fic: The Future, And What's In Between
Title: The Future, And What’s In Between
Rating: PG-13
Length: 4300 words
Note: With apologies to the writers of The Devil’s Whore, from whom I have shamelessly stolen a bit of philosophizing.
Summary: Merlin doesn’t see the future. Except when he does.
This is how it goes: Morgana sees the future, except when she doesn’t. Because sometimes a nightmare is just a nightmare, and sometimes the future changes.
This is how it goes: Merlin doesn’t see the future. For all the persistent talk of destinies he lives his life very much in the moment, and his magic takes a different shape to that of the seers. His dreams are, if not ordinary, at least no more prophetic than anyone else’s. Merlin doesn’t see the future. Except when he does.
*
Merlin doesn’t much like trips into the woods. When Arthur isn’t killing unicorns or rescuing maidens who are going to try to kill him, he’s getting attacked by monsters that are already trying to kill him, and why he continues to think that these expeditions are a good idea is frankly beyond Merlin. The whole ‘save Arthur’s life every other four days plus alternate Saturdays’ lark is something he’s gotten used to, but it would be nice if Arthur didn’t keep deliberately seeking out life-threatening situations for himself to charge into.
This time Arthur has tracked a funny white stag straight into a cave. The rest of the knights broke off in another direction ten minutes ago, so it’s just Merlin and Arthur, and Merlin is in the middle of explaining all the reasons why this is a bad idea - “Normal stags don’t flee into mysterious caves” and “Do you remember what happened the last time you decided to shoot something weird and white” and “We haven’t even got any sort of torch and it’s dark in here” - when he’s drowned out by a sound like thunder.
The crack and rumble are just like that of a storm directly overhead, deafeningly loud. But it isn’t something distant in the sky causing this noise, no, it’s the abrupt collapse of the mouth of the cave. It’s a curiously controlled collapse. Just enough rock to completely seal them in and block all the light out, while the rest of the cavern remains intact. Or at least apparently intact - it’s far too dark to see anything, but nothing’s falling near Merlin.
When the stone settles and the echoes of the noise have faded, Merlin huffs and says “I told you.”
“That’s no ordinary rock slide,” Arthur says, his tone dubious.
“Yes, exactly my point. Look, are you alright?” He steps carefully in the direction of Arthur’s voice, hands extended, until he encounters the cool leather of Arthur’s jacket.
“Fine, you?” Arthur says, turning to clasp Merlin’s arm.
“Fine.”
“Good. So you think this is some sort of sorcery?”
“Probably. Given the stag I’d guess more on the lines of Anhora than anyone specifically out to kill you-“
“Maybe they’re out to kill you this time,” Arthur says, a hint of laughter in his voice, but then he adds “Not that I’d let them. Now. You were complaining before about us not having a torch. I don’t suppose you were just being difficult and have in fact cunningly concealed some flint in your bag?”
“Afraid not.”
“Well, damn. I’m not about to sit around here and wait for some mystical nonsense to descend on our heads, but trying to shift the rocks when we can’t see what we’re doing-“
“-Would be a poor choice, young Pendragon,” says a new voice. Merlin can feel Arthur turning to face it, picture his free hand settling at his sword belt. The voice is female but not, to Merlin’s relief, anything like Nimueh’s.
“Who are you? State your business,” Arthur demands.
“None of yours,” says the women. A light appears in front of Merlin - dim by daylight, but blinding in the pitch darkness of the cave - and flies into his hands before he can react.
It’s like a punch to the gut. Merlin doubles over instantly, all of his senses stinging, and a heartbeat later his knees give out. Arthur’s hand is still on Merlin’s arm, he must have followed him to the ground, but the touch of Arthur’s fingers and the sensation of the cold stone underneath Merlin’s body are distant, hazy, like the fading memory of a dream.
“Open your eyes, Emrys,” says the woman. Her voice cuts through the fog, the one clear thing in his suddenly clouded existence. He wasn’t even aware of having closed his eyes, but he forces them open now, and the light rises up to fill his vision and blot out everything else.
It’s magic, sure and certain, but not the kind that Merlin is accustomed to. This power isn’t for polishing boots, or making serpents come alive, or even for vanquishing foes. There’s a silvery tang to it, sharp and cool and high pitched in contrast to the soft, low, warm, golden hum that Merlin knows. He reaches for it, tentatively, and feels the threads of futures spinning out before him like balls of yarn spilling from a basket.
