Fic: The Deadliest Rose
Title: The Deadliest Rose
Author: talipuu / colour_me_quick
Pairing/Characters: Merlin, Nimueh (vaguely Merlin / Arthur)
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers: Character Deaths
Word Count: 450
Summary: "Resplendent blue shifts to gold, and the night is alive."
Alternative ending to the 1x13, Le Morte d'Arthur (context description under the cut!)
Written for kathkin as her merlin_the_elf gift ♥
Context: Arthur, rather than Gaius, takes Merlin's place and sacrifices his life. Merlin arrives and the duel commenses.
They stand in the twilight as statues.
The biting winter air tears at their clothing like daggers, bejewelled with intricate snowflakes. They float, they fall, and the worlds turns, but still they remain.
Silence consumes the atmosphere, no sound given to the threat of imminent death curled up and waiting in the shadows.
This is the time, this is the place, and the universe holds its breath in anticipation.
Elegance moves before Fury; she steps forward, slender snow white arm stretched towards Heaven. Clouds roll and tumble, dainty snow morphs to storms, lightning tears across the darkness. Streams of golden fire race down to earth, illuminating the face of her opponent - pale skin translucent in the light; sapphire eyes aflame; ebony hair in disarray.
She laughs then - the sound of shattering glass - and it pierces his heart.
Scarlet threads weave between bolts of electricity, flowing in the wake of an hourglass body that dances between danger.
The sorceress twirls; the broken lover strides.
Resplendent blue shifts to gold, and the night is alive.
He ducks; he pivots; twists and turns. The enchantress mirrors the movement to perfection, like a shadow.
They meet in the middle, arms high and alight with furious power. The air between them bursts into life, flames of azure battling against sun-yellow - pushing, burning, mixing - the green light of the aftermath rising away into the ether.
Athena smirks, Zeus scowls.
She twists away, fleet-footed across the ground, pirouettes to the right, brushing his arm and setting the skin ablaze. He turns, spirals about her, close enough to touch but always a world apart.
He knows it is a dance; a deadly ballet of fatality. Golden eyes raise to the sky, calling upon the essence of all things to aid his steps.
She throws back her head and cackles to the night, eyes alive and wild.
She is the rose, he thinks, as they coil about one another again. A scarlet beauty, lips of luscious ruby red, the tattered gown of broken petals, weather worn and frail.
But it is the thorns that make this flower so deadly.
Sharp and strong; needles that pierce the soul and shatter the illusion of grace.
Still the magic flows - fire to ice; stone to dust; light to dark.
Life to Death.
Earth screams, mountains tremble, and the ancient stone of the castle crumbles to memories.
They fall in unison, knees crashing against the now snow-barren ground. Vivid eyes glaze to nothingness, bodies limp and spent.
The curtain falls; silence descends again to envelope the world.
This was the time, this was the place, when magic danced for the last time.