fic: the trouble we possess
#20 is a vague allusion to this fic (because fucking bunnies) by suaine, and #22 has a nod to David Bowie. A general knowledge of Arthurian tradition is probably helpful.
the trouble we possess
{ merlin, merlin/arthur, slash, unrelenting!angst. PG. 2,292 words }
He’ll want to say, ‘It’ll be okay.’ He’ll want to believe it too. Arthur walks his inevitable path, every day one click closer to his destiny; for Merlin, time is anything but linear.
notes: I say unrelenting, but I relent three times. Out of twenty-seven. Which isn’t that bad. The whole thing is following the same vein as my previous fic, here. Alternatively, you can just think of any other fic where Merlin leaves, or you can just read this sentence.
1.
Merlin has these dreams, sometimes, and when he wakes it’s not with a start or a gasp or a scream - it’s with a sigh and a slide. Arthur will watch him silently; watch him slip his legs out from the covers to sit hunched on the edge of the bedroll.
Neither of them will speak, although they both know the other is awake. It’s because Merlin has nothing he can say that Arthur will understand, and because Arthur has nothing he can say that will make a difference.
But he’ll want to. He’ll want to wrap his arms around Merlin’s shoulders, tell him that his dreams mean nothing, and that these things Merlin sees will not come to pass.
He’ll want to say, ‘It’ll be okay.’ He’ll want to believe it too.
2.
Merlin confesses to Arthur: ‘I’m not sure I can tell the difference between when I’m asleep and when I’m awake.’
This is the cliché. The truth is- he’s not sure there is a difference.
3.
‘Do you-’ begins Arthur, and then he breaks off, awkward. He fingers the strap of his gauntlet. ‘I mean. Have you ever seen me…die. When you. You know.’ He’s not entirely sure if he was going for flippancy or gravity, but he’s pretty sure he misses both.
Merlin looks vaguely surprised. ‘Oh,’ he says absently, staring out the window. ‘Yeah, loads of times.’
‘You…’ Arthur gapes at him, chill running up his spine ‘And were you planning to mention this anytime?!’
‘Well. I usually do something about it. Or I try too. We’re all going to die someday, Arthur. I just thought…’ Merlin shrugs, nonplussed. ‘I just assumed you would have guessed. If I told you, it wouldn’t change, so…’
Arthur is affronted that Merlin has the gall to be taken aback by Arthur’s surprise. Like it’s somehow strange that Arthur expects to be told. But the thought of his death -when, and how? Would it be painful?
He swallows. ‘It’s fine. I don’t want to think about my own death.’
‘Nobody does, sire,’ Merlin says, bleakly but not miserably. And Arthur suddenly thinks that, this must, surely if he has, then - Merlin must have seen himself die.
And that - that’s a far colder thought.
4.
The sky opens - the pressure drops. Rocks crumble and towers collapse:
Merlin can hear dragons fighting beneath the earth.
5.
‘But if you’d just tell me, then I wouldn’t have to wonder, would I?!’ Arthur explodes. ‘You and Morgana, fluttering about with your ‘visions’- may be this will happen, or perhaps it was the shadow of the moon, or it was just the bloody cheese! What good to me are you at all?!’
Merlin is flushed and bright-eyed. Usually, that might be all it takes for Arthur’s breath to catch, but today he hates every inch of this stupid, stubborn, useless sorcerer.
‘Don’t you think that if I could help it, I would? Do you think I enjoy being able to do nothing any more than you do, Arthur? Do you think I want to watch any more people die?’
‘If you don’t, you’re doing a rubbish job acting like it!’ Arthur shouts back. His voice echoes in the great Hall, and the guards jump. ‘Just. Tell. Me. What. You. Saw.’
‘It doesn’t work like that, sire,’ Merlin grits.
That’s Merlin’s answer to a lot of things these days. Arthur suspects it doesn’t mean a God damn thing.
6.
Merlin points to the heavens. ‘Around there. That’s where the asteroids that’re named after us are. Pretty amazing, huh?’
Arthur is less than amazed. ‘What in God’s name is an asteroid?’
7.
Arthur had always thought - rationally, if a little morbidly- that he’d have to wait until his father’s death until the ban on magic could be lifted.
And well, he’s close; it’s an order Uther himself gives, pretty much on his deathbed. Later, Arthur won’t like to remember him like he was then, with his grey drawn face sunken against the white pillows. He’d like to remember his father proud on horseback, regal on his throne, strong on the battlefield. But what he’s left with is a dying man blurred against his bed sheets, pale and soft-spoken, his voice tinged with nostalgia and regret. A quiet death.
