Chapter Text
“You’ve had your fun, my friend.”
“Do I know you?”
“I’m Merlin.”
“So I don’t know you.”
“No.”
“Yet you called me friend.”
“That was my mistake.”
“Yes, I think so,”
“Yeah. I’d never have a friend who could be such an ass.”
“Or I one who could be so stupid. Tell me, Merlin, do you know how to walk on your knees?”
“No.”
“Would you like me to help you?”
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“Why? What are you gonna do to me?”
“You have no idea.”
“Be my guest! Come on! Come on! Come on… I’ll have to put you in jail for that.”
“And who do you think you are? The king?”
“No, I’m his son. Arthur.”
**
Merlin smiles as he uses his index finger to swirl the liquid in the bowl until Arthur’s face is replaced with a watery reflection of his own. Even if Arthur had been a right prat back then, that’s one of his favorite memories to return to. When Arthur was young, stupid, and unbearably proud.
Or, for lack of a better word, a clot pole.
It makes Merlin’s chest ache to think of how it was in those first days, when they were young and didn’t have the weight of the world on their shoulders. He’s lived a great many lifetimes since then, far too many than any one person should be subject to, but the emotions dragged to the surface at the thought of Arthur still manage to feel fresh, as if he’s going to walk in the door at any moment carrying a bag of groceries in one hand and Excalibur in the other.
Maybe it’s because their destinies are entwined, maybe it’s because it’s Arthur , but Merlin has never forgotten the way Arthur could make him feel.
His coffee suddenly seems unappetizing.
For the first long, awful months after he’d sent Arthur to Avalon, Merlin had thought the greatest curse of immortality was that it was a life of constant loss. To be immortal was to watch his loved ones grow closer to passing on with every breath in the knowledge he might never rest with them. It was watching the ways he knew be forgotten to minds of those born into a world he barely recognized as his own.
It was a life of things falling away, sinking into a place so deep and dark it was impossible to breach.
For those months, Merlin had laid in his bed for hours, dreaming up ways to stop himself from losing anything the way he had lost Arthur. The earth called him Emrys, and then it had ripped away his other half without mercy. It tore away the man he was created to protect. It left him purposeless, other than to wait. To wait without any idea what exactly for or how long he would be waiting for.
It made him angry, and in his anger, he was powerful.
He sighs as his awareness of the discontent that had been lodged in his soul for so long surges with a severity he hasn’t known for a long time. Some days are easier than others, and today he’s woken with a heaviness in his gut that nearly leaves him breathless.
The alarm on his phone blares, startling Merlin enough that he nearly knocks over his coffee. As he reaches to turn it off, the unsettled feeling in his gut only grows stronger. He wonders for a moment if he should go down to the lake, just in case.
He shakes his head as if to dislodge the thought from his mind and sets his mug in the sink. If there was something to be seen, he would be certain of it. A sigh filled with an ancient grief escapes his lips, and he has to rest a hand on the counter so that he does not sink to the ground in his weariness. He slips on his shoes and casts a glamour over his appearance.
He doesn’t bother to lock the door behind him when he steps outside. Cool mist has settled over the land and obscures his little house from the view of anyone that might bother to break into it.
As if it can understand him, the mist swirls around his head and raises goosebumps on his skin. Your home is safe in my hands , it says, and the comfort manages to pull a smile from Merlin. He sets off for the bookshop where he works without the vigor that should fill a body so young.
One of the games he’s played over the centuries is to see how many derivations of his name he can think of to use once he needs to find a new persona to inhabit for that lifetime. A decade or so ago he’d settled on Rhys for the 21 st century.
Something really does feel different about this day, and Merlin has to shove his heart back down into his chest as he crosses the dirt road that leads from the shores of the lake to the village. He has spent far too many days believing this is the day , and he is not going to let incessant hope ravage the peacefulness of his Saturday morning.
It is not going to be today, and it is not going to be tomorrow. Albion is in no danger, so it is not yet time for Arthur to return.
The thought feels clinical, like something Merlin has repeated to the point of meaninglessness. The feeling continues to weave itself under his skin until every nerve is on edge. A passing bicyclist shouts at him when he drifts into the street, and he is snapped back to attention.
