Work Text:
The banquet hall is filled with lively chatter, the laughter and conversation so loud that only every other note from the lyre players seems to break free of the din.
Merlin leans with his hip resting against the back of Arthur’s chair. He’d drifted over to top up his wine, but the pitcher had migrated down the table a few minutes ago, passed among eager hands, and he was still waiting for it to make its way back to him.
Arthur smiles easily. It’s a simple gesture, but it’s still striking how much of an improvement it is over even a year ago. He seems lighter now as king than he ever had as a prince trying to claw free the things he believes in from under Uther’s fist. As time passes and the rawness of Arthur’s grief over losing his father has healed, it’s becoming easier and easier to admit that he just seems happier.
Maybe he senses Merlin’s thoughts lingering on him, or maybe Merlin’s just staring, but Arthur’s gaze flicks over his shoulder. He can see on his face that Arthur is going to ask what’s on Merlin’s mind, and he’s loath to ruin the mood by bringing up unhappier times. He claps Arthur on the shoulder as though to dismiss Arthur’s concerns.
“I’ll go bring out more wine, shall I?” Merlin says, more statement than question. He shifts away from where he’s leaning on Arthur’s chair, and is surprised when Arthur’s hand darts out to catch him on the arm.
“Nonsense,” Arthur says firmly. He tugs Merlin down into the chair at his side, recently vacated by Gwen, who has drifted down to the other end of the table next to Elyan. Arthur casts around the table in front of him, finds himself a serviceably clean cup, and dumps half his own wine into it. He presses the cup into Merlin’s hand. “There’s more than enough wine to go around.”
Merlin huffs a laugh. Arthur looks surprisingly steady, but the flush in his cheeks gives him away.
“Just because you’re drunk doesn’t mean you can pretend to forget about this tomorrow morning,” Merlin informs him, obliging Arthur by taking a sip. “If I’m hung over tomorrow, you can fetch your own breakfast at the crack of dawn.”
Arthur snorts.
“With how much time you spend in the tavern, I’d think you’d have a natural immunity by now,” he says. Merlin groans inwardly, and curses Gaius for that cover story, considering that Arthur now teases him endlessly for his supposed overindulgence. “If you’re hung over tomorrow, then I’ll be—”
Something prickles at the back of Merlin’s mind, a clammy flush running through him that has nothing to do with the wine. It’s all the warning he has, and he’s already halfway to rising from his seat when Leon shouts an oath, dishes clattering, chairs scraping back.
There’s a man standing at the end of the table, shrouded in shadow, and the knights leap to their feet. The man raises one hand, thin fingers splayed, and Merlin hears his whispers in the back of his mind over their startled outcries.
The knights freeze in mid-motion, eyes still wide and mouths open, hands only just grasping their swords. Merlin feels the icy pressure of time against his skin at the same time darkness threatens to swallow him, as though he was floating in a bottomless sea. He shatters it with the weight of his will. The man’s face is shrouded in supernatural shadow beneath the hood of his cloak, but his eyes flash gold as he meets Merlin’s gaze. Merlin braces himself for another assault, now that the Sorcerer knows he’s thrown off his spell, but the man seems entirely unbothered. His gaze shifts back to Arthur. He’s the only one that the sorcerer’s spell hasn’t touched.
The room floods with a pin drop silence so absolute that Merlin’s ears begin to ring.
“I see I’ve interrupted your evening,” the Sorcerer says. “I would apologize for the inconvenient timing, but I have come to do you a favor.”
The amused lilt of his words makes Arthur clench his fists.
“What is this?” Arthur demands. “Release them at once!”
The man flaps his hand dismissively. His clothes look otherworldly, sleek and pressed in a way that makes them appear as though they’ve been born from magic themselves. He senses no magic in them, despite the fantastic colors and the cloth made from no type of textile he’s ever seen. The sorcerer glances down at the metal bracelet ringing his wrist, its glass face winking in the firelight, and studies it as though consulting some oracle. He straightens.
“I have come bearing an invitation, Arthur Pendragon,” the man says. “On behalf of my King.”
He draws up to his full height, arm withdrawing into the fold of his heavy cloak. The gauntlet rings a discordant note against the stone floor. It is the only part of the man’s strange ensemble that does not look out of place in Arthur’s court, and that makes the symbol of it all the more strange. A white streak cuts across the room, and when Merlin snatches it clumsily from the air, he sees that the page is scrawled with directions written with incredibly tight, even writing. It leads outside the citadel, and Merlin realizes with a creeping sense of foreboding that he knows the clearing that the page is leading them to—the same clearing where he has met with Kilgharrah time and again.
Is that a coincidence?
“Dawn tomorrow. Come…” the stranger’s mouth twitches into the faintest smile, entertained by some private joke, “alone.”
