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Voyeur.
He knew he was a voyeur. He was born to be a voyeur. It had been decided when his father came down from the stars to ravish his poor, mortal mother. Merlin would be a voyeur, down to the very fibers of his marrow. If he wished to fight against it, he could claw at his own chest with those inhuman nails of his and try to eat his own heart before it ever ate him.
But he did not wish to fight it. He knew the futility.
He was a beautiful thing, and he knew it. It was with this beauty he forged grace, and he carried himself through the halls of Pendragon castle knowing eyes would burn into his skin and hunger. He hungered in turn, a constant coil in his gut that would never be filled. No matter how many naked bodies he licked the desire from, or the blood he drank from goblets, his hunger was the kind that could never be sated.
Yet, despite it all, he remained beautiful. Desirable in a way that was easy to swallow, unlike the monstrous visage his father so kindly gifted him with. Though, it was that same beast that was even kinder enough to give him a talent such as shapeshifting. Whatever made him palatable by humans.
He always had a way of leering.
He didn’t quite leer like a man who sought to reap a woman of everything that made her a person. He got this look in his eye— stared like a fox waiting for a rabbit to stumble close enough to his den. He didn’t want the skin, the flesh, whatever form it took. He didn’t care for conventional beauty in his women, nor did he care for blemishes like stretch marks, scars, or hair. He hungered for the deepest reaches. What lay behind the ribcage, beating steadily.
He’d approach his prey with a swirl of petals and faux white, put on his fairest smile, and muse in that sweet cadence, “you look lonely.”
Most of the time, he was successful. He had his ways of sinking claws into his prey so it wouldn’t run. He could say the right things, do the right motions. And suddenly he was opening a pair of legs and scooping the love out of her with his tongue. It never mattered who it was, exactly. As long as he could still taste emotion, he’d keep eating. It was the philosophy of animals.
It was never really anything profound. Just another act of eating. When he had his way with his prey, he would sit above her and stare. Vacant and unsatisfied, watching the little glimmers of feeling and humanity leave her eyes. The loss of emotion should’ve been harsher on the body, but it was always a quiet, unspoken thing. Merlin took it with him and left come morning, already off to find his next meal.
Merlin was not a good person.
He’d long since accepted this truth. Everything he ever touched; it would all rot in some way. He had a talent for taking and never giving, reaping like his father and crying like his mother. If he smelled it, if he saw it, he’d take it. He was too much of a monster not to, and too much of a human not to grieve with every lash of tongue between slick folds. Every time he buried his seed into yet another human womb, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was only populating the world with more beasts. Like some... some disgusting fly.
That’s what he was. A disgusting, vile little fly. His only need in life was to consume and populate. He’d always be attracted to the garbage of the world, the naked ones who opened themselves to his gaze because they had nothing left to live for. And he, like a vile, brutal beast, would take and take and still never be satisfied. There was no way he could be satisfied.
Not until he first held a child in his arms.
She was so small, swaddled in a ragged little blanket. Pink and wet, writhing in his arms, sobbing. Artoria Pendragon was ugly when she was born, nothing more than a little wrinkle weeping endlessly. For the first time, Merlin did not want to ravish a girl. She was the most disgusting humanity could be— seconds into the world, crying to touch skin and know that she was okay. The exact same thing that Merlin had been when he was born. Disgusting, reaching, crying.
Merlin gave her to her mother, as skin-to-skin was the only thing that would settle her. But not before he lightly ran his finger against her wet cheek. She was hot with life and the power in her lungs, the sheer volume of feelings too big for her body. And his hunger waned in the face of something so human, yet so kindred.
How funny. A girl he did not want to consume.
Merlin did not change his ways. He would continue to leer at the women of the court, tracing patterns on his sleeve and imagining if his latest prey would be the one to sate that awful emptiness in his stomach. But this time, his leering gaze would settle on a golden-haired girl pulling fate itself from a stone by the handle. And with a single look, his hunger would recede, and his faux beauty would slip beneath the weight of something purer.
He should not, would not, could not love. Not in any way that wasn’t cannibalistic, not in any way that wasn’t parasitic. But perhaps he was just a little too human to stay too much of a monster.
Merlin was not a good person. He wasn’t a good monster, either. He wasn’t good at many things. But he was a teacher when he needed to be— or at least, the closest thing to it. He could pat Artoria’s head and tell her ‘good work’, be proud when her face lit up, step back and let the Round take his place as she grew older, wiser, more than he ever could. He could be the closest and furthest thing to perfect, impossibly so.
And like a voyeur, he would watch.
From his tower in the sky, hands folded in his lap, he would leer at Artoria and the humanity she continued to forge. Crown-clad and sun-soaked, she tore waves into history that she would never live long enough to witness. But Merlin would. Miraculously, decade by slow-crawling decade, his hunger would wane with every wave.
It would always come back stronger, and with a vengeance, the occasional moonlit night where he wasn’t sure where his head began and his stomach ended. No matter the place, the era, he would become an animal treading foreign ground in search of a meal. But for some reason, it always seemed tempered nowadays.
When he settled over his prey after his meal, he found himself eating less. He was sure he looked gaunt in the mirror, yet she would caress his ribs and tell him he was just as beautiful as the legends told. A strange thing for his prey to say— usually they were pliant after he was through with them. Sometimes still twitching with the aftershocks of emotional death.
Things were just a little bit more alive with him, now. And in the moments before dawn, when he redressed himself and slipped into warm dark, he would chuckle to himself. His mother left too big a heart in his chest, even if it couldn’t fully override the hole in his stomach.
On some trillionth dawn, on a blessed day when Artoria was once again pulled into the modern day, Merlin left his tower to dine with her. It was a quiet moment in a hundred moments. No preamble, no hunt. Just an acknowledgement of one another across a table, sharing meat and greens and stories. Some they had experienced together yet argued the events of. Though Artoria had gained quite a few stories of quite a few Masters. Merlin kept quiet and listened with a smile.
They both ate until their mana was replenished, which usually took quite a few plates for Artoria. Nevertheless, she daintily patted her mouth down with a napkin and gave Merlin an appraising look.
“You look older,” she’d murmur. “It’s in your eyes. Never thought you’d let yourself look aged.”
And Merlin, weak to his kin, bowed his head and chuckled. “Never had a reason to.”
With the taste of family and love lingering on his tongue, Merlin patted his mouth clean as well and finished his meal.