spilled too much blood to have much skill in healing." He has quite a bit of knowledge of mundane medicine that he can still use, but Uther looks to be beyond that.

"I am sorry to see it come to this, though I cannot say I expected differently. We will take your son to safety now, if you still agree it would be best."

Uther nods.

"Yes.  May God save Britain, for I cannot any longer."

"Eleni a sílir lómentielyanna, Uther Pendragon," he tells him, in his own tongue, may the stars shine upon your path. He does not really feel like invoking Eru or the Valar.

And he takes the child Arthur away from the castle, and gives him to Ector to raise as his own, and settles nearby. But first he goes back to the boulder into which he stuck Uther's sword, and carves into it at its base:

QVI GLADIVM EX HOC LAPIDE TRAHAT
TOTIVS BRITTANIAE SIT VERVS REX

The legend spreads, and soon there is a near-constant crowd gathered at the site to watch the various dukes and petty lords who come from near and far, trying to prove their claim to kingship. All of them try in vain.

When Arthur is old enough, he will teach him the things Ector cannot: history and languages and even some of the science now lost to Middle-earth. In his historical lessons he goes very far back, all the way to Númenor, but he does not tell Arthur the story he told Uther, not yet, nor does he tell him the truth about his father and his destiny.

Arthur grows up hearing that his parents died in the war.  They were pretty sure they were going to die, but they kept fighting anyway, because it was a Good Cause.  And they loved him very much, so they sent him somewhere safe so he could grow up.

Sometimes it doesn't quite feel enough, but then the next morning Elaine hugs both him and Kay, and Kay drags him out to go strike their practice-swords in the tilting yard, and he's happy.

But then when bards and messengers come with news, he keeps almost wishing that he could be old enough himself to fight in the Good Cause.

And so, when Arthur is sixteen years old, in what will be their final lesson together, Merlin tells him.

"There is something about your parents I have not told you," he says. "Everything you have heard is true, of course; they did die in the war, fighting for a good cause. But—that is perhaps not the item I would lead with, if I were trying to tell you the whole truth. And I think you are ready to learn that now."

Arthur looks up at Merlin, with nervousness but not fear.

"Is there something I need to do because of them?  To... to finish their work, maybe?  I'm ready."

A moment later, he laughs.  "Well, not ready yet.  But I'll try." 

(He remembers how the news has been worse than normal these last few months.  Sir Ector even let him into his council when he was talking about how to improve the tower's fortifications and how many men could go if someone called on them to fight the Saxons.)

Better to make this straightforward.

"Your father was Uther Pendragon. The next man to be king of all Britain will be you, or he will be a Saxon."

Arthur stares in shock - first at Merlin, and then up at the heavens.

"I never guessed it'd be that huge a task!  But - the task is that huge, isn't it?  And someone needs to do it."