‘But-’ Arthur had said, shocked. Even though it’d been generally understood, even among the populace, that Arthur would not retain the ban during his own reign, it was just that: during his own reign.
‘Come now Arthur,’ Uther had said in a tone that could once have counted for bored, ‘Let me do at least one good thing for you before I die. You’ve been arguing for this for years.’
‘But,’ Arthur repeated, ‘Not if you don’t think it’s right.’
Uther’s eyes were bright. ‘Arthur. It makes you happy. It is the right decision.’
8.
‘This is a dream,’ Merlin tells Arthur, smiles.
‘No,’ Arthur replies fiercely, digging his fingers into Merlin’s arms. ‘No, I’m right here, you’re not asleep, Merlin-’
Merlin opens his eyes.
9.
Arthur waits.
And waits.
And waits and waits and waits. But Merlin does not return, and it is a good year after Uther’s death when Arthur finally sets out to find him. It takes a month on horseback and a day on foot before he finds Merlin at Dinas Emrys, perched on a rock and staring out at the lake, his back to Arthur.
Picture this: the dawn light cuts gold over Merlin’s shoulders, burred halo on morning mist, and he stands tall, looks one thousand years old. Arthur forgets to breathe, thinks, this is the stuff that legends are made of.
‘Merlin,’ he chokes.
And the solemn face of the lands most powerful sorcerer turns to face Arthur, and a grin cracks his face into the boy that Arthur knew, the Merlin he’s always known. And the first thing that Arthur will tell him after eight long and lonely years of separation is-
‘Your beard looks absolutely dreadful.’
Merlin throws back his head and laughs delightedly, voice echoing in the glade; Arthur thinks it feels like the whole forest is laughing too - and maybe it is.
10.
He is as still as anything- feels the words slide in around him, coiling tight around his limbs: feels the power curdle his breath.
Merlin closes his eyes. She has a very pretty voice. (Merlin has always loved irony).
He sleeps like a log.
11.
When she screams, it’ll tear the sky.
It’ll send Arthur running.
He’ll find Gwen standing anguished by the bath, shaking and shocked. Crimson stain slashed broad down the white of her nightgown. “Help,” she’ll beg, half of her already spilt on stone floor.
(no-one even knew she was pregnant, the gossips whisper, later)
He’ll be shouting for Merlin before he even hears his voice sound.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ she’ll whisper like a prayer, ‘I’m so sorry I lost our-’
Then-
‘She lost a lot of blood,” Merlin will say, after, exhausted. “But she’ll live.’
Arthur won’t collapse or anything, but he will sit down very quickly. Merlin will hide his sticky hands and say, ‘I’m sorry. About…’
(they bury the little thing that they find in the mess of Guinevere on the bathroom floor: so strange, the child that might’ve been his)
He’ll nod and try not to hear the echo of Guinevere’s words in Merlin’s.
12.
Morgana’s hair melts into the darkness when she says, ‘But surely you can teach me.’
She smiles- her bared teeth catch the light.
Merlin will shrug and this is a yes.
He thinks he’s seen this all before.
13.
The important thing to remember is that he always means well.
‘Whatever will we do with you, Arthur,’ Morgana had sneered, once. ‘You are truly your father’s son.’
But that was long ago: before she left, before she was sent away, before Arthur had watched her married stony-faced to Urien, before she’d let her hand drop, before she’d reached out to him. He watches her carriage trundle out of Camelot, you know, and his father says,
‘One day you’ll thank me for the alliance we have created.’
(He wouldn’t)
14.
‘Do you have to go out today?’ Merlin asks anxiously. He looks into his teacup to avoid Gaius’ eyes.
Gaius frowns and says, ‘I have my rounds like I do any other day, boy. What has you so worried?’
Merlin fidgets. ‘Nothing. I just thought maybe today, you’d like to stay inside. You know. Be comfortable.’
He swallows and watches comprehension filter through Gaius’ face. Gaius reaches across the table and covers Merlin’s hands on the teacup.
‘Now, Merlin. We’ve both known this day would come soon - although perhaps not I as a precisely as you. I am an old man Merlin.’
‘But I don’t want-’ Merlin shudders.
Gaius pulls him into a hug and says, ‘Oh, son.’ Son.
He’ll call him son.
Merlin won’t cry until after he wakes.