It gnaws at him as he passes familiar shop windows and pulls his set of keys from his pocket. There are only three: one for his house, which he seldom uses; one for the cabinet containing what he’d salvaged from the Camelot vaults before they fell; and one that unlocks the door to the bookshop.
Merlin has worked at the shop for almost four years now. His Saturday morning ritual of opening up helps stave off some of the nervous energy that has insisted on plaguing him today. The lock clicks and a bell announces his entry into the store. When he’d first begun working at the shop, he found the sound to be a nuisance, but it’s now a comforting reminder of the peace he feels here.
He latches the door to a hook on the wall so the only barrier to entry is the screen door. The shop is as tidy as he left it the night before, but he still walks to the front display and neatens some of the books before hanging his messenger bag from the hook behind the counter.
It’s late enough that the sun is partly risen in the sky and he doesn’t have to turn the fluorescent on in lieu of the sunlight. Recently, he’s been finding himself waking when it’s still dark so he can watch the sunrise. After living for what he figures must be a million of them, he finds it strange that they now leave him breathless, but it’s nice enough to have something feel new after so many years of monotony.
He settles in by the counter and sees a hastily scribbled note stuck to the cash register.
New summer reading shipment in back. Feel free to unload :) -Maya
He rolls his eyes. “Of course I’m meant to unload it. Of course she couldn’t do it herself.” Even if the words are annoyed, he doesn’t sound at all bitter saying them. He won’t admit it, but one of his favorite parts of the job is unloading the shipments of new books onto the shelves.
There’s something sacred in the act of unboxing a new book, he thinks as he carries the box out of the little office at the back of the store and sets it on the floor next to the empty summer reading display. Before he can continue the thought, he’s distracted by the title on the shipping label.
Frankenstein .
They’d been running out of copies of the novel all summer. One of the English teachers at the little school down the road assigned it for the students to read while on break. Merlin likes to say it’s his fault when reluctant teenagers come into the store, since it was after a conversation with him that the teacher had decided to make them read it.
It amuses Merlin to no end, watching the world cement books into the fabric of society. Of course, he’s always sad to watch some authors very dear to him pass into obscurity. There are a great many people who have never gotten the credit they deserve.
It’s pleased him to see Frankenstein become popular again in the past few decades. When he first read it, he found himself oddly empathetic of Victor. He had spent the months after Arthur’s death lost within himself, and he understood the mania of trying to control life and death. Now, he finds Victor’s denial of any guilt repulsive, and any sympathy is begrudging.
With a quick incantation, he undoes the zip ties on the box. He thumbs through a copy of Frankenstein before setting it on the display. Of the many, many books he’d read over the course of his life, this is one of his favorites.
The bell rings merrily, and he sets it down.
“Morning, Rhys!” Maya says as she pulls the screen door shut behind her. She’s carrying a paper-wrapped package and struggles to untangle her purse from her coat collar. Why she’s wearing a coat, Merlin can’t say. Summer has yet to give way to autumn, and even the cool air off of the lake is hardly worth the extra layers.
He’s known Maya for almost five years now. Her grandmother has lived in the village for as long as Merlin can remember, and when she got sick, Maya came to help her. She’d taken a liking to the place, and Merlin met her when he worked in the tiny library tucked into the side of the town hall. They got to talking, and less than a year later took over the café together.
“My lady,” he replies to her initial greeting, extending his hands to take the package from her. She laughs at his familiar greeting and takes a moment to set her things next to his.
“I see you’ve found the shipment.” Merlin gives her a mock angry look.
“Only because someone didn’t have the courtesy to put it out last night.”
Maya laughs again. She’s one of the most pleasant people Merlin has ever known, and he can’t help but crack a smile at the sound of it ringing through the store. “I had places to go, people to see.”
“Did that include robbing a bank with your girlfriend?” Merlin asks, and Maya sputters in protest.
“Alright. This is getting old. How was I supposed to know she’d go and rob a bank the day after I went out with her?”
Merlin shakes his head and sighs. “It’s in the eyes, Maya, always in the eyes. You’re far too trusting.” He struggles to undo some of the ties on the second box of books, and Maya tosses him her closed pocketknife.
“You sound like my grandfather,” she says, and Merlin laughs to himself. If only she knew.
He cuts the plastic zip ties and hands back the knife. “I suppose telling you not to throw knives would only further that perception?” She accepts it with a smile.