Uther, shouting, “For crimes against Camelot-“
and Arthur, shackled and restrained by four guards, struggling and yelling himself hoarse-
and Gwen, weeping-
and Morgana, breaking away from the guards at her side, running towards the block, wild-eyed-
and the swing of the axe-
and
Arthur’s room, quiet. Arthur standing by the window, Merlin by the table. Arthur saying “I did suspect. I wish you’d told me sooner, but I understand why you didn’t.”
Merlin saying “You’re not angry?”
Arthur saying “Feeling oddly vindicated, actually. I always did say there was something about you, didn’t I?”
and
Arthur, older. “I need a wife, Gwen.”
Gwen laughing, “And Merlin said no?”
Arthur, a little flushed. “Guinevere-“
Gwen, smiling. “Of course, Arthur.”
and
Morgana, with blood on her hands and none left in her pale, pale face. “He’s dying, Arthur. In his chamber. Go, now, if you want to see him before-“
Arthur, his expression stony. “Did you-“
“Yes. I did. Camelot cannot wait any longer. You’re the king now, and I’ll be gone within the hour.”
“Why?”
“I told you, we can’t-“
“No. Why are you leaving?”
Morgana, smiling strangely. “I killed the king, Arthur. And you cannot be the kind of king who would let a murderer go unpunished.”
and
Arthur, lying dead. A dozen different ways, a dozen different wounds, and always Merlin at his side, whispering desperate words through tears that feel as though they will never stop.
and
Guinevere and Lancelot, older, hands clasped before the crowd.
A voice, Mordred, fully a man now, sneering. “She has committed adultery, your queen. With this man. Many times. Do you suppose the child she carries is even your own?”
Arthur, eyes closed against the water that threatens to spill out, silent.
“Or did you know?” Mordred, face twisting in terrible glee. “Did you know, and allow it? Because you couldn’t control her, or deny her? Or because you were doing the same with some other whore? Tell us, Arthur king, how did the good and strong and noble Pendragon come to be made cuckold in front of his whole dominion?”
and
Camelot, burning. Fire scorching the white stone black as the city crumbles to ruins.
and
Arthur, fingers as gentle against Merlin’s face as his tone is fierce. “I won’t tell him. I won’t let him find out, or harm you. Whatever magic may be, I know you aren’t evil, and I will protect you to the end of my days.”
and
Gwen and Morgana and Arthur, all three armed and wearing armor, poised for battle at the front of a whole company of knights. Merlin at Arthur’s side, hand raised, calling out spells to keep the enemy’s sorcery at bay. Shrieking wind and churning clouds and chaos, everywhere but within the shrinking bubble of protection Merlin struggles to maintain around them.
and
Merlin, riding out of Camelot in the dead of night, his nerves screaming against the pull of destiny that demands he stay, and Arthur’s voice ringing in his ears, low and rough-
“My father will not see reason, and I will not see you executed.”
and
Morgana, much older and much changed, a frightened fury in her eyes, “I’m not here to fight. I dreamt of Gwen-“
Merlin, with no fight in him, “She went into labor yesterday. The child was stillborn this morning, but she’s still bleeding, we can’t stop the-“
Morgana, sweeping past him into the room.
and
Arthur, hunched over a table, his face aged and drawn, the line of his back speaking of breaking. “Where did it all go wrong, Merlin?”
The images keep flickering and repeating, some in variations and some the same, but more and more it’s Camelot in ruins and Arthur dead, over and over again.
Finally, finally the deluge stops. When Merlin feels as though his whole psyche has been shredded, when he can’t see anything but pain and fire, it stops, replaced by emptiness and overwhelming despair. And then, gradually, that fades too.
When Merlin comes back to himself, he’s curled tight in a ball, shaking and sobbing and unable to think of anything but the weight of the dread that has taken up residence in his stomach. Gradually other things press their way into his awareness - the stone beneath him, the darkness, the faint acidic smell in the air. And Arthur’s arms wrapped tight around him, Arthur’s voice muttering nonsense in his ear like he’s trying to sooth a skittish colt.
Merlin forces himself to take a deep breath. His chest heaves against the snug circle of Arthur’s arms, and Arthur notices instantly. He stops his murmuring and loosens his grip just enough. “Merlin?” (Under other circumstances, Merlin would wonder at the naked concern in the prince’s voice.)