15.
The cave shakes with the explosion; walls give way and rocks tumble. Arthur reaches out and his fingers skittle over sharp stones and crumbled rubble, searching, searching, until his hands finally alight on Merlin’s leg.
He doesn’t stop there, hands frantic on his arms, body, stomach, face, neck; it’s dark and he can’t see, but he feels the dull beat of blood, hears Merlin whisper, ‘Arthur.’ (It’s not a question).
Arthur chokes relief and leans forward -mouth opens on skin- until he can taste Merlin’s pulse.
16.
The druids call him Emrys until he almost forgets his name himself.
‘Do you think you’ll ever be welcome here again if you go back to him?’ Mordred whispers. His eyes are bright (unnatural, Merlin might say, if he weren’t sure his own were the same). ‘Your place is with us now, Emrys.’
He curls a hand around Merlin’s wrist, not so much possessive as dominating.
No longer a child but a man, and Merlin still can’t kill him.
(But this was a mistake he made years ago)
17.
In this story there are names and titles, names like Guinevere and Arthur and Lancelot and Merlin and Morgana; titles like Queen and King and Knight and Sorcerer and Traitor.
Arthur never asks for the details of this story (Guinevere always smiles at Lancelot like the first light of day) because he wants her to be happy, because-
‘How could you do this to me,’ Morgana spits. She’s still beautiful even with hate twisting her face.
The room is colder when she leaves and he never gets to say that he didn’t.
He’s not sure it’s true anyway.
18.
Tomorrow collapses into yesterday: dawn blinks yellow on Dinas Emrys.
‘Come home with me?’ Arthur asks (asked) him, hands useless at his side.
Merlin laughed and closed the distance.
19.
‘For Camelot!’ - he cries.
‘For Camelot!’
(he falls)
20.
Magic rolls from his lips and his fingertips, warm like blood, curling lazily in the air. He calls water, leaves, flowers, and embers into a woven vortex.
‘That is amazing,’ Arthur gapes, ‘Utterly useless, but amazing nonetheless. What else can you do?’
Merlin scowls. Arthur clearly doesn’t appreciate how difficult it is to prevent the leaves catching alight of the water dousing the fire. And it could quite possibly be useful, as a distraction or something.
‘I could turn you into a bunny,’ Merlin offers, half-jokingly.
‘…No,’ Arthur deadpans.
Merlin rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath. ‘Bet you’d be a prat even as a bunny, anyway.’
21.
He says to her, voice small, ‘I don’t have a choice.’
Guinevere closes her eyes - the executioner sharpens his axe.
(Morgana says - ‘You are truly your father’s son’)
Elsewhere - Lancelot sharpens his sword.
Merlin sleeps like a log.
22.
In a scene Merlin has lived ten times or more, Morgana sighs: ‘Oh, Arthur.’
Oh, Arthur - and her hands are gentle when she lifts the broken king on to the boat. Merlin watches as they sail away and melt into the distance. The Isle of Avalon is a place he’s never seen even in dreams.
Oh, Arthur - and Merlin just can’t forget it.
23.
Arthur doesn’t stumble over the bodies on the battlefield: doesn’t stop for the enemies in his path, dispatches them with easy strokes. He had been the best, once, you know.
‘Mordred!’ he roars, and his enemy turns to face him.
‘Pendragon,’ Mordred grins through a helmet flecked with blood, ‘You should have allowed your father to kill me all those years ago.’
‘Believe me, I have every intention of rectifying that mistake now.’ Arthur readies his blade, and Mordred is amused.
‘You think you can kill me with a sword, Pendragon?’
This is when Arthur raises his eyebrows and says, ‘This sword was a gift from Merlin. I believe it capable of a great deal.’
This, is the end of the end.
24.
Merlin broke a sundial once - this isn’t a metaphor, he just wishes it were.
25.
They say that when you die your life flashes before you: that this moment of before death renders all of life’s trivialities and frivolities into perspective, that therein lay salvation. That this was the moment you made peace with your mortal life.
The truth is that Arthur dies scared and frightened and lonely and full of longing.
(The truth is that Arthur dies with Merlin’s face on the back of his eyelids)
26.
Merlin wakes.
27.
Once, a long time ago, in a dark and dusty cave, he had choked, 'I can’t’ against Merlin’s collarbone.
Once, long ago, he’d brushed their noses together; once, long ago, he didn’t think that he’s ever wanted something more, and once, a lifetime ago, he’d been half an inch and half a second away from kissing Merlin.
