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It’s an early morning, fog still blanketing the fields, when Merlin looks behind and sees – something.
It’s a second later when He frowns, curses in a very colorful manner, and disappears.
It’s an afternoon, light silently painting everything shades of gold, when Merlin is drinking His tea, smiling to Himself and rolling a coin on His knuckles.
It’s a second later when He raises His head and stares at something, His spiritual intuition triggered.
The coin stills for a moment.
It’s an evening, and the moon is low over the horizon, so low it seems to be touching the ground. Merlin suddenly laughs. He laughs until He loses His breath and tears are streaming down His face.
There’s no one around.
It’s a night, and it’s a new moon, and the road is black, because Merlin made it so. He’s sitting next to it, clicking His tongue.
There’s a dove in His hand. It’s pecking Merlin’s fingers, trying to free itself.
If Merlin was human, He’d be bleeding. He doesn’t even notice.
It’s morning again.
And then it’s not.
Merlin doesn’t really care.
He’s laying on a patch of grass – somewhere. He was there a day before. And the day before that. He’s not sure how many days have passed since He sat had there and decided to watch the sun go right-left, and right-left, and again. Or maybe left-right.
He thinks that – no, not really.
It’s warm.
A singular piece of His soul – does He have one still? – stirs. Someone said something. The words.
What were they – were they words?
Merlin exists again, as Himself, as a whole, and blinks.
Worms don’t blink. He doesn’t think so, at least. He would have so many blinking eyes if they did.
I wish.
Them’s the words.
Merlin wishes, just a bit.
There’s a child, staring at Him.
There’s always a child.
Merlin looks at it, startled, His eyes gold and orange and with light swirling in them, and the child chirps in joy.
“Who are you?”, it asks.
Merlin opens His mouth and closes it. Words are – they aren’t – until they are again. He’s not exactly sure how to use them, and which ones are the correct choice, but children are not the most patient of creatures.
“I am not a ‘who’, little one”, He says, “I am a ‘what’.”
Being a ‘who’ requires… so much more than He can give at the moment. He doesn’t have much.
“What are you?”, the child corrects itself immediately, its eyes all over Merlin’s colorful clothing, and He has to work fast to change the patterns into something a human can see without getting hurt. The result still moves and it’s impossibly colorful, enough to hurt the eyes, but it can’t kill anymore, and that’s enough.
“I’m an angel”, Merlin whispers theatrically, and puts a finger over His smiling mouth. “But shhh, don’t tell anyone.”
He casts a small illusion, making the air around Him shimmer gold and orange in the shape of wings. Three pairs of them; a massive, feathery monstrosity.
The child laughs, and Merlin – He watches, eyes wide. The joy feels dangerous. Foreign.
Merlin has worms instead of fingers. They squirm and bend like fingers aren’t supposed to. He tests them all, one by one, and they work in all the ways they should. They work in all the ways they shouldn’t, too.
He used to have worms in His face, He remembers. It wasn’t really His face, though.
He used to have worms in somebody’s face.
It feels wrong to think about it.
Merlin is sitting on a table and watching people go by. They have things to do, and they always walk like they can’t be here, like they have to be there already. Children are yelling at – to? – each other.
He had tea, He realizes suddenly, or maybe it was just a memory of it. Low quality tea, exactly like the one Melissa used to buy.
It was awful, but He misses it.
People try very hard to not look at Him. He noticed it – earlier, not today – and the realization sits heavy in His lungs. They start to whisper when He’s close, and get louder when He’s far enough He shouldn’t be able to hear them anymore, and yet He hears them anyway. He knows it’s because they are afraid – and He knows that He’s more dangerous than they can possibly imagine. It’s terrifying, it’s lonely, and it’s tragic, and Merlin can’t cry, because worms don’t cry, do they?
He breathes in the air, and it’s hot, full of dust, and it hurts.
People have hearts, usually beating ones.
Merlin is not people, but He faintly remembers He had a heart like that, too. He looks down and taps His chest, but there’s no response from under His ribcage.
He hums. The vibration goes through His lungs, through the bones, and He lets Himself feel it. It dies out almost immediately, but it was there, and it let Him map out the things sitting under His skin. It makes things just a bit easier.
He taps His sternum, and again, and then pulls with – He doesn’t know which sequence this power belongs to, and it throws Him off for a second, but then the heart beats, just once.
There’s a rush of blood in His veins. He hears it, feels it.
It’s like crushed glass, ripping His insides apart with all the sharp edges. It’s too cold for something that’s supposed to be alive.
The words come back in the shape of a young, angry woman.
“Ines, oh Goddess, what happened?”
Ines is her name.
“It’s nothing, really, I just…”
She’s a liar.
“You should be at home! Your husband might be back any minute!”
She’s angry, so very angry, and hurt. She smiles with her teeth.
“Sometimes I really fucking wish He would just die, you know?”
Them’s the words, and Merlin feels them in His bones. They’re hot, burning with raw, pure want, the woman’s anger in every letter. Most wishes aren’t like that. Most of them just are, but this one – this one is a flame.
Merlin breathes in, and the air around smells like ash. A coin from the past rolls off His fingers, taking images of the woman’s – Ines, names are important to humans – life with it.