“I’m - I -“
“Did that thing hurt you?” Arthur asks brusquely. Merlin is about to say yes when he realizes that Arthur means physically, and further realizes that he isn’t sure. All of his muscles are tense and stiff, his throat is raw, his eyes sting, and there are the beginnings of bruises beneath Arthur’s hands, but nothing feels cut or broken, and he’s fairly certain that the queasy feeling in his gut is psychological more than anything else.
“I don’t think so.” He shifts, trying to pull himself upright, and Arthur relaxes his hold and helps, settling Merlin with his back against a wall and his shoulder against Arthur’s.
“You were thrashing about so much, I thought you were having convulsions, and then you just started shaking,” Arthur says, a little defensive.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Nothing to gauge by, in here. It could have been an hour, could have been two, or longer. What the hell happened?”
“There was a voice, and she threw a light at me-“
“I saw some sort of flash, but it vanished before I could get a look.”
“It was so bright, it blinded me, and then I saw things-“ All of a sudden the images come pouring back into his brain and Merlin lets out a choked sob, curling into himself. Arthur’s arms go around his shoulders instantly and pull him in close.
“Shh, shh, breathe, Merlin, breathe. What did you see?” The small part of Merlin’s brain that isn’t completely losing it takes a moment to be surprised by the gentleness of Arthur’s tone and touch, and to wish he could see Arthur’s face.
“I don’t - the future, I think, it felt like the future but it can’t all be - you died, so many times, so many ways, and Camelot burned, and you just kept -“ he breaks off, finding it difficult to breathe despite Arthur’s admonitions to do so.
“Alright, alright, it’s alright, you don’t have to talk about it,” Arthur says. His fingers move against Merlin’s shoulders and back, light soothing touches, automatic, like he isn’t quite aware of doing it.
“We’re supposed to have - your destiny, you’re supposed to be a great king, you’re supposed to make Camelot great, you’re supposed to-“ Merlin raises his voice, suddenly angry, addressing the darkness and whatever it was that brought him these visions. “What’s the point?” he shouts. “What’s the point of any of it, if it’s all going to end like that? If it doesn’t matter what we do, why show me any of it?”
“Each of these things may come to pass, Emrys, but all of them will not do so,” the woman’s voice says. “Destiny is an end, an echo of what others will remember of your life, but you need not live your life by its measure nor rush headlong to its goals. You have seen what may be; now make of your life what is.”
A small slightly hysterical portion of Merlin’s brain decides that this woman should go talk to the dragon; the ensuing argument would be so incomprehensible that neither of them would have time to confuse anyone else ever again.
“Show him something good then!” Arthur yells.
“What?” Merlin and the woman say, simultaneously.
“Show him something good! Surely his possible futures can’t all be awful enough to reduce him to this, so show him something good,” Arthur insists.
“That is not for me to do,” she says.
“Who is it for, then?” Arthur demands.
“You might have a try yourself, young Pendragon,” she says, strangely kind. Then, though it’s still pitch black and there’s no sound to indicate it, they both know she’s gone. A moment later a crack of light appears off to their right, followed by the voice of one of Arthur’s knights.
“Sire? Sire, are you in there? Are you alright?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here. We’re here, we’re-“ Arthur hesitates for just a moment, and his hands on Merlin only now fall still, “we’re fine.”
There’s motion and sound and soon the break in the rock is letting in enough light to properly see. Arthur gives Merlin’s shoulder a squeeze, his expression unreadable, and gets to his feet. The loss of contact is enough to jolt Merlin into some awareness of the here and now, and he gets up too.
Arthur catches his arm when he stumbles a moment later, and guides him to lean against the wall. Merlin doesn’t protest. The images are still swimming behind his eyelids, and it’s everything else that seems a bit unreal.
With Arthur working from one side and the knights from the other, there’s quickly an opening in the collapsed stone that’s sufficient to allow a man through. Arthur pushes Merlin out ahead of him, telling the knights something about his manservant taking a blow to the head. They’ve brought the horse around, the one intended for carrying game back to Camelot, and Arthur sets Merlin on its back without comment.
He tells the knights something more, probably, but Merlin’s too dazed to pay any attention. Keeping himself upright on the horse is about the most engagement with his surroundings that he can manage. Half the knights’ faces trigger images of the same men dead, and he can barely even look at Arthur. Merlin feels sick and empty, his stomach churning. It’s much like learning that the dragon was manipulating him: destiny is still a heavy weight hanging in his chest, but it’s become one he wants to fling away as hard as he can.