“Pretty and smart.” She flicks open the knife and delicately pulls at the twine until it breaks. The book under the paper is leather-bound, and Maya frowns at it. “This isn’t what I ordered.” Merlin cranes his neck to look at the cover.
“ The Mistakes of Rosewater ? What kind of a title is that?”
He knows too late he’s made a mistake because Maya is already staring at him. “Of course you speak German.” When he looks back to the cover, it’s unmistakably in German. At his surprised look, Maya shakes her head. “How the hell do you pick up languages like you don’t even realize?”
The truth is that Merlin stopped needing to learn languages a long time ago. He’d realized one day that he could understand languages he’d never heard before without a problem, and while it is slightly alarming to consider how he’d gained the ability, he has found it useful enough.
But to say that would only make Maya think he was joking, so he settles for a smile and a shrug. “A magician never reveals his secrets.” His magic hums in protest to being used as the butt of a joke, but he shrugs off the feeling and flips through the book. “What were you meant to get?”
Maya sighs. “Mrs. Saunders—remember her? Sweet old redhead, likes to come in Tuesdays before her sewing club—she asked if I could order a rare-print copy of a journal written by some vaguely famous relative of hers. I had to special order it.” She takes the book back. “I’ll call and get it sorted. There’s a woman coming ‘round ten to interview for Cole’s job. Sounded real sweet on the phone. Could you deal with her if she comes by?”
Merlin nods. Cole has been working in the café for the summer but is going back to uni in a few weeks and needs to be replaced. Maya had joked with him not to get too attached when they’d first hired him, since he’d be leaving in a few months, but Merlin still found himself saddened by their parting.
He likes to blame how easily he takes to certain people on his magic. Sometimes, the way someone quirks their eyebrow or smiles crookedly reminds him enough of someone he’d known in Camelot that his magic is instantly drawn to them.
Cole had been one of those people. There was something in the way he held his silences, the quiet contentment that he worked in that reminded Merlin of Lancelot so many years ago.
There’s a noise behind him, and he turns around to see if the woman’s at the door. When he sees nothing, his nervous energy surges. He settles back into arranging the books, but then he swears there is whispering in his ear.
He focuses on the sound, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to reach out to the sounds, but the more he tries, the more the sound pulls away from him. There are individual voices he can almost pick out, but they quickly fade into the distance as if they’re running away from him.
Then it’s suddenly as if they were never there at all. When he turns back to the display, his hands are shaking.
He jumps when the bell rings a few minutes later. This time, there is a young woman at the door.
“Sorry if I startled you,” she says quickly, and Merlin immediately likes her. There’s something in her eyes, in the way they shine, that remind him of Gwen when she’d first come up to him in the stocks so many years ago.
“Oh, no trouble.” He sets down the last few copies of Frankenstein and holds out a hand. “Rhys.”
“Sam.” She looks around the shop fondly. “Lovely place, this. I’m meant to meet with a woman named Maya about a job?”
Merlin gives her an apologetic smile. “Afraid you’re stuck with me for the moment. Maya told me you’d be coming by.” He sees the insignia on her jumper. “Are you in school?”
Sam nods. “Grad student. I’m studying history.”
“Why history?” Merlin asks her, but he knows the answer from the way her lips twitch in a smile and her eyes brighten at the mention of it. He’s gotten good at reading people, in his time, and he can read her easily enough. She’s an old soul. A kindred one. He plans to hire her before asking anything related to the job.
She speaks for a moment about how history is present in every facet of life, and how every inch of the world is imbued with stories. It’s a good answer. Merlin knows better than anyone the way the world is filled with untold stories.
Maya returns as Merlin offers her the job. She shows Sam around the café, and Merlin settles into his routine. The morning is swept away with customers and teaching Sam the ropes, and Merlin can almost forget about the voices that weren’t really there.
At one point, Sam and Maya talk about a class she’s taken in undergrad about music of camaraderie, whatever the hell that means. Merlin is struck with a memory of Arthur when he was still the prince, and he accompanied the knights to a tavern one winter night and was dared to join in on the singing of a ridiculous song that Merlin had been half-certain Gwaine was making up on the spot.