“Granted.”
The wish turns to screaming, pain, grief, and relief so heavy, that it buries everything else.
There’s a buzz in His thoughts. Somebody’s voice, quiet, pleading, reverent. He’s not sure what to do about it, but He can reach out, and so He does, a little curious. Merlin’s power surges through the bond the voice created, and connects, and
Oh.
Klein takes in a shaky breath.
I wish I forgot about my responsibilities for a week.
Them’s the words, his own. It’s not been a week yet, but he supposes it makes sense. He’s not strong enough.
The memories from the last week surge into his mind, and he grits his teeth, trying to not get entirely overwhelmed by them. There are people around. He can’t let them know what He he is. He can’t let them see what He’s made of. He can’t let them see. He can’t. He…
He’s hyperventilating.
He stops breathing.
It’s an early morning, and Klein is sitting in the middle of a town square on a chair he pulled out of Historical Void. He has his Automatic Wishing Machine with him, and he’s wearing Merlin’s face, but the smile on it feels more forced than a week earlier. It’s difficult for him to keep the teeth inside his mouth, where they should be. They grow too fast.
It’s Monday already, and there will be a Tarot Club meeting later. He still has many things to do before it starts, but for now he is just waiting, staring at the sun, trying to figure out if the last week was worth it.
During the Tarot Club meeting he asks Miss Justice for help, and after everyone else is sent back, they both stay in the Sefirah Castle, the fog slowly swirling around them.
“Can I be the one to start our conversation, Mr. World?”, she says, her voice soft.
Klein nods, keeping his persona rigid, as rigid as he can. Close to his skin, but he doesn’t really have skin, does he.
Miss Justice smiles at him.
“Firstly, let me say that you look better than last week, less tired. I’m glad you listened to my advice and let yourself rest, but you seem unsettled by something. What did you want to talk about?”
In that moment, Klein suddenly remembers. The seal keeping his memory down unravels at Miss Justice’s words, and he can’t help flinching, even with Clown powers.
Audrey doesn’t react, but Klein knows she noticed, and that she’s worried. He hesitates for a second.
“I made a wish to forget my responsibilities for a week”, he starts slowly, and hears her gasp. “It lasted five days. I think it disconnected my humanity from me. It didn’t affect my anchors, but they couldn’t reach me. I don’t think I needed them at that time. I just was.”
“And what was it like?”
She doesn’t really want to know, and he can tell. She’s controlling her face well, and he is not a Spectator, but for a Faceless – micro expressions are enough.
“It was freeing”, he admits, not bothering to hide the shame in his voice. “It was also incredibly lonely. Do you… do you think this is how born Mythical Creatures feel?”
Miss Justice doesn’t answer for a long time. She’s nervously playing with a lock of her hair, twirling it around her fingers. The conversation they’re having might be dangerous; it could take one careless word from Klein for her to lose control. She knows Mr. World wouldn’t hurt her on purpose – but she also knows his psychological state. He’s a barely contained disaster waiting to happen, held back by memories of things he can’t go back to.
“I don’t know”, is what she decides on in the end. “Maybe it is, but remember, they had many years to get used to their lives. You had only five days, and you were alone. Did you…”, she hesitates, and Klein prepares himself for the question, but it still stings: “Did you hurt anyone?”
He has to think about it. He’s not entirely sure about the dove, and maybe the husband of that one woman – Ines, that was her name, and names are important to humans – but he doesn’t remember anything else.
“I killed a man, for a wish.”
Miss Justice looks at him, a picture of calm and patience.
“Was he a good person?”
Klein opens his mouth to protest, to say that it doesn’t matter, but he realizes with a start that it does. It always had; for him, for Sherlock, for Gehrman, and for Dwayne. For The Fool. All of them had killed people – Dwayne only in his nebulous past, but it still counted.
“No, he was not”, he chokes out, somehow out of breath, even though he doesn’t really need to breathe.
He wants to breathe. Breathing is a human thing to do.
She smiles at him.
“You are more than just your humanity, Mr. World.”
“But why would they be – the things I care about – still important to me when I’m not human anymore?”
He sees her hesitate, again, and decides he can’t think about it, can’t acknowledge it, if he doesn’t want to lose control. She feels her cast a Placate on him, and feels it rebound. There’s another one, immediately after, and it doesn’t stick either.
He does not want to be placated.
“Mr. Fool cares about us”, is what Audres says after a while. “And HE’s a god.”
Klein wants to laugh at that. At being called a god, at himself, at the last week. Instead, he breathes the fog in, lets it settle in his lungs, and smiles.
“Thank you. I’ll contact you if I need your help again.”
She scans him one last time, visibly disappointed, and turns to the empty sit at the head of the table to thank Mr. Fool for allowing them to talk in the Sefirah Castle.
“I wish you could see yourself the way we see you, Mr World”, are her last words, before she is sent back.
Klein stares at her chair for a long time, the wish burning so hot in his bones that even the fog can’t quite negate the feeling. The fog that seeps out from between his ribs, silver and sticky, like blood of something that’s most definitely not human.
He gathers the wish in his arms and screams.