The sight of Camelot as they approach is more than Merlin can handle. He slumps down across the horse’s neck, burying his face in the mane, eyes shut tight. Eventually someone jerking at his sleeve forces him to look up.
“Come on, we’re home,” Arthur tells him. Merlin manages a nod, and lets the prince tug him down from the horse and set him on his feet.
“You’re free for the rest of the day,” Arthur says briskly, turning away once he’s satisfied that Merlin isn’t going to fall over. “Go let Gaius look at you.”
Merlin goes instead to Morgana’s chambers, overwhelmed by sudden empathy. She opens the door after his knocks and blinks, surprised to see him. (If Merlin weren’t so distracted he might wonder why she opens the door and stands in the entrance instead of telling him to come in, why her hair is disheveled, why she’s wearing only a robe, but he doesn’t.)
“Merlin? I though Arthur wasn’t coming back until tomorrow…?”
Merlin just shakes his head and pulls her into a tight embrace.
“I’m sorry, Morgana. I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything.” She pats his back, a little awkward, until it all gets to be too much and he pulls away to disappear down the hall.
(“What was that about?” Gwen asks from the bed. Morgana shrugs, shedding the robe.
“I’ve no idea.”)
Merlin avoids Gaius, and the dragon, and everyone else for the rest of the day. He hides himself away in a rarely used tower until it’s dark, and then lurks around outside until he sees the window in Gaius’s chamber go dark. He wants to throw up, wants to claw open his brain and pull the images out so he can look around again without being reminded of death. The thought of trying to explain it to Gaius or anyone else just stirs the bile in his stomach.
His bed, once he goes to it, provides little relief; every time he manages to nod off, he’s startled awake minutes later by the nightmares seared into his brain. After four or five repetitions of this, Merlin stops trying. He spends the remainder of the short summer night reading his magic book, and takes off to start his chores at the first hint of sunrise.
He exercises the dogs, polishes the armor, checks on the mending with the seamstresses and the laundry with the laundresses, and collects the week’s reports from a confused and sleepy guardsman. Even with all that, Merlin finds himself in Arthur’s bedroom well before the prince is awake. He sets out breakfast, puts the reports in chronological order, arranges Arthur’s clothes for the day, does everything else he can think of while waiting for Arthur to stir. When Arthur finally does raise his head, Merlin is refolding the already-folded clothing in the wardrobe.
“You look awful,” Arthur announces, taking in the dark circles beneath Merlin’s eyes.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Merlin mutters.
“Why not?”
Merlin just shrugs and goes about his business. Arthur watches him for a few minutes and then, when Merlin’s refolded the same shirt for the third time, he sighs.
“Merlin. Is it anything to do with what happened yesterday?”
Merlin carefully sets the shirt down and says “I thought we weren’t going to talk about that.”
“I said you didn’t have to. But you’re obviously being a great big girl about it, so you might as well just tell me. You saw things.”
“The future.”
“And it wasn’t good.” Arthur swings himself out of bed and pads over to the table to prod at his breakfast.
“Things happened, a lot of different things, but mostly it was people dying. Mostly you dying.”
“Was it a good death?” Arthur lifts the jug, pours water into his goblet.
“What?” Merlin turns around, finally leaving the wardrobe, to stare at him.
“Everyone dies someday, Merlin. So long as it’s in some worthwhile way-“
“There’s no worthwhile way for you to die!”
“Sure there is. If it’s in the service of something greater than myself, if it’s for the kingdom, or,” he reaches for the goblet and takes a sip, staring at Merlin intently over the rim, “or for someone that matters to me, then it’s worthwhile.”
It takes Merlin a moment to understand what the look and the goblet mean, but when he does it makes his chest hurt in a way that’s entirely different to what he’s been experiencing since the visions.
He’s never allowed himself to think too much about what happened on that beach. The rush of relief at learning Arthur wasn’t dead after all had washed over anything else he might have been feeling at the time, and afterward… Afterward, he told himself that taking the poison had been the only way for Arthur to pass the test, that Arthur must have realized that. But on some level Merlin knew that Arthur hadn’t been thinking of the test when he grabbed the goblet; Merlin knew this, he just didn’t quite know what to do with that knowledge. He still doesn’t know what to do with it, or what to do with the look in Arthur’s eyes now, which seems to be challenging him to acknowledge it.
