Empty Heart, Empty Walls
Title: Empty Heart, Empty Walls
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin, implied relationship
Rating: PG
Warnings/spoilers: Set after 5x13, angst
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, I just play with them.
Author's note: I wrote this one before seeing the finale, and I was inspired by this promo pic of Merlin. Crossposted on my Tumblr.
Summary: Camelot without its beloved King was nothing. Merlin's life was nothing.
Merlin looked at what were the King’s chambers with an heavy heart, trying with all his willpower to not dwell upon thoughts of its owner. The memory of seeing Arthur rasping his last painful breath while being held in Merlin’s arms, was still too fresh into the warlock’s memory; it was a wound that kept on pulsing, and one of which, Merlin was sure, would never scar.
His King.
He had tried with everything he had to prevent the vision of the dying Druid to come true, to prevent Arthur dying at Mordred’s hands; many have died and still his fate was sealed.
His clothes were still drenched on his King’s blood, and even though the view of it repulsed him to the very core, he didn’t have the strength to separate himself from it.
Not yet.
Still too soon.
He didn’t know what the future had in store for him, there wasn’t no one in the entire world who could help him in his grief; even the Great Dragon had, at least, died, leaving Merlin with the mockery of an unfulfilled destiny.
Of one thing he was sure: he couldn’t bear to remain within Camelot’s walls one minute longer.
Camelot without its loved King was nothing, Merlin’s life was nothing, and maybe in a few years he would come to regret his decision, leaving her defenseless against its many enemies, ready to strike now that Arthur was dead and his brave Knights with him, but the only wish of his wounded heart was to disappear completely from this world.
The Knights.
Merlin’s heart clenched at the memory of all his friends laying upon Camlann’s fields, like scattered rags.
They had fought with a lion’s fierceness, he wasn’t there to see it, still trapped into that cave, screaming and cursing all the gods above for leaving him behind in Arthur’s hour of need, but he knew them, he knew that in his absence they would have tried to protect their King with all they had.
And dying for their efforts.
Morgana’s army was too much for them, in the end.
His eyes fell onto one of Arthur’s shirts, his favourite, the red one, and Merlin felt a new batch of tears wetting his cheeks. He thought he had no more to shed, having cried all the ones allowed to one man in his life, into Arthur’s blood’s stained locks. He silently picked it up and for a moment he thought of feeling Arthur’s warmth seeping into it, but it was only the product of his grief stricken mind.
Casting one last glance around he was overcome by ten years of memories of the man who he pledged his life to, and his heart couldn’t take it anymore.
With Arthur’s shirt still held tightly in his hand he bowed for the first and last time to his King’s memory, to his love’s memory, burning in his retinas the pristine image of a world still not shattered, and he left the castle.
Never to set foot again in it.