With that, he vanishes, so quickly that Merlin doesn’t even catch the workings of his magic. Sound floods back into the room, but Arthur doesn’t move, staring at the empty spot where the man once stood.
“I’m coming with you,” Merlin insists. Arthur huffs an irritated breath and tucks his helm beneath his arm.
“Now I know there’s something wrong with your ears,” Arthur says, “because the man clearly told me to come alone.”
Merlin hoists his bag onto his shoulder in response, and Arthur only sighs.
The sorcerer’s back is to them when they arrive, head bent slightly as he speaks. The distance is close enough to walk, but they ride in anyway; they need to be ready for a quick escape. The man does not react to the sound of hoofbeats, but Merlin feels the weight of his magic scraping over him, and he knows that he has sensed their arrival.
The Challenger is facing them, and he watches them with a silent stoicism. His head tilts very slightly toward the Sorcerer as the two exchange a word, and Merlin watches the Sorcerer’s shoulders shake with laughter. He draws back from their makeshift arena, steps measured, arms clasped behind his back. Merlin watches him with nervous tension.
The Challenger wears no armor, only tall boots and a long coat of the same strange style as the Sorcerer’s. A sleek helmet covers his face entirely. Even unable to see his expression, its clear from his posture that he doesn’t see them as a threat.
“I don’t need to tell you to be careful,” Merlin says under his breath.
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m going to anyway. Be careful. This could be a trap,” Merlin says.
The whole situation is screaming to him that there’s something here he’s missing. The weight of this stranger’s magic is almost familiar, and that alone is unsettling enough to put Merlin on edge. He doesn’t know what this man wants, why Arthur, why now. He’d claimed to be doing Arthur a favor, and Merlin can’t help but hear an ominous undercurrent in the words.
“Let’s get on with it, then,” the Challenger says. His voice is somewhat muffled by his helm, but that creeping sense of familiarity only grows stronger. He knows that voice, he’s sure…
Merlin.
The voice in his head startles him, and Merlin only just keeps himself from flinching. He’s surprised to be called by his name, and not Emrys. He had guessed that the man was a druid. He feels like a druid, and also something else, something older and stranger.
Between the two sorcerers, on the wide stretch of grass, the Challenger strides forward, rapid steps breaking into a run. He’s fast, and far more agile than Arthur is in his armor, and the clash of their blades rings like a bell.
You could help him, you know, the Sorcerer whispers into his mind. If you revealed yourself.
Arthur doesn’t need my help, Merlin replies.
Arthur needs you more than you can possibly understand.
The words flood into his brain like water, heavy with the weight of the Sorcerer’s intention. He believes them, so deeply, and that makes Merlin thoughts stumble. It’s a strange sentiment from an enemy, and also far too familiar.
Who are you?
He has to ask. Even since the Sorcerer appeared, Merlin has felt as though he’d missed a step. He’s tumbling into a yawning unknown, and he’s certain that he’s only inches from grasping a lifeline. Merlin can feel the hum of the Sorcerer’s amusement in his mind, but no reply comes.
A startled oath wrenches Merlin’s attention back to the field, and his heart leaps when he realizes that it came from the challenger. Arthur’s sword tears a thin line through the sleeve of his coat. He backs off, and Arthur follows hungrily. The Challenger tosses his sword from his injured right hand to his left and brings it up to block.
Merlin sees in his posture when he recognizes the feint, but his body is too slow to react. Arthur’s sword twists, and in the half-complete attempt to dodge, the Challenger's head doesn’t pull back in time. The sound of metal on metal pierces the clearing, and Merlin feels the Sorcerer’s magic surge a moment too late as the blow knocks the helmet from the Challenger’s head.
His eyes meet Merlin’s, and Arthur draws up short as Merlin’s breath catches in his lungs.
He knows him.
The Challenger—
Arthur grins the same lazy smile he’s shared with Merlin dozens of times and casts a rueful glance at his companion. “Was I really this young, once?”
And Arthur, Merlin’s Arthur, wrings his hands around the hilt of his sword, too stunned to advance, too well-trained to fully drop his guard. Merlin’s attention is elsewhere, drawn with a mix of wonder and icy dread, toward the Sorcerer.
Toward himself. It has to be him, Merlin realizes with a lightning strike, just as surely as Merlin was to come along to this duel even when they asked Arthur to come alone. He had to know that he would come, because Merlin is nothing if not predictable when it comes to Arthur.
“What kind of trick is this?” Arthur demands.
“No tricks,” the other Arthur says, sighing. “The only difference between you and me is time. But I think you know that.”
“You—” Arthur tries, grasping for words, “he—this man is a sorcerer. How could you possibly allow a sorcerer in your midst?”
He sounds more confused than outraged, and somehow that cuts more deeply than anger would have. Like Arthur cannot imagine a world where he and a sorcerer would tip their heads together and laugh.