“I didn’t see all the details,” Merlin says finally, ignoring the look. He feels a little like a coward but he’s unprepared to be brave when he still vaguely wants to vomit. “I don’t know the circumstances. I just know - you’re supposed to be great, and I’m supposed to protect you, and I must fail because it just keeps going wrong, you keep dying-“
“And what happens in between?” Arthur asks.
“What?”
“You see me now, you saw me dying - what happens in between? We all enter this world alone and bloody, and leave it more or less the same way, and no king, however great, is ever going to change that. But there’s a whole lifetime in between. What of that?”
“I never thought of it that way,” Merlin says, blinking.
“That’s because you’re an idiot, and I’m brilliant. Merlin, you barely look to the future enough to get my winter socks mended before I need them. Don’t go worrying about what some madwoman in a cave thinks is going to happen. Someday I’ll die, but there’s a lot I plan to do first. And you aren’t going to be much use to me if you’re sleep-deprived.”
“You don’t understand, Arthur. I can’t stop seeing it. Every time I close my eyes, every time I stop to think-“
“Can’t imagine that happens too often.”
“Very funny. You’re very funny. Every time, I just keep seeing it, how horribly wrong everything could go. I know I saw a few things that weren’t terrible but I can barely remember them over all the images of death and destruction.”
“Sounds like you could do with a distraction,” Arthur says. He’s still holding the goblet, still watching Merlin closely.
“If you’re going to tell me to muck out your stables-“ Merlin doesn’t think that’s what Arthur is going to say. He’s remembering Arthur’s hands on him in the cave, Arthur’s breath in his ear trying to calm him, Arthur’s insistence that the woman grant him a good vision. He’s remembering, suddenly, every time Arthur has ever shown him affection without admitting to it, and realizing exactly how many such instances there are.
“If rearranging my wardrobe isn’t helping, I don’t imagine that will either,” Arthur says evenly. He sets the goblet down, pushes his chair back, and stands, never taking his eyes off Merlin. There’s a challenge there, and an offer - play dumb and nothing changes, or rise to this, and find out what does. Arthur moves toward him, and Merlin stares back, fighting to focus on this image, on Arthur’s bed-rumpled hair and wrinkled nightshirt and not the dying man behind his eyelids.
“What did you have in mind then?” Merlin asks. He didn’t see anything like this yesterday; the only private moments that appeared in his visions were concerned with magic or marriage, everything big and dramatic and life-altering. For all the time Merlin spends saving Arthur, worrying about Arthur, trying to make Arthur the man destiny requires, he’s never really stopped to think about what he himself wants of Arthur. This, though, this fierce quiet concern woven in under the insults and the teasing, this might be it.
Arthur stops right in front of Merlin, so close he can see the stubble above Arthur’s lip. Arthur rests one hand on Merlin’s shoulder, raises the other to cup his cheek, all the while studying his face, searching.
“We could outfit you for sword practice, knock you about until it dribbles out of your ears with the rest of your brain,” Arthur says. “Or borrow some of Morgana’s things, dress you up like a girl, see how many people we can fool into thinking you really are one. Quite a few, I’d expect. Or-“ He pauses, moves his thumb just slightly so it brushes the corner of Merlin’s mouth.
“Or?” Merlin asks, not flinching from Arthur’s gaze and hoping that’s enough to answer the question there.
“Or I could do this,” Arthur says, and closes the small gap remaining between them to press his mouth against Merlin’s. It’s cool and clean and light, just a soft touch, a gentle nip at Merlin’s lower lip, but it’s more than sufficient to blot out all the terrible things racing through his mind. Arthur retreats just enough to look Merlin in the eye, and Merlin looks back, steady.
“That last one,” he says, a little breathless with the awe of getting something he hadn’t quite known he wanted, “I think that last one would be good.” Arthur grins, then, and leans back in, and this time it isn’t cool or clean or light at all.
Later, Arthur’s fingers brush the bruises his hands left on Merlin’s sides yesterday, and Merlin remembers what he saw. But the fear is tempered by the more recent memory of Arthur’s skin, hot and living, by all the unspoken feeling in Arthur’s eyes, by the rush of contact and build-up and release all mixed in with Arthur’s teasing and Arthur’s smile and Arthur’s laughter. Merlin still remembers what may be to come, but it’s nothing in light of this promise of everything good that he hasn’t seen yet.
*
In a dark cave fancied by white stags and prone to curiously controlled rock falls, a woman looks into her silver shifting light and smiles at what she sees there.
“Well done, young Pendragon.”
