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The world doesn’t end. It’s another cruel reality added to the heap already weighing Merlin down as he stumbles away from the lake. He had watched the boat until it was swallowed by the mist, and then he had watched the mist flow out over the water, and when he finally turned away from the lake, the hollow in his chest felt big enough to swallow the world.
But it didn’t.
And so he left.
The forest surrounds him with sound; birds, rabbits, creatures he can’t see that brush against his magic as curiously as a cat. He finds himself hating them when he stops to rest, halfway to Camelot and unable to go farther. They’re alive. He’s alive. (Is he alive?) Arthur isn’t. It’s a simple enough equation.
Their supplies had gone away with their horses. Merlin should have been foraging, should have found water. His body feels separate and leaden all at once. In one breath it floats away, shaking the same rhythm as his hands. In the next it is inescapably tethering him to the earth.
Merlin hears the horses a moment too late to hide himself, his name called before he’s even opened his eyes. He doesn’t remember falling asleep or how long he’s been sitting here, back pressed to rough bark, but it’s brighter than when he stopped, sunlight revealing a small patrol heading straight for him.
Percival calls his name again as he halts his horse and dismounts. Merlin takes another dreaded breath and sits up, only to be pulled to his feet when Percival reaches him. He staggers, and the relief on Percival’s face at finding him gives way to concern.
“Are you alright?” He takes stock of the forest around them, of Merlin’s person, and turns back to the cluster of knights standing behind them. “Water and food,” he orders. Merlin wrinkles his nose at the thought, but Percival forces a waterskin into his hand and in a much less commanding voice says, “Drink.”
Ignoring the knight bringing forward whatever provisions they’d packed—Merlin supposes the empty feeling under his ribs could be hunger, though he thinks he’s just as likely to vomit as eat—he takes a small sip. The water is warm from the ride, from resting against a horse, but his body wakes and begs for more. He recalls an echo of sensation, of his first drink after the unicorn’s drought across the table from an equally dehydrated Arthur, and holds the waterskin away from himself. He wants to sit against the tree again, but Percival is holding his left arm and saying something to the other knights, who circle the area. Looking for Arthur? For Morgana?
“There’s no one here,” Merlin says, seeming to startle Percival. It would be funny another day. Whatever face he’s making when their eyes meet doesn’t serve to settle Percival’s nerves. Merlin attempts to smile, to look grateful that the knights have found him, that they’re going to bring him back. He knows he doesn’t manage it, and when Percival drops his hand, Merlin sinks to the ground again.
He hadn’t expected Percival to sit with him, and he certainly didn’t expect him to slice into the apple the other knight brought him and offer him the carved piece. He takes it but doesn’t eat it. Percival simply holds the apple and the knife and surveys the forest around them.
“If you starve before I get you back to Gaius, I think he might poison me,” Percival says after a moment.
“No, he likes you too much,” Merlin says, noting the way his heart races at the idea of returning to Camelot, seeing Gaius. Seeing Gwen. He sinks his thumbnail into the slice of apple and rips out a chunk that falls to the forest floor. “And he would know it’s my fault anyway.”
He puts the remainder of the apple slice in his mouth, chews, and lets Percival hand him another. When he swallows, it does nothing to chase the hollow away.
It’s over a day’s ride back to Camelot. A pair of knights are sent ahead to deliver the news: the king is dead; Merlin is not. Percival doesn’t seem to be holding it against him, even if he’s being quieter than usual, and has Merlin eat a second apple and some bread when they’ve stopped for the night. He tells Merlin that Leon is with the queen. That Gwaine is gravely wounded, not from the battle but from Morgana, after. Merlin hadn’t thought there was room in him for more grief.
Merlin waits until all of them have fallen asleep—whispers a spell to make the knight on watch fall with them—and rifles through their packs until he finds some wrapped food. He tears off a slip of the waxed paper and runs his thumb across it to leave behind seared letters, which he then floats over to land in Percival’s grasp. As he shushes and unties one of the horses, the words he’s left keep running through his head.
I’m sorry. I can’t go back.
And the words he couldn’t bring himself to write ring louder.
I failed
I failed
I failed
It isn’t until he’s nearly inside the village that he realizes where he’s been heading this whole time. The fields and houses only bear traces of the raid from Agravaine, from Merlin’s attempts to hold them back. But more importantly, they bear his mother, who spots him the moment he spots her and meets him when he slides off the horse. He doesn’t know how long he’s been wandering, but the look on her face suggests she’s heard the news from Camelot. She cups her hands on either side of his face, strokes her thumbs across his cheeks.
“Oh, Merlin,” she says, as if his pain is hers.
It strikes something in the center of him, flint against steel, and he feels the burn of it behind his eyes. “I couldn’t save him,” he says and sinks into her arms as he cries.