Nearly over.
Title: Death, Love and Everything In Between [6/7]
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: MerlinxArthur
Length: This part is 3,042 words. Overall, it’s about 13,000 words, chapter average 1,800.
Rating: PG-13.
Status: Complete. Beta’d by fortassetu (who also made my gorgeous banner! <33) and princessezzy
Notes: In each part I’ve done some research to make sure I know what I’m talking about. If you read something and go ‘hang on a sec...’ check if I’ve done the research first; if not, please let me know. :) I know the producers of the show don’t bother, but that’s no reason for me not to.
Back to the Start
Last Chapter
Research for this chapter.
The Queen of the Wastelands is one of the three women who help Morgana remove Arthur from Camlann. I could unearth nothing but the name, so I drafted Mae.
Did some research on the doll; popular child’s toys from much earlier than the set time.
Again with the modernisation; whilst I did find evidence the hairstyle was obvious the word ‘pigtails’ is a nineteenth century Americanism, but I’m stacking it with ‘okay’ and using it anyhow.
Chapter VI
Merlin stared.
This is the sorceress?
The small, pretty sorceress, wearing a white pleated dress and holding a doll.
“You’re just a child!” Merlin spluttered, and the child sighed crossly, rolling her eyes.
“Really? What gave it away? Was it the pigtails?”
Merlin heard Arthur’s chuckle. Probably the fact she goes up to your waist.
Her eyes flashed. “You mind your manners, Arthur Pendragon!” She pouted, her eyes floating to the doll in her arms, which she squeezed once. “I’m very sensitive about my height.”
Merlin gaped at her. “You can hear him?!”
The girl frowned, eyes tracking over to Merlin again. “Are you actually as stupid as you look? Of course I can hear him. I put him there!”
Merlin spluttered, affronted. “You put him - what?!”
“Come on! We’ll have some tea, then a talk, then some biscuits!” She frowned. “Or the biscuits first…?” She looked at Merlin, expecting an answer. He was too flabbergasted to reply, and when she received none she shrugged and skipped merrily into the house. Merlin’s mother used to tell him stories with words like ‘quaint’ and ‘picturesque’; he’d never had a use for those words till now, looking at the house. Cottage. Whatever.
I like this one.
“I don’t know,” Merlin said cautiously, glancing around as he ducked to get through the miniscule doorway. “I’m not sure we’ve come to the right place.”
Merlin, for once in your life, think about it. She can’t be all she seems. How could a child survive out here?
“He’s smarter than he looks,” the girl nodded, head bobbing in approval.
So this is how Merlin found himself sat at a table that went up to his knees, drinking imaginary tea from a small cup hooked around his smallest finger and being lectured by a cross-eyed doll, the spitting image of her mistress. “It’s all rather a mess, I say,” the doll said, on behalf of the girl with her arm round its waist. “Naturally, I try and avoid these messy confrontations, but what can you do? Sometimes boys will be boys.” She let out a weary sigh.
“Uh,” Merlin said. “There was a man, with me in the mountains, Belvedere? I just want to know - ”
“Oh yes, he’s fine, more tea? I’m Mae, by the way. Queen of the Wastelands, actually, so technically you should curtsey.” Her grin sharpened.
“Merlin,” Merlin replied, waving his hand in a half-distracted way. She was looking at him expectantly, and they spent a good minute staring at each other, before Merlin cracked. “What?”
Mae sighed. “I believe you have something to give me…?”
Merlin stared.
The letter, you idiot.
“Oh!” He fished around inside his pockets, pushed it over the table and beamed. It was folded in half and very grubby. Mae picked it up gingerly and slid it into a box by her feet. Merlin frowned. “Aren’t you going to read it?” Mae looked at him. “What? Oh, it’s nothing important. It’s just a letter.”
Arthur started to laugh.
“I came all this way to act as a postman?!” Merlin spluttered, staring at her aghast. “It was simply a fringe benefit. You have no idea how hard it is to keep in contact with one’s friends and family living all the way out here! Besides, you had to come all this way. It’s part of the rules; Custom and Tradition and all. It was character building.” She took another sip of non-existent tea. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked me all the obvious questions yet. Very unlike you, subtlety.”
I really like this one.
Merlin ignored him. “Earlier, when you said you put Arthur in my head…?”