Rating: PG-13
Length: 4300 words
Note: With apologies to the writers of The Devil’s Whore, from whom I have shamelessly stolen a bit of philosophizing.
Summary: Merlin doesn’t see the future. Except when he does.
This is how it goes: Morgana sees the future, except when she doesn’t. Because sometimes a nightmare is just a nightmare, and sometimes the future changes.
This is how it goes: Merlin doesn’t see the future. For all the persistent talk of destinies he lives his life very much in the moment, and his magic takes a different shape to that of the seers. His dreams are, if not ordinary, at least no more prophetic than anyone else’s. Merlin doesn’t see the future. Except when he does.
*
Merlin doesn’t much like trips into the woods. When Arthur isn’t killing unicorns or rescuing maidens who are going to try to kill him, he’s getting attacked by monsters that are already trying to kill him, and why he continues to think that these expeditions are a good idea is frankly beyond Merlin. The whole ‘save Arthur’s life every other four days plus alternate Saturdays’ lark is something he’s gotten used to, but it would be nice if Arthur didn’t keep deliberately seeking out life-threatening situations for himself to charge into.
This time Arthur has tracked a funny white stag straight into a cave. The rest of the knights broke off in another direction ten minutes ago, so it’s just Merlin and Arthur, and Merlin is in the middle of explaining all the reasons why this is a bad idea - “Normal stags don’t flee into mysterious caves” and “Do you remember what happened the last time you decided to shoot something weird and white” and “We haven’t even got any sort of torch and it’s dark in here” - when he’s drowned out by a sound like thunder.
The crack and rumble are just like that of a storm directly overhead, deafeningly loud. But it isn’t something distant in the sky causing this noise, no, it’s the abrupt collapse of the mouth of the cave. It’s a curiously controlled collapse. Just enough rock to completely seal them in and block all the light out, while the rest of the cavern remains intact. Or at least apparently intact - it’s far too dark to see anything, but nothing’s falling near Merlin.
When the stone settles and the echoes of the noise have faded, Merlin huffs and says “I told you.”
“That’s no ordinary rock slide,” Arthur says, his tone dubious.
“Yes, exactly my point. Look, are you alright?” He steps carefully in the direction of Arthur’s voice, hands extended, until he encounters the cool leather of Arthur’s jacket.
“Fine, you?” Arthur says, turning to clasp Merlin’s arm.
“Fine.”
“Good. So you think this is some sort of sorcery?”
“Probably. Given the stag I’d guess more on the lines of Anhora than anyone specifically out to kill you-“
“Maybe they’re out to kill you this time,” Arthur says, a hint of laughter in his voice, but then he adds “Not that I’d let them. Now. You were complaining before about us not having a torch. I don’t suppose you were just being difficult and have in fact cunningly concealed some flint in your bag?”
“Afraid not.”
“Well, damn. I’m not about to sit around here and wait for some mystical nonsense to descend on our heads, but trying to shift the rocks when we can’t see what we’re doing-“
“-Would be a poor choice, young Pendragon,” says a new voice. Merlin can feel Arthur turning to face it, picture his free hand settling at his sword belt. The voice is female but not, to Merlin’s relief, anything like Nimueh’s.
“Who are you? State your business,” Arthur demands.
“None of yours,” says the women. A light appears in front of Merlin - dim by daylight, but blinding in the pitch darkness of the cave - and flies into his hands before he can react.
It’s like a punch to the gut. Merlin doubles over instantly, all of his senses stinging, and a heartbeat later his knees give out. Arthur’s hand is still on Merlin’s arm, he must have followed him to the ground, but the touch of Arthur’s fingers and the sensation of the cold stone underneath Merlin’s body are distant, hazy, like the fading memory of a dream.
“Open your eyes, Emrys,” says the woman. Her voice cuts through the fog, the one clear thing in his suddenly clouded existence. He wasn’t even aware of having closed his eyes, but he forces them open now, and the light rises up to fill his vision and blot out everything else.
It’s magic, sure and certain, but not the kind that Merlin is accustomed to. This power isn’t for polishing boots, or making serpents come alive, or even for vanquishing foes. There’s a silvery tang to it, sharp and cool and high pitched in contrast to the soft, low, warm, golden hum that Merlin knows. He reaches for it, tentatively, and feels the threads of futures spinning out before him like balls of yarn spilling from a basket.
