Forever Love (The Round Table Remix) Prologue
Title: Forever Love (The Round Table Remix)
Author: hopenight
Pairings/characters: Emerson (Merlin)/Arthur, Galahad/Gawain, Lawrence (Lancelot), Merlin, Morgan (Morgana), Liam (Will), Leon, Percival Rating: R
Word Count: 24, 067
Warnings: language, some crossdressing, language, mentions of sex, lots of alcohol consumption, and a heavy dose of crack
Summary: This is your typical, run-of-the-mill, totally average reincarnation (immortality included!) story…except it’s not. Arthur is immortal with a time limit hanging over his head. M. Emerson Gray is the latest rebirth without a clue.
Except Emerson does have a clue, eccentricities, and a kickass store. Merlin is trapped in mirrors and remains very sarcastic. Lawrence is totally awesome but gets kidnapped. Galahad is having number-gasms. The knights get plastered and bemoaned the long lost days when they didn’t have to meddle in homoerotic love affairs. And Arthur? Arthur is just socially awkward and adorable.
This is the story of two men falling in love while knowing the truth about the other (even if the other doesn’t know they know). The question is can they do it in the midst of craziness, crossdressing, and colossal insecurities? Well yes, they can. But the ride to the beginning of it all is heaps better than the story of the relationship itself.
“More of this is true then you would believe.”-Title Card from ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’
The world is really fucking big.
Well actually, I don’t think that’s quite right…at least the phrasing of the statement isn’t correct. Compared to Jupiter or Saturn, the planet itself is downright minuscule. What I mean is that the world has a lot of people dwelling on its surface (maybe under-I’m quite certain Mole People exist under the Earth’s crust waiting until we’re vulnerable, what with their mole powers and all that).
Have you seen the census records? There is an estimated six billion, eight hundred million people populating this big blue marble that we call a planet. Granted, I’m certain at least half of them are in Asia and then you have the people in various countries illegally, but it’s still a hell of a big number. It can give a person a complex if they over-think it.
So out of an estimated six billion, eight hundred million people…how many do you think can do magic? Not the wand-waving Harry Potter stuff (though can I just say how much I -heart- Harry Potter? I’m planning on going with some of my mates next year to the theme park…but you don’t care about that. Sorry); but the actual for real magic, the ancient stuff, the magic so old that it’s practically embedded in the Earth.
Less than one percent of point one percent of the world’s population can do real magic; it’s so tiny that it’s rather embarrassing to admit it. So there is magic, you just have to look REALLY hard to find it.
Now I bet you’re wondering what the big deal is. Why is this mad person telling me about world population and magic?
Good question, reader.
See I want to tell you a story.
Oh don’t roll your eyes at me like that. I’ll have you know it’s a very good story.
Actually scratch that, it’s a fucking amazing story of the most epic proportions ever thought of.
See? I bet you’re excited now.
No? Not even a little bit? You are very hard to please, reader.
Well, just keep reading. I’m sure that I’ll get you interested in it eventually.
My name is M. Emerson Gray. It’s very nice to meet you, reader. Call me Emerson, everyone does…well everyone who is SANE does anyway. The M? Stands for Mesmerizing. I’m a twenty-something, slightly bonkers, well-read, disenfranchised British youth (which is a rare breed don’t’cha know). I have two university level degrees and am self-employed. I live in a studio flat with my best mate, Lawrence, who is currently necking his girlfriend on the couch as I type this. Never fear, reader, I’ll tell them that you send your regards.
Back to myself since I am doing the opening here and all that rot. People think I’m odd. (Shocking, I know.) And I am. I freely admit that I act batshit insane. I yell at inanimate objects at random intervals. I like to no holds bar sing in public. I’m trying to teach myself how to play the lute with my feet. I have an aversion to eating anything the color purple. I have this awesome little old lady bag that I carry my shit around in. And I like to carry out ill-advised cooking experiments in the kitchen (Me and Lawrence are really tight with the fire department).