And you know? The saddest part of this sad story is that he never will.
the trouble we possess
{ merlin, merlin/arthur, slash, unrelenting!angst. PG. 2,292 words }
He’ll want to say, ‘It’ll be okay.’ He’ll want to believe it too. Arthur walks his inevitable path, every day one click closer to his destiny; for Merlin, time is anything but linear.
notes: I say unrelenting, but I relent three times. Out of twenty-seven. Which isn’t that bad. The whole thing is following the same vein as my previous fic, here. Alternatively, you can just think of any other fic where Merlin leaves, or you can just read this sentence.
1.
Merlin has these dreams, sometimes, and when he wakes it’s not with a start or a gasp or a scream - it’s with a sigh and a slide. Arthur will watch him silently; watch him slip his legs out from the covers to sit hunched on the edge of the bedroll.
Neither of them will speak, although they both know the other is awake. It’s because Merlin has nothing he can say that Arthur will understand, and because Arthur has nothing he can say that will make a difference.
But he’ll want to. He’ll want to wrap his arms around Merlin’s shoulders, tell him that his dreams mean nothing, and that these things Merlin sees will not come to pass.
He’ll want to say, ‘It’ll be okay.’ He’ll want to believe it too.
2.
Merlin confesses to Arthur: ‘I’m not sure I can tell the difference between when I’m asleep and when I’m awake.’
This is the cliché. The truth is- he’s not sure there is a difference.
3.
‘Do you-’ begins Arthur, and then he breaks off, awkward. He fingers the strap of his gauntlet. ‘I mean. Have you ever seen me…die. When you. You know.’ He’s not entirely sure if he was going for flippancy or gravity, but he’s pretty sure he misses both.
Merlin looks vaguely surprised. ‘Oh,’ he says absently, staring out the window. ‘Yeah, loads of times.’
‘You…’ Arthur gapes at him, chill running up his spine ‘And were you planning to mention this anytime?!’
‘Well. I usually do something about it. Or I try too. We’re all going to die someday, Arthur. I just thought…’ Merlin shrugs, nonplussed. ‘I just assumed you would have guessed. If I told you, it wouldn’t change, so…’
Arthur is affronted that Merlin has the gall to be taken aback by Arthur’s surprise. Like it’s somehow strange that Arthur expects to be told. But the thought of his death -when, and how? Would it be painful?
He swallows. ‘It’s fine. I don’t want to think about my own death.’
‘Nobody does, sire,’ Merlin says, bleakly but not miserably. And Arthur suddenly thinks that, this must, surely if he has, then - Merlin must have seen himself die.
And that - that’s a far colder thought.
4.
The sky opens - the pressure drops. Rocks crumble and towers collapse:
Merlin can hear dragons fighting beneath the earth.
5.
‘But if you’d just tell me, then I wouldn’t have to wonder, would I?!’ Arthur explodes. ‘You and Morgana, fluttering about with your ‘visions’- may be this will happen, or perhaps it was the shadow of the moon, or it was just the bloody cheese! What good to me are you at all?!’
Merlin is flushed and bright-eyed. Usually, that might be all it takes for Arthur’s breath to catch, but today he hates every inch of this stupid, stubborn, useless sorcerer.
‘Don’t you think that if I could help it, I would? Do you think I enjoy being able to do nothing any more than you do, Arthur? Do you think I want to watch any more people die?’
‘If you don’t, you’re doing a rubbish job acting like it!’ Arthur shouts back. His voice echoes in the great Hall, and the guards jump. ‘Just. Tell. Me. What. You. Saw.’
‘It doesn’t work like that, sire,’ Merlin grits.
That’s Merlin’s answer to a lot of things these days. Arthur suspects it doesn’t mean a God damn thing.
6.
Merlin points to the heavens. ‘Around there. That’s where the asteroids that’re named after us are. Pretty amazing, huh?’
Arthur is less than amazed. ‘What in God’s name is an asteroid?’
7.
Arthur had always thought - rationally, if a little morbidly- that he’d have to wait until his father’s death until the ban on magic could be lifted.
And well, he’s close; it’s an order Uther himself gives, pretty much on his deathbed. Later, Arthur won’t like to remember him like he was then, with his grey drawn face sunken against the white pillows. He’d like to remember his father proud on horseback, regal on his throne, strong on the battlefield. But what he’s left with is a dying man blurred against his bed sheets, pale and soft-spoken, his voice tinged with nostalgia and regret. A quiet death.