Uther, shouting, “For crimes against Camelot-“
and Arthur, shackled and restrained by four guards, struggling and yelling himself hoarse-
and Gwen, weeping-
and Morgana, breaking away from the guards at her side, running towards the block, wild-eyed-
and the swing of the axe-
and
Arthur’s room, quiet. Arthur standing by the window, Merlin by the table. Arthur saying “I did suspect. I wish you’d told me sooner, but I understand why you didn’t.”
Merlin saying “You’re not angry?”
Arthur saying “Feeling oddly vindicated, actually. I always did say there was something about you, didn’t I?”
and
Arthur, older. “I need a wife, Gwen.”
Gwen laughing, “And Merlin said no?”
Arthur, a little flushed. “Guinevere-“
Gwen, smiling. “Of course, Arthur.”
and
Morgana, with blood on her hands and none left in her pale, pale face. “He’s dying, Arthur. In his chamber. Go, now, if you want to see him before-“
Arthur, his expression stony. “Did you-“
“Yes. I did. Camelot cannot wait any longer. You’re the king now, and I’ll be gone within the hour.”
“Why?”
“I told you, we can’t-“
“No. Why are you leaving?”
Morgana, smiling strangely. “I killed the king, Arthur. And you cannot be the kind of king who would let a murderer go unpunished.”
and
Arthur, lying dead. A dozen different ways, a dozen different wounds, and always Merlin at his side, whispering desperate words through tears that feel as though they will never stop.
and
Guinevere and Lancelot, older, hands clasped before the crowd.
A voice, Mordred, fully a man now, sneering. “She has committed adultery, your queen. With this man. Many times. Do you suppose the child she carries is even your own?”
Arthur, eyes closed against the water that threatens to spill out, silent.
“Or did you know?” Mordred, face twisting in terrible glee. “Did you know, and allow it? Because you couldn’t control her, or deny her? Or because you were doing the same with some other whore? Tell us, Arthur king, how did the good and strong and noble Pendragon come to be made cuckold in front of his whole dominion?”
and
Camelot, burning. Fire scorching the white stone black as the city crumbles to ruins.
and
Arthur, fingers as gentle against Merlin’s face as his tone is fierce. “I won’t tell him. I won’t let him find out, or harm you. Whatever magic may be, I know you aren’t evil, and I will protect you to the end of my days.”
and
Gwen and Morgana and Arthur, all three armed and wearing armor, poised for battle at the front of a whole company of knights. Merlin at Arthur’s side, hand raised, calling out spells to keep the enemy’s sorcery at bay. Shrieking wind and churning clouds and chaos, everywhere but within the shrinking bubble of protection Merlin struggles to maintain around them.
and
Merlin, riding out of Camelot in the dead of night, his nerves screaming against the pull of destiny that demands he stay, and Arthur’s voice ringing in his ears, low and rough-
“My father will not see reason, and I will not see you executed.”
and
Morgana, much older and much changed, a frightened fury in her eyes, “I’m not here to fight. I dreamt of Gwen-“
Merlin, with no fight in him, “She went into labor yesterday. The child was stillborn this morning, but she’s still bleeding, we can’t stop the-“
Morgana, sweeping past him into the room.
and
Arthur, hunched over a table, his face aged and drawn, the line of his back speaking of breaking. “Where did it all go wrong, Merlin?”
The images keep flickering and repeating, some in variations and some the same, but more and more it’s Camelot in ruins and Arthur dead, over and over again.
Finally, finally the deluge stops. When Merlin feels as though his whole psyche has been shredded, when he can’t see anything but pain and fire, it stops, replaced by emptiness and overwhelming despair. And then, gradually, that fades too.
When Merlin comes back to himself, he’s curled tight in a ball, shaking and sobbing and unable to think of anything but the weight of the dread that has taken up residence in his stomach. Gradually other things press their way into his awareness - the stone beneath him, the darkness, the faint acidic smell in the air. And Arthur’s arms wrapped tight around him, Arthur’s voice muttering nonsense in his ear like he’s trying to sooth a skittish colt.
Merlin forces himself to take a deep breath. His chest heaves against the snug circle of Arthur’s arms, and Arthur notices instantly. He stops his murmuring and loosens his grip just enough. “Merlin?” (Under other circumstances, Merlin would wonder at the naked concern in the prince’s voice.)