Then there is the special oddness that I possess that only few people (like maybe four or five) know about. See this is where the magic part comes in. Ever since I was little, I could do magic. It wasn’t like I meant for it to happen. This magic is a part of me. Like little Susie has brown eyes, and little Jack has a big nose. Little Emerson’s eyes go gold and he can do amazing shit. Morgan, my best friend, blamed it on genetics, some random happenstance of nature. I’ve never had the heart to tell her otherwise.
The reason that I can do magic is because I was always able to do magic.
Let me explain.
You know reincarnation? We’ve all heard about it at least once. But for those who don’t know, it’s the belief that the soul can be reborn in different flesh over and over again. It’s usually tossed around in the Eastern religions because the Western ones are usually about making us feel really guilty for no particular reason. Turns out it’s not a load of horse-shit for some very special souls!
Mine being one of them.
Now I know that you’ve heard of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Even if you were an illiterate, backwoods, hick, you would have heard of the myth of King Arthur at least once. Actually, it’s not a myth…
The legend of King Arthur was like how Troy was for a really, really long time. People thought that Troy was a fictional city, made up from myths and legends and Homer’s creative mind. Instead it was a real place, but it took millennia to prove. Thank you Heinrich Schliemann, you brilliant motherfucker you.
Since no one has found Camelot, and it’s really hard to find if you don’t know where to look, the tales of King Arthur are discarded as legend, mythology, a cultural heritage of the old Britannia. Well you know how every legend has one grain of truth.
Yeah, hello, I’m the grain of truth.
Turns out that in a past life, I was Merlin. Yes, THE Merlin. Except I didn’t have an awesome Albus Dumbledore beard.
…I didn’t even live long enough to give it a chance to grow.
(If I did, it would’ve been an epic beard. Let me assure you of that. It would’ve been all white and Dumbledore-y and a-fucking-mazing.)
Like every story based in fact, people got some details wrong.
Okay, they cocked up the majority of the story. Arthur wasn’t abandoned by his parents. Gwen wasn’t a princess. Morgana and Arthur weren’t related. Mordred wasn’t the bastard child of their incestuous love. (I’m fairly certain Morgana and Arthur would’ve killed themselves before even daring to think of having sex with the other.) And I certainly wasn’t an old man, though I would’ve loved the epic beard and the chance to eccentric.
So yeah, the legend is pretty much all bollocks (Damn writers and their creative liberties). Thanks a lot everyone. Way to drop the motherfucking ball. I told Arthur we should’ve written it down, just to be safe. The Greeks and Romans had good heads on their shoulders, just greedy intentions. They had a good system of written records that survived through the ages. Did the prat listen to me? No! I was just the bloody court sorcerer, after all. Of course I didn’t know what I was doing.
Sorry, a little miffed about that....
Just trust me when I tell you that the legend has taken a turn from what I lived.
Uther, Arthur’s dad, was a paranoid rat bastard. He made a deal with a sorceress named Nimueh so that he and his wife could conceive a son. However, magic demands balance. You cannot go around creating life all willy-nilly (which is an awesome word). No, a life must be paid with a life. Arthur’s mother sacrificed herself for him. Uther, devastated, blamed magic and all who practiced it, even though he was aware of the price that had to be paid. He began to slaughter all the magic users and outlawed the practice of magic. There was only one sentence to be caught with the talent: death.
So guess who moved to Camelot when he was eighteen?! You have three guesses and the first two don’t count.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
It was Merlin.
In his defense, he wasn’t purposefully trying to get killed. Even when he insulted Prince Arthur his first day in the city of Camelot…but again Arthur was a giant prat. Merlin straightened him out.
Then Merlin saved Arthur’s life. This led him to becoming Arthur’s manservant, which Merlin didn’t see so much as an honor as a pain in the ass.
And there were adventures and betrayals and secrets and deception.
This was better than a one of those over-dramatic American soap opera. Except it was with less heterosexual sex and more dragons.
Yes, you slash fangirls and fanboys, please squeal your pretty little heads off.
Because Merlin tapped that hot piece of prattish prince man-meat and he tapped him gooooood.
Now I bet you’re wondering how I know all this.
Well there’s a number of reasons why. And they’re all excellent reasons, some of the best you’ll ever hear.
