Having not gotten much sleep the previous night, Merlin had overslept. This wasn’t unusual; when you were servant to the prince and the most powerful magical being in training, you never knew when you’d get to sleep. Gaius wasn’t going to take it easy on him just because Arthur didn’t either, so sleep was a luxury Merlin couldn’t often afford.
He had woke up that morning to Gaius throwing a change of cloths on top of him and listing off herbs he needed Merlin to collect and potions he needed to have delivered. Reluctantly, the young boy pulled himself out of bed, got dressed, grabbed the potions and a roll and left to do his errands. He dropped of the potions before going out to collect herbs, some of which were a little obscure.
Once that was finished, he quickly brought them to Gaius and made his way to Arthur’s chambers, knowing he was late. He hated being late. As if Arthur wasn’t usually in a pissy mood anyway, being late just gave him incentive to torture Merlin even more that he usually did.
"The tavern?" he asked when the Prince inclined his whereabouts. “I was helping Gaius. I’m not always at the tavern, you know.” he quipped, walking over to the Prince to get him dressed.