Reap the Wild Wind
Author: archaeologist_d
Title: Reap the Wild Wind
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/s: none
Character/s: Merlin, Arthur, Lancelot, Cailleach
Summary: When Lancelot sacrificed himself to save Camelot from the Dorocha, Merlin blamed himself. And he tried everything to get Lancelot back, everything.
Warnings: canon death
Word Count: 831
Camelot_drabble prompt 543: Wild
Author’s notes: From The Darkest Hour by Julian Jones, Series 4 episode 2. A couple of lines are from the episode.
Will likely be several chapters.
Disclaimer: I do not own the BBC version of Merlin; They and Shine do. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No money has changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Shrieking, the wild wind seemed almost as terrified as Merlin. Rushing through hollowed halls, stirring up ashes and dust, blowing through broken windows and abandoned towers, the sound of it mixing with the cries of the Dorocha, the noise echoing in the once-stately hall until it seemed to fill the world with despair.
The Isle of the Blessed should have been a haven of peace and tranquillity. The memory of that golden age was etched into the stones and the shapes of pillars and the broken tiles upon the floor, but now it was defiled, soaked with hatred and Morgana’s raging thirst for vengeance.
The profanity of it all screamed at Merlin. He wanted to turn and run away, fear and loathing clawing at his chest but he knew what he had to do.
The tear in the fabric of the world would not heal itself.
They all knew it. There would be sacrifice and loss and each one of them offered to die, to be the solution to what was killing off everyone they loved.
But Arthur put his foot down. He was determined to be the one to die. He would be the one to save Camelot before it was too late, insisting that it was his choice, his last command to them all, to allow him this.
Merlin wasn’t having any of it. His very reason for existence was to protect Arthur at all costs, even with his own life, and he was going to make sure Arthur would live when it was all said and done. But he nodded and agreed and lied about letting Arthur go to his doom.
He would never let Arthur go.
In the end, Arthur lay on the ground, unconscious, Lancelot at Merlin’s back supporting him and Merlin in front, arguing with the gatekeeper to the spirit world, the one who had the power to change it all.
The Cailleach, Winter Witch, Hag Goddess, she of a thousand other names, was surprisingly stubborn.
She demanded sacrifice, on the scale of what Morgana had done, before she was willing to close the portal and allow the world to return to some semblance of peace.
The same sacrifice that they’d known all along, that one of them had to die in order that the rest might live. And Merlin was determined to offer himself up for Arthur and Camelot, to walk into the Veil and close it.
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“Do you think that you are worthy enough to close the Veil? That your time here is done?” Cailleach sneered at Merlin. Nodding toward the still unconscious Arthur, she smiled a little. “The Once and Future king would not approve.”
“He’s worth more than I could ever be. Accept my sacrifice and be done with it,” Merlin insisted. Behind him, Lancelot made a little sound of protest, but Merlin ignored him. After all, Lancelot would protect Arthur when Merlin was gone, he was sure of it.
“And yet it was his choice,” she said, her words echoing in the dimness of the broken hall, even as the wind howled around her.
“I won’t let you hurt him,” Merlin growled. “I would have thought a warlock’s death would be worthy enough.”
“A pure heart is worthy enough but Emrys, your heart is not pure, far from it,” she murmured, then flicking her eyes toward Lancelot a moment, then back again to Merlin, she shrugged. “So be it, then. I will have my sacrifice. Will you give yourself to the spirits to save your prince?”
As she started to walk around him, Merlin turned to face her. Lifting his chin, straightening his shoulders, he was ready to do what must be done. “It is my destiny.”
She just hummed at that, staring at him with knowing eyes, then nodded. “Perhaps, but your time is not yet over, even if you wish it to be.”
That didn’t make sense but Merlin wasn’t about to argue with her, not when people were still dying of the Dorocha’s touch, not when Arthur could wake at any moment and rush off to sacrifice himself.
Merlin turned away, started to walk toward the Veil, determined to finish what he had started.
But Lancelot got there first. Standing on the brink of it, the wind shrieking around him, he looked back at Merlin and smiled, then lifting his arms as if to embrace fate, he walked into the Veil as it closed around him.
Merlin screamed, trying to pull Lancelot back, his magic wild as he fought to tear through the fabric of the world and stop him before it was too late.
But it was already too late.
The Veil between the worlds closed, the Cailleach gone in the same instant.
The wind died down, the heavy horror of what had just happened seemed to silence everything, as if the world itself could not believe it.
All Merlin could do was stare at the spot where he had last seen Lancelot and weep.
And it is now a full blown finished story. https://archiveofourown.org/works/45959494/chapters/115681048