Mae nodded absently, putting down her tea. “I thought you might want to know. Basically, I had a choice of either you or Uther. I chose the most able-bodied - and, naturally, for the spell to work best I picked the ‘closest’ man - and put him in his heart.” She looked at Merlin suspiciously, as if fearing she’d lost him when she started using words with more than two syllables. “Closest emotionally. It’s nothing to do with proximity.”
Merlin stared.
Closest…?
“Heart?!”
“Yes,” she said simply. “It’s old magic, dead magic, but it still works. To save a life, preserve the mind whilst the body rots, but you can only put it in certain places; a flower, but they tend to get crushed, a bottle, but they get lost or broken…” She trailed off, and locked her eyes with Merlin’s. “Or a heart,” she finished softly. “Which is where the whole, ‘close emotionally’ thing comes into it.” A smile spread across her face, and she began to fiddle with the doll’s plaits. Her legs, which couldn’t quite reach the floor, swung beneath the table.
“Hang on,” Merlin said anxiously, “being close emotionally…?”
Mae shrugged, opening her mouth, but Arthur stepped in first. Can you fix me?
She closed her mouth and nodded. “Easy.”
Here it was, the million dollar question; “Will you?” Merlin felt himself leaning forwards in his seat. She shrugged. “Depends. Normally I wouldn’t; it’s too much effort.” She paused, her eyes moving to Merlin’s. “But I like you two.” She grinned a small, malevolent smile.
Merlin sat back; his relief was evident. His teeth began to worry at his bottom lip. “Will he be alright?” Merlin whispered. Arthur was frightened. He could sense it.
She shrugged. “Getting him back in his body’s the easy job. You’ve got the hard one - you’ve got to deal with what happens next.”
Ride into Camelot as my knight in shining armour.
Mae laughed; Merlin remained stoic. “Are you sure he’s going to be alright?”
“Yes,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Now do you want me to do this or not?”
Merlin. Arthur’s voice was a warning. There’s no sense in coming all this way then backing out.
He sighed. “I know.” Merlin looked at Mae imploringly, and she shrugged. “You might as well,” he muttered. “I don’t see what else can be done. What do I have to do?”
“No sudden movements,” she warned, but she was grinning. Her eyes closed, Hello, Arthur, and her voice was inside his head.
Goodbye, Merlin. His voice sounded choked with fear.
“It’s not goodbye, really, you idiot,” he whispered, but he too was irrationally afraid.
Come along.
“Be safe,” he whispered, and Arthur was gone.
He opened his eyes to see Mae sitting on her chair, staring into the sun. “It’s over,” she said absently, and Merlin nodded. He could tell. For the first time he felt truly alone.
“What do I have to do?” His voice was croaky and feeble.
“You have to get back to Camelot. You have to set right everything that’s gone wrong. I’m sorry, but it has to be you.” She was sorry; it rang true in her face, in her ageless, sad eyes.
He nodded and looked down miserably. “I’m going to have to defeat this sorcerer. The one who’s done all of this.” He looked up. “Am I right?”
She shrugged, long, white fingers trailing in a bowl of water by her side. “I honestly don’t know. Your future’s a bit… odd.” She paused. “Sketchy. There’s not much I can tell you.”
“That means I’m going to have to fight him.” He sighed. “I hate fighting. I’m rubbish at it!” Mae shrugged. “So use your magic.”
Merlin stared. “I can’t do that! I mean, I don’t know any fighting spells, and he’ll have had loads of experience, and he’ll have a lot of men, and - ”
“Sounds like a lot of excuses to me.”
“It’s easy for you to say, you’re stuck all the way out here!” Merlin sighed. “Besides, he’s so much stronger than me.”
She paused for a moment, her eyes floating out of the window. “No one’s stronger than you, Merlin. No one.”
He shook his head dismissively and snorted. “How am I supposed to get back to Camelot, anyway? I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere with no guide, no food - ”
“I can help you there.” Her fingers wrapped around his temples, her thumb and forefinger placed each side, her grip surprising for her age, and Merlin realised she was far more than what she seemed. He stared at her silently as she whispered “Goodbye, Merlin,” and he was gone.
Mae fluttered open the letter from Morgana, but she had no need to read it. She’d foreseen this day long before.
She sat back and closed her eyes. This was her duty; she remained, waiting for the battle to end the age. To play her role, no matter how insignificant.
Around her, the grassy plains blew on.