‘But-’ Arthur had said, shocked. Even though it’d been generally understood, even among the populace, that Arthur would not retain the ban during his own reign, it was just that: during his own reign.
‘Come now Arthur,’ Uther had said in a tone that could once have counted for bored, ‘Let me do at least one good thing for you before I die. You’ve been arguing for this for years.’
‘But,’ Arthur repeated, ‘Not if you don’t think it’s right.’
Uther’s eyes were bright. ‘Arthur. It makes you happy. It is the right decision.’
8.
‘This is a dream,’ Merlin tells Arthur, smiles.
‘No,’ Arthur replies fiercely, digging his fingers into Merlin’s arms. ‘No, I’m right here, you’re not asleep, Merlin-’
Merlin opens his eyes.
9.
Arthur waits.
And waits.
And waits and waits and waits. But Merlin does not return, and it is a good year after Uther’s death when Arthur finally sets out to find him. It takes a month on horseback and a day on foot before he finds Merlin at Dinas Emrys, perched on a rock and staring out at the lake, his back to Arthur.
Picture this: the dawn light cuts gold over Merlin’s shoulders, burred halo on morning mist, and he stands tall, looks one thousand years old. Arthur forgets to breathe, thinks, this is the stuff that legends are made of.
‘Merlin,’ he chokes.
And the solemn face of the lands most powerful sorcerer turns to face Arthur, and a grin cracks his face into the boy that Arthur knew, the Merlin he’s always known. And the first thing that Arthur will tell him after eight long and lonely years of separation is-
‘Your beard looks absolutely dreadful.’
Merlin throws back his head and laughs delightedly, voice echoing in the glade; Arthur thinks it feels like the whole forest is laughing too - and maybe it is.
10.
He is as still as anything- feels the words slide in around him, coiling tight around his limbs: feels the power curdle his breath.
Merlin closes his eyes. She has a very pretty voice. (Merlin has always loved irony).
He sleeps like a log.
11.
When she screams, it’ll tear the sky.
It’ll send Arthur running.
He’ll find Gwen standing anguished by the bath, shaking and shocked. Crimson stain slashed broad down the white of her nightgown. “Help,” she’ll beg, half of her already spilt on stone floor.
(no-one even knew she was pregnant, the gossips whisper, later)
He’ll be shouting for Merlin before he even hears his voice sound.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ she’ll whisper like a prayer, ‘I’m so sorry I lost our-’
Then-
‘She lost a lot of blood,” Merlin will say, after, exhausted. “But she’ll live.’
Arthur won’t collapse or anything, but he will sit down very quickly. Merlin will hide his sticky hands and say, ‘I’m sorry. About…’
(they bury the little thing that they find in the mess of Guinevere on the bathroom floor: so strange, the child that might’ve been his)
He’ll nod and try not to hear the echo of Guinevere’s words in Merlin’s.
12.
Morgana’s hair melts into the darkness when she says, ‘But surely you can teach me.’
She smiles- her bared teeth catch the light.
Merlin will shrug and this is a yes.
He thinks he’s seen this all before.
13.
The important thing to remember is that he always means well.
‘Whatever will we do with you, Arthur,’ Morgana had sneered, once. ‘You are truly your father’s son.’
But that was long ago: before she left, before she was sent away, before Arthur had watched her married stony-faced to Urien, before she’d let her hand drop, before she’d reached out to him. He watches her carriage trundle out of Camelot, you know, and his father says,
‘One day you’ll thank me for the alliance we have created.’
(He wouldn’t)
14.
‘Do you have to go out today?’ Merlin asks anxiously. He looks into his teacup to avoid Gaius’ eyes.
Gaius frowns and says, ‘I have my rounds like I do any other day, boy. What has you so worried?’
Merlin fidgets. ‘Nothing. I just thought maybe today, you’d like to stay inside. You know. Be comfortable.’
He swallows and watches comprehension filter through Gaius’ face. Gaius reaches across the table and covers Merlin’s hands on the teacup.
‘Now, Merlin. We’ve both known this day would come soon - although perhaps not I as a precisely as you. I am an old man Merlin.’
‘But I don’t want-’ Merlin shudders.
Gaius pulls him into a hug and says, ‘Oh, son.’ Son.
He’ll call him son.
Merlin won’t cry until after he wakes.
15.