It was the only time Merlin had ever heard him join in on any singing, and he’d looked so carefree when he finally relented that Merlin could still remember half of the song’s words.
“Ooh, Sam, you’re in for a treat. Merlin does a storytelling thing every Saturday at noon. People love it,” Maya says, drawing Merlin out of his thoughts.
Sam looks to Merlin. “My friend, the one who told me about the job, mentioned that. Said it’s loads of fun.”
Merlin smiles. “I hope so.”
Around noon, a stream of customers enter the shop and congregate around the café portion, ordering drinks and things and making overall much more noise than had been present the rest of the morning.
Rather than being annoyed, Merlin gives them all a familiar smile and unlocks the cabinet behind the counter. The cabinet is mostly filled with little things, like specially ordered items and paperwork Maya can’t fit in the office, but Merlin reaches for the leather-bound spiral notepad.
The material is soft in his hands, and when he closes the cabinet again, he flips to the page where a small ribbon is tied. Scribbled on the pages of the notebook are the names of all the people who have attended his “storytelling Saturday” lunches over the past four years.
It had started when he and Maya had first opened the shop. As they were unpacking boxes and dusting and assembling bookcases, Merlin had described to her the first time he entered a bookshop. Leaving out, of course, the fact that it had been back in the 16 th century.
“You tell stories well,” she had told him as she tried to shake off some of the plaster that had dribbled onto her face from the ceiling. He’d laughed at her then, but a month or two later, he found himself telling stories from World War II his “grandfather” had told him to a few enraptured customers on a slow Saturday afternoon.
Lizzy and Olympia. His original audience.
They’d come back the week after with a few friends, asking to hear more stories, and a tradition was born.
Merlin flips to the beginning of the book and scans the list of names.
This is the kind of town where you either stay forever or come up for holiday, and it shows in the way there are the same names repeated week after week and then a few names that crop up for a few months every year.
Half of the regulars are already here, even though the official time on the poster is one p.m. and it’s only twelve-twenty. Merlin sets out the book of names on the table in the front of the store and puts out the sign that says “Let us know your name!” He walks over to the café.
“Mind if I borrow Sam?” he asks Maya sweetly, and she raises an eyebrow.
“Throwing her to the wolves already?” she replies, just as sweetly, but she’s loud enough that the group settled at the café tables overhears.
“I’d hardly call us wolves, Maya,” Olympia says, and Merlin grins to himself. Even after all these years, he secretly favorites the original few that came to hear his stories before they had a poster in the window advertising it as an event.
“Olympia’s right, Maya. They’re more like wyvern.” He adds a hint of mystique into his voice that he knows will pique Sam’s curiosity.
“What’s a wyvern?” she asks, right on cue, and Merlin smiles.
“Wyverns are nasty little buggers. They’re like the tiny cousins of dragons, but much meaner and like to fight dirty when they get the chance. They’ve got two-legs, instead of four, like dragons do, and they like to use their tails to get a jab at you.”
Maya shakes her head, holding back a laugh, and Sam looks interested.
“Are you going to tell a fairy story today, then?”
Merlin smiles. “I’d hardly call it a fairy story. There won’t be any fairies involved in this dark tale of venturing into the Perilous Lands.”
Over the next half-hour, he introduces Sam to the regulars and gets acquainted with a few new faces. He never decides what stories to tell until it’s right against one o’clock and he’s settled himself sitting on the counter, everyone’s eyes watching his expectantly.
If he’s honest, Merlin tries to tell his stories the way he remembers Gwaine telling his: a blend of action, joking around, and his commentary all mashed into an engaging mess of a tale. And Merlin has plenty of source material to choose from.
But today, he feels nostalgic, and Arthur has been clouding the edges of his vision all day.
“There was a bridge, once,” he starts, and suddenly it feels as though even the walls have quieted to listen to his soft voice. “It stretched across a small ravine in a forest not far from here. There was a man that stood, guarding the bridge. In all honesty, he was a rather irritating man. Liked to be vague, mostly unhelpful, that sort of thing. But he knew that one day, three men would come to the bridge on a quest that would restore the land he once inhabited. And so, he waited.
“In another place, not too far from here, there lived a young prince. He was rather insufferable. Could barely dress himself.” Merlin bit back a smile. “But he was a good man, under it all.” Merlin pauses, because talking about Arthur can sometimes make him forget he’s telling a story.