Camelot. Castle of old, home of kings, defender of the crown.
Desolate and burning.
Merlin landed unspectacularly in a ditch. He struggled up the side, covered in mud, and found he was a good distance from the palace. “Thanks,” he muttered, and began to trudge.
His heart throbbed Arthur, Arthur, Arthur every turn.
There was no point in attempting the element of surprise. Merlin was what this sorcerer wanted. He had no advantage here.
He would just have to make an entrance.
Merlin smiled. He was good at those.
Camelot was deserted when he stepped inside the castle; the stone itself was pure, untouched, but the village beyond the walls burnt. He stood in the courtyard and wondered at the deadness of it; it was silent, an inhalation before a scream. He padded though the corridors and entered the vast meeting hall, once illustrious and proud, now a mockery of ages.
“He arrives!” a voice rang, and Merlin turned to face his foe.
The man was tall, and broad, and not unlike Arthur in stature. He held himself well, one hand resting on a staff beside him, the other spread open in welcome. Merlin paced forwards quietly, coming to stand at the foot of the man’s steps. Uther sat beside him, slumped on the stairs, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, and yet alive; Merlin could hear the steady ba-dum of his heart in his chest, his own heart alive with magic. “I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance, at last!” he called to Merlin, reaching for the wine beside him. “After all this trouble you’ve gone and caused me as well.” He laughed and drank.
Merlin stood silent and bore it all.
“Come, have something to eat. You’ve gone such a long way. And what does Camelot do better than parties?”
Merlin did not move.
His eyes narrowed. You’ll have to improve your game, Merlin thought to himself. I’ve taken worse from Arthur everyday. “Your friends have been quite good company.” No. Merlin forced himself to calm down, his hair beginning to crackle with magic in anger. “Ahh,” he said softly. “Have I hit the spot?”
This was it; the words he’d waited to say. Merlin squared his shoulders and did his very best to be imperialistic. “Let them go!” he commanded.
He laughed. “No.” A flick of his finger; Merlin flew across the hall and into darkness.
Someone was hugging him when he woke up.
“God, I was so worried!”
Gwen.
He opened his eyes and peered up at her. He grinned. “Hello.”
“You’re a complete idiot, you know that?” she hissed, hugging him frantically. His head throbbed, but with a flurry of sparks the pain vanished. Pushing himself to a sit, his eyes scanned around the cell; concerned eyes raked him from at least two sources. A third was closed; a fourth stared out of the window.
“Hello, Arthur,” Merlin said quietly, and the man turned to him and smiled.
“I told you he’d come back!” Gwen hissed conspiratorially to Morgana, who smiled broadly at her and put a hand on Merlin’s knee.
“We’ve been very worried,” she murmured softly. Merlin grinned at her.
“I can look after myself.” He paused. “Thanks for getting me out. I was worried whether Uther…”
Gwen bowed her head. Morgana caught the movement and sighed. “Uther didn’t have time to punish us. Imrah turned up, and then…”
“There was fire. And so much screaming.” Gwen shuddered, and Morgana bit her lip.
“Imrah?”
“The big guy upstairs. You might have missed him.” Merlin jumped; the comment had come from Arthur, who had been until then staring at him in a most disconcerting way.
“Hi,” he whispered, and Arthur smiled at him.
“Hi.”
They both sat and stared.
Morgana coughed uneasily, and Merlin looked away, blushing at the floor. Gaius was asleep on the bench; his chest fell softly, and Merlin felt a rush of sadness to see him so feeble. “He sleeps most of the day,” Morgana said softly. “I think Imrah has broken his mind. He took him away and when he came back he sat and stared and slept.”
“At night he screams,” Gwen added quietly.
Merlin’s eyes were hard. “How long have you been down here?”
Gwen shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. Three, four days? He doesn’t let us out. Well, he took Morgana and made her dance with him once…” They shared a pained expression. “But the rest of the time he sits there. Gloating.” Merlin shuddered once.
There was a noise at the door; a guard was unlocking it, bearing a plate of food. “Well,” Merlin said with a smile. “At least they feed you.” The others’ hungry eyes traced the plate, but Merlin was staring at the guard. “Belvedere?” he whispered, and the other man looked up.
“Hello, Merlin.”
There was a long and very worrying pause.
Belvedere sighed. “I told you I wasn’t who you thought I was.”
