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The first one was bad enough, but the second world war? Absolute hell. And the worst part was that the Round Table was supposed to come back. They were supposed to come back, not... not this. Never this. Merlin buried Leon, his hands stained with blood caked on by dark earth, tears dripping down his face. He'd already watched Arthur choke to death on his own blood, a bayonet between his ribs. Gwaine had smiled at him, right before the bomb fell. Percival died at Merlin's own hands. (He'd made a promise, after all.) Gwen had been a nurse, but that didn't stop the enemy from slitting her throat when the camp was infiltrated. Mordred had been Romani this time around, dead from gas at seventeen, his shoes stolen by an SS officer. Morgana, unsurprisingly, had stubborned her way into the army, dying with her eyes full of golden fire, full of rage, a field of dead around her. Elyan had been a pilot, and an American, funnily enough. He'd been shot down somewhere over the Channel. Merlin couldn't even find the fucking plane. And poor Leon had died of a goddamn infection, of all things.
He hadn't found Lancelot yet. He almost didn't want to, with the way things had been going. If he doesn't find him, he can pretend that Lance is alright. But at the same time, the not knowing was worse.
The shovel scraped the ground, his hands struggling to grasp the damn thing when they're slick with his own blood.
“I have passed every one of your fucking tests, and if you don't give me a goddamn gun and let me fight, I swear I am going to make your life extremely difficult!”
“Morgana. Good to see you're the same as ever.”
The shovel scraped the ground.
“It's alright, it's alright. Merlin, just... stay with me?”
“Who do you take me for, Arthur?”
He lifted more dirt and flung it over his shoulder.
“I don't... want to... die... Emrys, please!”
“I can't... I... my magic... fuck, Mordred, no!”
Deeper, it needed to be deeper.
“Fitting... ah... end for... a Knight of the Round, eh, Merls?”
“Don't, don't say that! Don't! I can... I can still... Gwaine?”
Deeper still. Six feet by six and a half by three.
“Merlin? Is that you? Oh it's so good to see you!”
“What are you doing here?”
“I'm a nurse, what does it look like?”
He brushed dirt off Leon's face, twitching his collar straight. Leon valued presentation, in both lives.
“When this is over, I'll take you to the States, show you what a real summer's like!”
“Don't talk like that El, you'll jinx us!”
Merlin picked Leon up and lowered him, gently, gently. So cold. So still. It wasn't right. It wasn't right, goddamnit. This wasn't supposed to happen.
“Even your magic, old friend, can't undo this mess. Look what they've done to my legs! Useless now, me!”
“Leon, you've never been useless, and you're not now. Stop moping about, you curmudgeon.”
He clambered out of the hole and started shoveling the dirt back in.
“Hey, d'you think we'll get out alright?”
“I dunno, Percy. Why?”
“Promise me, if I get... captured, you'll break my neck or something.”
“Percival!”
“Promise me.”
“... I will.”
The gunfire and bombings were so constant he barely heard them anymore. He smoothed the last bit of dirt over the grave and looked up as a bullet whizzed by his ear. The man was dead before he even blinked. Merlin turned at a choked noise, wondering who the bullet hit, and saw Lancelot, clutching at a rapidly growing bloodstain on his stomach. Something in Merlin snapped. No. No more, he refused. He dropped the shovel and lunged at Lancelot, slamming his hands over the wound and shoving his magic into it, pouring his considerable power into a desperate plea to heal. It worked, thank fuck, but only just.
Merlin was the son of magic and earth and sea and sky, the son of Balinor Caledonensis, lord of dragons. And these people who had taken everything from him? They would know what the wrath of the last dragonkin felt like. Merlin stood and raised bloodstained hands and called fire from the skies.
He screamed and screamed and they were screaming too and he did not stop even after there was silence but for the roaring of the flames.
A pair of hands cupped his face, a kiss brushing the corner of his mouth softly as if... as if he was still something gentle, something precious. Merlin had not been either of those things for longer than he cared to remember. “It's alright, Merlin,” Lancelot breathed. “I'm alright, you can stop now. You can stop now.” Something inside him, something vicious and hungry, something wholly dragon, didn't want to. These people had slaughtered his friends, his family. They deserved everything he could bring against them. He understood Killgharrah now. “It's enough, Merlin! They're already dead!” He supposed... well... Lance was right. And yet.
The gold faded from his eyes and the flames went out. The silence was horrendous in it's completeness. Merlin's grin was sharp, too many teeth. “Not all of them,” he rasped with a voice like dragonfire.
“God help me,” Lancelot thought, wildly, his fingers brushing what had been a deadly wound as he stared at the drifting ashes and the smoke. “God help me, but I will not leave you. I can't. Love is strange that way. But God, God, my love. What are you doing? What have you done? God help us, you meant so well.”
- Wenne bruceþ, ðe can weana lyt sares...