After taking a breath, he continues, “And it was tradition that every prince in this kingdom go on a solitary quest to prove themselves worthy of the throne. The solitary part was very important, you see. Alone and unaided,” he half-mocks, knowing his audience doesn’t quite get the joke.
“But he was no ordinary prince. And this was no ordinary quest.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “You see, this prince was destined to become the greatest king his kingdom would ever know. And the quest he envisioned, of going to the Perilous Lands—which, let me tell you, are rather unpleasant—and retrieving the trident of the legendary Fisher King, had been written in the fabric of destiny since the beginning of time.”
He goes on to tell the story of the prince and his conspiring sister, and the protective manservant that went after him with the help of his scoundrel friend. He tells of wyvern and Fisher Kings and destiny, of how the servant and prince worked together to complete the quest even when the servant would get no credit for what he did.
“And as they parted ways, with the scoundrel banned from the prince’s kingdom, and the prince and servant returning to the kingdom that did not allow them to be equals, the servant thought back to the words of the man on the bridge.
“Strength, Courage, and Magic have arrived, he had said. The servant knew he was Magic. He was born of it. The prince, as snobbish and irritating as he could be, was the most courageous man he’d ever known. Together, the two of them did great deeds to keep their kingdom safe. And it was the scoundrel, Strength, that allowed them to succeed.”
As he takes a sip of water from the glass situated next to him, bowing to signal the story’s completion, the applause makes him grin and blush a little. Even after doing it for so long, it always embarrasses him a little to have people clap for him like he’s done something particularly impressive.
It’s almost two, somehow. Merlin slides off the counter.
People come up to talk to him as he settles back in at the cash register. Their sales are always best on Saturday afternoons, when Merlin’s just told a story, but Merlin finds himself half-distracted as people talk to him.
The disorientation only grows worse as the customers slowly trickle out the door. When it’s just him, Sam, and Maya left in the shop, the voice that hammered the inside of his head earlier returns suddenly, and he finds his vision blurring.
Merlin .
He sucks in a breath and grips the counter, trying to keep himself steady as the voice radiates through his mind.
There is no mistaking that voice. No one says his name quite like Arthur, and he’d be damned if that wasn’t Arthur’s voice in his ear. He hadn’t imagined that. He knows what it is like to imagine voices, and he would stake his life on the fact that the voice he heard was not in his head.
Then all the whispers from earlier are descending on him again, but this time, it feels like they are screaming. His head feels like it is trapped underwater, and every attempt he makes to breathe only make the screams louder. He flails in place, the noise seeming to fill his lungs and penetrate his skin to the bone, but then they’ve gone again and he’s left gasping for air.
“You alright, Rhys?” His knuckles are white on the countertop as he gives Maya a weak nod.
“Swallowed funny. I’m fine now.” She gives him a slightly concerned look but turns back to Sam at the espresso maker. When he’s still hunched over a minute later, she looks up at him again.
She comes over. “Take the rest of the day off.” When Merlin protests, she gives him a stern look. “You’ve been here every day this week. Take a minute to relax,” she urges. Merlin wrinkles his nose.
“Working here is relaxing.”
Maya sighs, the worry obvious in her eyes. “Rhys, you look exhausted. Go home, get some rest. The books will be here tomorrow.”
Merlin knows there’s no point in arguing, so he flashes a smile and goes to grab his things. “Thanks, Maya,” he says to mask his disappointment. She doesn’t notice the facade.
This time, the bell sounds almost sad.
**
“Hello, old friend.”
The cave housing Aithusa is cleverly masqueraded by a mix of well-placed boulders and protective wards. The trek there always leaves Merlin with an inexplicable number of leaves in his hair.
She slinks out of the shadows, her pupils quickly shrinking as the light hits her eyes. It still pains Merlin to see her so content in the darkness when she should be lounging in the heat of the sun. The two years she spent with Morgana in darkness nearly destroyed her, and in the hundreds of years since, she still finds no comfort in the light of the sun.
“Aithusa,” Merlin says affectionately. She lingers in the sun a moment, lost in thought, before drawing back into the safety of the shadows. Merlin conjures a small light so he’s not totally blind and joins her. He reaches out to touch the scales on her spine, the dark metal he’d once used as a brace gleaming through the dull white.
