No one and nothing part 8A

May 21, 2023 11:09

Author: archaeologist_d
Title: No one and Nothing part 8a
Rating: R
Pairing/s: none
Character/s: Merlin, Arthur, Gaius, Leon, Iseldir, Tristan, Isolde
Summary: Merlin saves Arthur’s life in front of the whole court and has to run for his life. But when Arthur shows up, asking for help, what was Merlin to do, say no?
Warnings: none
Word Count: 385
Camelot Drabble Prompt: 552 Hostile
Author’s Notes: I will be on vacation starting tomorrow so we'll see if I can do any updates on this one or more drabbles before I get back. The other chapters are found at https://archiveofourown.org/works/46585663/chapters/117313327
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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It had been all going so well for a change. After Rolf, the next few people Merlin rescued did have magic, rudimentary as it was, and they understood just how badly it would go if they stayed and tried to fight Uther’s pronouncements. They didn’t argue when Merlin showed up and helped them escape.

All their lives, they’d seen others burn like torches, screams echoing in the courtyard until the stones were saturated with it. They’d smelled the cooked flesh, the burning hair, the odour of shit and wool, human ash in the wind choking them afterwards. The remnants of people who had loved and laughed and then shrieked out their ends in the worst way possible.

But as with all things, often, growing numb to the horror of it, each of them thought that end would not be theirs.

Until it was.

Some would cry, some would stare at Merlin when he showed up with dead bodies, asking for their blood, hurrying them out of the cells. Not one of them actually protested. They knew that there was no hope. They had been resigned to be the next entertainment in Uther’s unending thirst for vengeance and there was someone telling them to run. And they did.

They didn’t ask how Merlin had managed to keep the guards from discovering their escape. They didn’t ask how the bodies Merlin carried in turned into facsimiles of themselves. They didn’t talk about themselves or how it had just been a little thing, foolishly trusting someone, or helping to keep another from dying.

Eleanor, pregnant with her first child, pulling water from the air to quench the fire raging through the lower town and keep her husband from burning to death.

Young Tom, foolish and in love, giving Alyss a flower too exotic to be found anywhere in Albion.

Pelyn shoving aside an avalanche of stones so that the kids playing beneath the castle’s outer gate weren’t crushed.

Each of them guilty of magic. Newly discovered, barely aware that they were using power, and yet condemned for it.

At least, they didn’t hinder Merlin or the druids shepherding them along or object to smugglers taking them from their homes into an unknown future.

But they didn’t thank Merlin either, just disappeared into the mists and away from Camelot.

*c:archaeologist_d, rating:r, c:merlin, type:drabble, pt 552:hostile, c:arthur

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