Merlin’s eyes glittered. “He sent you to spy on me, didn’t he?” He got to his feet, his whole body seething. “Everything, everything you said to me was a lie!”
Belvedere shook his head. “I was supposed to kill you in the forest, when we met. Or convince you to go back to Camelot. Imrah said you’d be alone, defenceless…”
“What stopped you?” A deadly whisper.
“You did,” Belvedere said simply, and Arthur smiled. “You and your idiocy and your silly walk and the fact you were so useless and your horse was already halfway to Camelot when I found you. I wanted to help, Merlin.” Belvedere shrugged. “Imrah had kept my wife captive, but I knew he’d kill her as soon as I left the castle. There was nothing he had left to force me to do what he wanted.” He paused. “I love Camelot. I was just trying to help.”
Merlin was staring at the floor. “Imrah killed your wife?” Belvedere nodded
This suffering was too much to bear, too much to bear.
Morgana, Belvedere, Gwen, Gaius in his mind, and Arthur in his heart, Merlin broke. Alive with magic, his hand rose; the doors of the cell slammed apart and Merlin walked through the debris.
Morgana, Arthur and Gwen exchanged a look and followed.
Merlin had never marched before. He’d never so much as strutted without looking like a complete idiot. He strode, now, and the palace burst with magic around him.
“We duel,” Merlin boomed, his words intoned with magic as he marched into the chamber. “For the kingdom. For all these people.”
Imrah’s eyebrow rose slowly. “A magical duel?” He laughed. “You hope to beat me at magic?”
“No one’s stronger than you, Merlin. No one.”
Merlin smiled, and his hair crackled. “I’d like to give it a go.”
Imrah’s eyes widened in mirth. “I’ll accept it,” he said slowly, exposing sharp, pointed teeth, stained with blood and wine. “Shall we?” He gestured widely to the doorway.
A moment; a hasty glance, stolen with Arthur, a pleasepleasedon’t glance, replied with a trust me, I told you I’d keep you safe. “Yes,” Merlin said to Imrah, but he looked at Arthur all the while.
They stood in the courtyard in silence.
“For the kingdom?”
Their hands locked. Merlin nodded once.
“For the kingdom,” he whispered, and they parted once more.
Marching apart, Merlin stopped at one end of the space, Imrah at the other. They stood and stared before blue lightning lanced from Imrah’s raised hand and golden from Merlin’s; seconds of eternity passed, crackling and screaming as air was torn asunder, before Imrah shrieked “STOP!” and the magic fizzled out again.
Imrah was panting; Merlin wasn’t even out of breath.
His eyes glowed with gold.
Slowly, Merlin rose, a phoenix wreathed with flames; Imrah floated free, wrapped in blue. Fire and ice against the sky, they rose higher; the crowd below could not see who struck the first blow. The pair became a myriad of screaming colours, purplewhitegreen, of flashes against the sky, of delayed thunderclaps which shattered the heavens and tore the ears of those below. Gwen and Morgana huddled together, ducking from the occasional outburst, but Arthur stood in the centre, his eyes fixed on the tumult above.
“Arthur,” Morgana shouted, stepping forwards. “Arthur!”
He did not hear her; or did not obey her call. Either way, he stood in the centre and watched the pair, even when the colours burnt so brightly they scorched the eyes of the watchers below.
He didn’t care. This was Merlin. Merlin would always keep him safe.
The sky began to scream. It was a horribly inhuman shriek, and yet all those below watched the skies knowing it was from Imrah. It was a noise not possible by any lung, by any throat, and Imrah screamed it. And Merlin caused it.
Arthur had never thought he’d be afraid of him.
The noise escalated; the ice Imrah had trailed on the ground broke with the force of it. There was ducking, screaming, shouts that all must have been lost; it was hopeless, hopeless, hopeless…
Shining in a white halo, Arthur stood and watched it all.
The cessation was sudden; Imrah slammed to the floor in a burnt husk, lips still cracked and bleeding, limbs twitching. Above them, the heavens crackled once more, deep thunderclaps, and were still.
It began to rain.
Arthur stood in the centre, his eyes still affixed on the sky, until Morgana came and stood beside him. “Arthur,” she said softly. “Arthur, it’s over.”
“It’s not,” he replied, and the sun broke through the clouds as Merlin descended and fell into Arthur’s arms.
Epilogue to be posted on Saturday.