Healing her body was the project that kept him sane, when Camelot had fallen. She is the only piece of that life he has left to cling to.
“You seem contemplative.” Her voice is old, and rattling, and sometimes Merlin fears she is going to leave him soon.
He sighs. He feels like he’s done that a lot recently. “Today has been a contemplative day.”
Aithusa arranges herself on the ground so he can come sit by her. “Is that why you’ve come to visit?”
Merlin sits so he can rest against her. “No, I came to spend time with a friend.”
The greatest regret Merlin has (not the greatest , of course, but the thing he feels right now to be the greatest tragedy) is that he never had a chance to introduce Arthur and Aithusa. Merlin would have given anything to watch Arthur look at her with wide, slightly terrified eyes before she trotted over to nuzzle him and he absolutely fell in love with her.
They could have argued about whether Aithusa would say “Merlin” or “Arthur” first only to have her fly past both of them with a cry of “Gwen!” or “Gaius!” instead.
Aithusa rearranges herself so her head is resting on the cool ground and Merlin’s arm is draped over her head. “You’re thinking of Arthur, aren’t you?”
“How do you always know?” Merlin asks, trying to mask the sadness in his voice. Aithusa presses her head up against his arm in a show of comfort.
“Because your magic always feels so…lonely, when you do. Like an amputee trying to grasp something only to realize their fingers aren’t there anymore.” Merlin suddenly feels exhausted, inside and out, and curls further into her.
“I suppose an amputee would get used to it after a thousand years,” Merlin says. Bitterness seeps into his voice, and the guilt that always follows snapped statements like this one washes over him like a tidal wave.
Aithusa senses this. She pulls Merlin in tighter, and they sit for a long time in silence.
Finally, Merlin speaks again. “I feel as though there is a stirring in the earth. Something is coming, Aithusa, something important.”
Aithusa makes a sound almost akin to humming. “I would caution you against feeling hope, Merlin, but I believe I’ve felt it as well.” It still unsettles Merlin to think of the way voices screamed helplessly into his ears back at the shop. For a moment he thinks of the dorocha, back in the time of Camelot.
With a whisper of guidance, he conjures little specks of light that rearrange themselves into pretty patterns against the dark backdrop of the cave. The weariness subsides for a moment as Aithusa sighs in pleasure at the sight. Merlin imagines showing Arthur all the beautiful things magic can do.
Aithusa nudges his arm. “You’re thinking of him again.”
Merlin lets the lights fizzle out gently until they are nearly in total darkness. “He has been on my mind all day. I—I really think it might be soon, Aithusa.”
“Or perhaps you are just lonely.” She sounds lonely herself as she says it, and Merlin feels desperately sorry he has not been able to find her a companion in his long years of searching.
“Perhaps,” he finally answers her, and their silent suffering becomes almost suffocating.
“Could you show me a memory of him?” Aithusa asks out of nowhere, and Merlin is only too happy to fill the silence.
“What would you like to see?”
Merlin has not endeavored to capture every memory he has ever had, but he has sought to keep the ones dearest to him. And if that includes trivial moments like Arthur refusing to get out of bed in the morning or arguing with him on a hunt, well, they’re Merlin’s memories and he may do what he likes with them.
Aithusa seems to hear his thoughts and gives as close as a dragon can to a wry smile. “Something silly.”
Merlin pushes himself off of the ground and crosses the cavern floor until he finds the telltale sheen of water dripping down the wall.
With a whisper, he places a hand on the wall and breathes life into the thin coat of water.
Maybe he’s just feeling particularly reminiscent today, but he decides to draw out the memory of his second time meeting Arthur. It’s his memory, so he has to do the voices for both of them since Aithusa can’t hear inside his head.
“How’s your knee-walking coming along? Aw, don’t run away!”
“From you?”
“Oh, thank God. I thought you were deaf as well as dumb.”
“Look, I’ve told you you’re an ass. I just didn’t realize you were a royal one. Oh, what are you going to do? You’ve got your daddy’s men to protect you?”
“I could take you apart with one blow.”
“I could take you apart with less than that.”
“You sure? Here you go big man. Come on then. I warn you. I’ve been trained to kill since birth.”
“Wow. And how long have you been training to be a prat?”