Reason ONE) Sometimes I get these dreams of my past lives. Usually they’re lovely because Prince Arthur was gorgeous shirtless…and pants-less. Literally this guy had a body of a young Adonis and he was all Merlin’s. Let’s give a cheer of the nerdy, dorky, uncoordinated guy actually getting some hot man!
Reason B) There are moments in my life where I get a strong sense of déjà-vu. Y’know the phenomenon where you feel like you’ve been somewhere before (and you know that you’re clean and sober?). Yeah story of my life. A glance of a person, the briefest whiff of a scent, the strains of a melody…literally anything can trigger it. It’s rather annoying especially when I know that someone is reincarnated from someone that I knew as Merlin and I can’t tell them because they haven’t remembered yet. My roommate, Lawrence, still hasn’t remembered his past life as Lancelot. Well he can remember some of it but it’s like really vague and shit. Which sucks because Merlin and Lance were homeboys.
The Third Reason) This reason is actually the most unbelievable of all. (Like this whole thing can’t get any more weird or fucked up but it can…oh trust me it can.) Magic is really fickle. Really, the fact that it can even behave a percentage of the time is quite amazing. But Magic is a living entity, Merlin (and consequently me) is her favorite child. But she’s also a very bored being. So like the elder teasing sister, she decided to play with her favorite brother (aka me). So she bestowed upon me a gift to be able to talk to my past life. Every time I looked in a mirror, I can see and communicate with Merlin. He’s the one that told me everything and taught me control over magic.
He told me about Arthur. Between Merlin’s stories and my dreams, I was able to fill in the gaps pretty easily. And I knew that I had two choices. My first choice was to find Arthur, jump lovingly into his arms, and then we live happily ever after while leprechauns streaked and unicorns farted rainbows.
....
Obviously, option one was not really an option. More like a horrible nightmare. Because that was what all my past incarnations did (minus the farting unicorns, yeah I was surprised to find that leprechauns are kinky little bastards; who knew?). I was determined not to end up like them. I could live without Arthur just fine, thanks. For fucks sakes, I’m not Bella Swan going into a comatose state because some guy left me. (I have this little thing called dignity.) Besides, I never actually met the bloke.
So my second option was not really an option. This was the only viable decision that I had without giving me cavities from sweetness or angst bunnies. Arthur was going to have man up and find me. Accidentally or whatever, I’ve done enough magic in this life that Arthur could at least faintly pick up on it. Then when he found me: he was going to have to work for it. Because I’m no hoe, bitches.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Awesome mind reading powers and all that rot. You’re thinking: “But Emerson? How could Arthur know where your awesomeness is? He doesn’t have a drop of magic in him.”
True that, reader, true that. Minus the magic part. Okay so his eyes couldn’t turn gold and shit but there was this one thing that he could do with his tongue…that isn’t polite to mention in respectable company. And since you’re reading this, I’m not entirely sure that you are respectable company but I could be totally wrong. Let’s just say he could do this thing with his tongue that would make the straightest boy join the gay pride parade in assless chaps and leave it at that.
There are a lot of things that I can tell you. But it would detract from the story. And really, I don’t want to do that. It wouldn’t be fair to you, dearest reader. Because this is a good story.
But I’ll tell you one thing. You know the part where it says that Merlin was immortal? It was a total lie. Merlin gave up his immortality for Arthur, so that he could live. Merlin made Arthur and his knights immortal while it was him that had to be reborn.
Of course, Magic has some rules. My life is the lucky number where I can be made immortal with Arthur. However, this is the first life where being gay is tolerated and accepted. So I figure that when he finds me, he can romance me properly.
Also, Merlin is in love with him. Emerson (me) is willing to fall in love with him. I mean, how often can one be courted by a prince? It’s every little girls (and gay boys) dream. I intend to live it properly. Destiny and Magic can only dictate so much. The Heart rules above the rest after all.
My name is M. Emerson Gray. I can do magic. I was Merlin, Court Sorcerer in a past life and I talk to Merlin daily due to a fluke of magic. I love life and all the strangeness that comes with it. The Once and Future King Arthur Pendragon wants to court me and I’m letting him.
This is our story
PART ONE.