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The goblets glinted gold in the sunlight, as the waves of the sea crashed against the shore. Merlin stared anxiously at the liquid within them — he swore both goblets contained water, but Anhora had said one of them had poison.
“Merlin,” Arthur said. Merlin looked up from his observation to meet Arthur’s steady, inscrutable gaze. “I know you’ve got the answer to the problem. Spit it out.”
Merlin took a deep breath. He was going to die that day, and he would so without any regrets. “Before that — Arthur, I wanted to tell you: despite the curse, you’ve got a pure heart. The purest. You’ll make a great king someday, and it was an honour to serve you.” And then he stood and leant over the table to capture Arthur’s lips in the first and last kiss of his life.
He tipped the contents of one goblet into the other as he sat back down, and met Arthur’s eyes one last time. Arthur appeared devastated.
“You idiot,” he nearly shouted. “Now, of all times?”
Merlin shrugged, and despite the gravity of the situation he smiled. “Better late than never.”
Merlin clasped the liquid-filled goblet firmly, taking a deep breath, watching the surface of the poison glimmer.
“As if,” he heard, and suddenly Arthur had wrenched the thing out of his hands and downed it in one go.
*
When Arthur came to, his head was in Merlin’s lap and Merlin was weeping over him like a maiden.
“Stupid prat,” Merlin said. Not weeping, then. His mouth was twisted in worry all the same. “D’you have to be the hero?”
“Well,” said Arthur, aiming to be pithy. “It’s always the hero who gets the girl, yeah?”
Merlin scoffed, but when Arthur reached for him, he leant down for a soppy kiss anyway.