“You can’t address me like that.”
“Sorry. How long have you been training to be a prat, my lord?”
Aithusa breaks into raspy laughter where she stands behind Merlin. Despite the fact that she’s far smaller than Kilgarrah ever was, her laugh fills up the cavern the same way Kilgarrah’s always had.
“That never grows tiring,” she says with laughter still brightening her voice. Merlin smiles and removes his hand from the wall.
“It still shocks me he managed to outgrow his idiocy, at least a little.”
Aithusa settles back into the corner of the cave. “I hope to meet him, one day. When he returns.” The fear that she will not live long enough to see that day takes hold of Merlin for another long moment, and his smile wavers.
“He’ll love you.”
A frown appears in her eyes. “I think he may not forgive me for the things I did when I was young.” They do not speak of Morgana often. Merlin’s regret and Aithusa’s grief for her companion have held their tongues most days.
“That was a long time ago. He will forgive you.” And if he sounds desperate as he says it, Aithusa says nothing.
**
A cool breeze is drifting through his open windows when Merlin returns home. The sky has grown dark, the moon rising slowly past the trees, and he takes a moment to breathe in the freshness of the night air.
This, too, has felt crisper recently. He wonders if it is just a relief to him when night comes so he might drift away into silent sleep, but his dreams are rarely peaceful. It is more like he anticipates the coming of night because it allows the earth to be cleansed of the day and prepare to usher in a new one.
Merlin decides to make himself supper regardless of how little he wants to. Once he’s set a pot of soup on the stove to simmer, he wanders to the part of the house that holds some of the things he’s collected over the years.
The shipment of Frankenstein s drives Merlin to the boxes containing some of his favorite letters. He’s glad he learned how to preserve things made of paper so early on in his life. For a brief time, he’d worked in a museum archive, and it struck him that he might have the greatest collection of letters of anyone in the world when he saw the sorry state of the museum’s “pristine collection.”
Rifling through without any real goal in mind, he occasionally stops to read over a quip he finds particularly funny or a statement he still finds profound.
After a few minutes, he waves his hand to wordlessly set all the boxes back in their proper place. His eyes are drawn to the pouch on the mantle, and then he can’t help but cross over to it.
It feels almost reverent when he pulls on the drawstring and reaches inside.
The sigil still looks the same as it did a millennia ago, when Arthur gave it to him. His fingers trace over the engraved bird, and suddenly there’s a surge of warmth in his hands. He nearly drops it, breath hitching when he picks it up and it’s cool once more.
It’s his imagination. It has to be.
He remembers his soup and replaces the sigil on the mantle so he can return to the kitchen.
Before he can make it to the stove, there’s a sudden roaring in his ears, and every inch of his body is screaming at him. A sense of urgency overtakes him, like there is something he must do now and nothing matters except to do it.
Merlin, Merlin, Merlin .
He can’t breathe, he can’t move, he can’t think, and his magic is dragging him out the door. He leaves the cottage he has lived in for so long and knows when he returns, everything will be different.
His soup is left forgotten on the stove as he stumbles towards the shores of Avalon.
It seems a lifetime and a moment until he’s pulling himself over the concrete wall that blocks the lake shore from public access. The wards he set up years ago thrum with anticipatory energy as he passes through them, seeming to know it’s time it’s time it’s time even as he catches his foot on the ledge and scrapes his knuckles to catch himself.
Merlin has not realized how lost his magic has felt until this moment, when it feels so hopeful and joyous and excited that the jadedness it long ago took hold of begins to dissolve.
There is a woman looking out onto the lake, her dark hair almost glowing in the moonlight. Merlin instantly understands that she holds within her unspeakable power, bears an unspeakable burden. For some reason she is barefoot, and the sand under her feet is soon under Merlin’s as he is drawn to her.
Very little has the power to scare Merlin after so many years on the earth, but when she turns and her eyes meet his, there is a hollowness in them that leaves him cold. They seem to look past the flesh he inhabits and see every deed he has ever done and every thought he has ever had laid down in front of her.
Her lips curl up into a gruesome imitation of a smile and then part to greet him. For a moment, the coldness is replaced with overwhelming terror.
“Emrys.”
And as the name that has not been uttered in hundreds of years falls from her lips, Merlin crumples to the ground.