Merlin/TW: Once and Future 2/2

[10leaguesbeyond]

Title: Once and Future
Author: Mad Maudlin
Fandom: Merlin/Torchwood (with one tiny reference to Sanctuary in there)
Pairings: Merlin/Arthur, Jack/Ianto, Merlin/Jack
Rating: PG-13
Length: 11,300
Summary: Four times Merlin Emrys met Jack Harkness (and one time he met Jack Harkness)

A/N: Thanks to misscake for the beta!

Link to Part One

Comments

[scarfman]

My only criticism is that, assuming you meant it to be apparent, there weren't precise enough hints for one to make out the identity of the "mutual friend" (even though it had to have been a time traveler, since Merlin isn't one, that still leaves two candidates). Aside from that personal niggle I enjoyed this immensely, and was even taken by surprise by the ending. And laughed aloud about the hollow hill and the tree.

[mad_maudlin]

Thank you! Joking off all the different Arthurian legends is so much easier than trying to make them play nice with "Merlin" canon. :-)

[scarfman]

I would argue that the Arthurian body of works is the best proof that what modern-day fans call "canon" doesn't exist. A legend doesn't survive by slavish deviotion to the minutiae of what's been written before: it survives in retelling and redaction and even outright revisionism to meet the changing needs of the audience. Just as an example: for their first five hundred years the Arthur and Merlin tales were separate story cycles. Not until Geoffrey of Monmouth had anyone ever written that Merlin was Arthur's wizard - and his Merlin was an conflation of two characters who had lived a hundred years apart. Where would Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Preistess Eunuch or our Smallville A.D. 500 be today if Geoffrey had checked his facts?
So don't apologize for utilizing what's gone before according to the needs of your story, to me or anyone. That's what I say.

[kayleigh_jane]

Just butting in here, but wasn't the mutual friend Old!Jack? The one who had already been buried?

[10leaguesbeyond]

That's what I meant to imply, but I understand why other people found it unclear.