The cave shakes with the explosion; walls give way and rocks tumble. Arthur reaches out and his fingers skittle over sharp stones and crumbled rubble, searching, searching, until his hands finally alight on Merlin’s leg.
He doesn’t stop there, hands frantic on his arms, body, stomach, face, neck; it’s dark and he can’t see, but he feels the dull beat of blood, hears Merlin whisper, ‘Arthur.’ (It’s not a question).
Arthur chokes relief and leans forward -mouth opens on skin- until he can taste Merlin’s pulse.
16.
The druids call him Emrys until he almost forgets his name himself.
‘Do you think you’ll ever be welcome here again if you go back to him?’ Mordred whispers. His eyes are bright (unnatural, Merlin might say, if he weren’t sure his own were the same). ‘Your place is with us now, Emrys.’
He curls a hand around Merlin’s wrist, not so much possessive as dominating.
No longer a child but a man, and Merlin still can’t kill him.
(But this was a mistake he made years ago)
17.
In this story there are names and titles, names like Guinevere and Arthur and Lancelot and Merlin and Morgana; titles like Queen and King and Knight and Sorcerer and Traitor.
Arthur never asks for the details of this story (Guinevere always smiles at Lancelot like the first light of day) because he wants her to be happy, because-
‘How could you do this to me,’ Morgana spits. She’s still beautiful even with hate twisting her face.
The room is colder when she leaves and he never gets to say that he didn’t.
He’s not sure it’s true anyway.
18.
Tomorrow collapses into yesterday: dawn blinks yellow on Dinas Emrys.
‘Come home with me?’ Arthur asks (asked) him, hands useless at his side.
Merlin laughed and closed the distance.
19.
‘For Camelot!’ - he cries.
‘For Camelot!’
(he falls)
20.
Magic rolls from his lips and his fingertips, warm like blood, curling lazily in the air. He calls water, leaves, flowers, and embers into a woven vortex.
‘That is amazing,’ Arthur gapes, ‘Utterly useless, but amazing nonetheless. What else can you do?’
Merlin scowls. Arthur clearly doesn’t appreciate how difficult it is to prevent the leaves catching alight of the water dousing the fire. And it could quite possibly be useful, as a distraction or something.
‘I could turn you into a bunny,’ Merlin offers, half-jokingly.
‘…No,’ Arthur deadpans.
Merlin rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath. ‘Bet you’d be a prat even as a bunny, anyway.’
21.
He says to her, voice small, ‘I don’t have a choice.’
Guinevere closes her eyes - the executioner sharpens his axe.
(Morgana says - ‘You are truly your father’s son’)
Elsewhere - Lancelot sharpens his sword.
Merlin sleeps like a log.
22.
In a scene Merlin has lived ten times or more, Morgana sighs: ‘Oh, Arthur.’
Oh, Arthur - and her hands are gentle when she lifts the broken king on to the boat. Merlin watches as they sail away and melt into the distance. The Isle of Avalon is a place he’s never seen even in dreams.
Oh, Arthur - and Merlin just can’t forget it.
23.
Arthur doesn’t stumble over the bodies on the battlefield: doesn’t stop for the enemies in his path, dispatches them with easy strokes. He had been the best, once, you know.
‘Mordred!’ he roars, and his enemy turns to face him.
‘Pendragon,’ Mordred grins through a helmet flecked with blood, ‘You should have allowed your father to kill me all those years ago.’
‘Believe me, I have every intention of rectifying that mistake now.’ Arthur readies his blade, and Mordred is amused.
‘You think you can kill me with a sword, Pendragon?’
This is when Arthur raises his eyebrows and says, ‘This sword was a gift from Merlin. I believe it capable of a great deal.’
This, is the end of the end.
24.
Merlin broke a sundial once - this isn’t a metaphor, he just wishes it were.
25.
They say that when you die your life flashes before you: that this moment of before death renders all of life’s trivialities and frivolities into perspective, that therein lay salvation. That this was the moment you made peace with your mortal life.
The truth is that Arthur dies scared and frightened and lonely and full of longing.
(The truth is that Arthur dies with Merlin’s face on the back of his eyelids)
26.
Merlin wakes.
27.
Once, a long time ago, in a dark and dusty cave, he had choked, 'I can’t’ against Merlin’s collarbone.
Once, long ago, he’d brushed their noses together; once, long ago, he didn’t think that he’s ever wanted something more, and once, a lifetime ago, he’d been half an inch and half a second away from kissing Merlin.
And you know? The saddest part of this sad story is that he never will.