Work Text:
For Camelot, Arthur would cast aside any pride he has left, and fall onto his knees and beg for blessings from the Old Gods. For its prosperity, after I’m gone. The one thing they’ve apparently given him, Merlin—Merlin, who is now some sorcerer knight—it sounds like a joke. Merlin doesn’t rip bodies from battlefields. Merlin has hands for peasant’s work. Merlin has eyes for laughter, a stomach for drinking himself sick, a future: at Arthur’s side, or with a little wife.
Merlin’s always taken good care of him.
He finds out his manservant’s stubborn about being his sorcerer protector like he’s been stubborn about everything else. Merlin keeps his eyes on the path in front of them, looking grave. Arthur watches the sun move over their heads—it's beating their time over the horizon.
King Arthur’s got no fight left in him, he thinks to whoever is listening. Maybe the Old Gods are; maybe they forgive him for a lifetime in his father’s footsteps, chasing them out of his kingdom. It feels like he’s had a thousand fights. A thousand tournaments when he was younger and the fall from his horse to the ground hurt like nothing before, a thousand times he swung that sword, a thousand times it was his sister on the other end of it. A thousand bandits, monsters, sorcerers. A thousand times Merlin was the thing that saved him?
He’s got his throat to the dirt now. It feels like Albion wants to swallow him up.