The Challenger Arthur’s gaze rises to fix on Merlin, and he feels his heart drop.
Don’t he urges. The Sorcerer Merlin straightens, with Merlin’s plea echoing between them. He expects a response from the druid, but it’s the Challenger Arthur who speaks.
“You’re still afraid,” he says, and his voice is raw with shame. Arthur bristles, thinking the barb is directed at him, but Merlin knows it’s not. He sighs harshly and rests his sword on his shoulder.
“I’ll admit, this isn’t going quite to plan,” he says, propping one foot on his fallen helmet. Behind him, the other Merlin snorts a laugh, which earns him an annoyed squint. “We’d hoped to just push you two a little, see if you could grow a little faster in the face of a common foe.”
He flashes a wry smile. “But I guess I’m getting rusty. Not many occasions to swing a sword, these days.” The fluid way he spins his sword in his hand directly contradicts him, but Merlin’s heart is pounding too hard to spare any attention to vexing contrary.
Behind the Challenger Arther, the Sorcerer pushes back his hood. Arthur stiffens, an involuntary sound punches out of his throat. He staggers back a step, thunderstruck, and casts a helpless look between the Sorcerer, Merlin, and his younger counterpart.
He masters himself quickly, a steely look shuttering his expression, and Merlin’s stomach swoops, knowing what’s coming next.
“You—planned this. With them,” Arthur says. He takes a half-step back, wariness and outrage at war on his face.
A flicker of hurt digs beneath Merlin’s ribs. This is what Merlin was afraid of. Already in Arthur’s mind, it’s Them, Merlin and this other version of himself, one who’s he’s never met.
The older Arthur scowls. “Stop being petty. You know he didn’t… wouldn’t betray you. You—wait! Don’t… run.”
He sighs, but Arthur has already disappeared into the trees. He tilts his head back and mutters something under his breath, eyes pinched closed like he’s praying for strength.
“Do you want me to get him?” the Sorcerer Merlin asks, with a slight smile. The Challenger Arthur waves him off.
“No, I should do it. I don’t think he’d be too happy if you used your tricks now.”
“You’d better hurry up, then,” he says. “Not as young as you used to be.”
Arthur rolls his eyes, but he bites his tongue and marches off toward the trees without complaint. The sorcerers watch him go, and then the older man turns to Merlin, and his expression softens.
“You can stop making that face. He’ll come around.”
“How can you…” Merlin cuts the question off before he can finish it. He supposes… if anyone could promise him that much…
Merlin flicked a glance in the direction that Arthur had gone, but both men were already out of sight.
This Merlin looks to be a decade older than Merlin is now, but Merlin disguised himself by changing the age he appears as before. There’s a weight to him, and a weariness in his expression that makes him appear much, much older.
“We told ourselves that this was a sacrifice we were willing to make. That hiding this part of ourselves was necessary to protect him. But Arthur is not the only person you’ve been lying to, Merlin. You’ve been lying to yourself. You can tell me that you’re doing this for his sake, but we both know that isn’t true.
You—I was afraid. Afraid that if he knew that I had magic, that I would lose his love.
So I lied. I lied, and I lost him anyway, and I suffered centuries of loneliness because of it. So please believe me when I say, I never meant to force you to tell Arthur like this. I wanted to give you the choice.
But I can also tell you this: telling him the truth is the only way you keep him.”
The older Merlin pauses then, allowing the weight of his words to sink in. The seriousness in his expression ebbs some then. He takes a deep breath, and then his face cracks into a crooked smile.
“Sorry,” he says, scratching the nape of his neck. “It’s been a while since I’ve done this. I suppose I could pepper in a few lines about destiny and the fate of Albion, if that would sweeten the deal.”
That startles a laugh out of Merlin, and his counterpart’s smile grows wider in subdued triumph. A silence falls between them. Merlin’s mind rolls with questions of the future, but ultimately he can’t resist where his nervous energy flows.
Merlin hesitates.
“...How long, do you think, will Arthur—”
The sorcerer’s eyes flashed knowingly, and he included his head.
“Why not ask for yourself?”
Merlin turns as the two men emerge from the trees, startled to see them back so soon. Arthur’s eyes are red. The Challenger Arthur’s hand rests on his shoulder, the gesture almost fatherly, and next to him Arthur looks impossibly young.
Arthur meets Merlin’s gaze warily, and after a drawn moment, he offers Merlin a stiff half-nod.
The older Merlin’s voice echoed in his mind.
I meant it, when I said that we never intended to force you. If you asked me to, I would erase all evidence that we were ever here. You could be back at the banquet in a moment.
The thought is tempting, but Merlin allows that temptation to pass. The sorcerer sees his decision on his face, because he nods, a flicker of pride passing over his expression.
The Challenger Arthur squeezed his younger counterpart’s shoulder, then moved to his own Merlin’s side. “We’ll let the two of you talk.”