“I’m - I -“
“Did that thing hurt you?” Arthur asks brusquely. Merlin is about to say yes when he realizes that Arthur means physically, and further realizes that he isn’t sure. All of his muscles are tense and stiff, his throat is raw, his eyes sting, and there are the beginnings of bruises beneath Arthur’s hands, but nothing feels cut or broken, and he’s fairly certain that the queasy feeling in his gut is psychological more than anything else.
“I don’t think so.” He shifts, trying to pull himself upright, and Arthur relaxes his hold and helps, settling Merlin with his back against a wall and his shoulder against Arthur’s.
“You were thrashing about so much, I thought you were having convulsions, and then you just started shaking,” Arthur says, a little defensive.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Nothing to gauge by, in here. It could have been an hour, could have been two, or longer. What the hell happened?”
“There was a voice, and she threw a light at me-“
“I saw some sort of flash, but it vanished before I could get a look.”
“It was so bright, it blinded me, and then I saw things-“ All of a sudden the images come pouring back into his brain and Merlin lets out a choked sob, curling into himself. Arthur’s arms go around his shoulders instantly and pull him in close.
“Shh, shh, breathe, Merlin, breathe. What did you see?” The small part of Merlin’s brain that isn’t completely losing it takes a moment to be surprised by the gentleness of Arthur’s tone and touch, and to wish he could see Arthur’s face.
“I don’t - the future, I think, it felt like the future but it can’t all be - you died, so many times, so many ways, and Camelot burned, and you just kept -“ he breaks off, finding it difficult to breathe despite Arthur’s admonitions to do so.
“Alright, alright, it’s alright, you don’t have to talk about it,” Arthur says. His fingers move against Merlin’s shoulders and back, light soothing touches, automatic, like he isn’t quite aware of doing it.
“We’re supposed to have - your destiny, you’re supposed to be a great king, you’re supposed to make Camelot great, you’re supposed to-“ Merlin raises his voice, suddenly angry, addressing the darkness and whatever it was that brought him these visions. “What’s the point?” he shouts. “What’s the point of any of it, if it’s all going to end like that? If it doesn’t matter what we do, why show me any of it?”
“Each of these things may come to pass, Emrys, but all of them will not do so,” the woman’s voice says. “Destiny is an end, an echo of what others will remember of your life, but you need not live your life by its measure nor rush headlong to its goals. You have seen what may be; now make of your life what is.”
A small slightly hysterical portion of Merlin’s brain decides that this woman should go talk to the dragon; the ensuing argument would be so incomprehensible that neither of them would have time to confuse anyone else ever again.
“Show him something good then!” Arthur yells.
“What?” Merlin and the woman say, simultaneously.
“Show him something good! Surely his possible futures can’t all be awful enough to reduce him to this, so show him something good,” Arthur insists.
“That is not for me to do,” she says.
“Who is it for, then?” Arthur demands.
“You might have a try yourself, young Pendragon,” she says, strangely kind. Then, though it’s still pitch black and there’s no sound to indicate it, they both know she’s gone. A moment later a crack of light appears off to their right, followed by the voice of one of Arthur’s knights.
“Sire? Sire, are you in there? Are you alright?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here. We’re here, we’re-“ Arthur hesitates for just a moment, and his hands on Merlin only now fall still, “we’re fine.”
There’s motion and sound and soon the break in the rock is letting in enough light to properly see. Arthur gives Merlin’s shoulder a squeeze, his expression unreadable, and gets to his feet. The loss of contact is enough to jolt Merlin into some awareness of the here and now, and he gets up too.
Arthur catches his arm when he stumbles a moment later, and guides him to lean against the wall. Merlin doesn’t protest. The images are still swimming behind his eyelids, and it’s everything else that seems a bit unreal.
With Arthur working from one side and the knights from the other, there’s quickly an opening in the collapsed stone that’s sufficient to allow a man through. Arthur pushes Merlin out ahead of him, telling the knights something about his manservant taking a blow to the head. They’ve brought the horse around, the one intended for carrying game back to Camelot, and Arthur sets Merlin on its back without comment.
He tells the knights something more, probably, but Merlin’s too dazed to pay any attention. Keeping himself upright on the horse is about the most engagement with his surroundings that he can manage. Half the knights’ faces trigger images of the same men dead, and he can barely even look at Arthur. Merlin feels sick and empty, his stomach churning. It’s much like learning that the dragon was manipulating him: destiny is still a heavy weight hanging in his chest, but it’s become one he wants to fling away as hard as he can.
The sight of Camelot as they approach is more than Merlin can handle. He slumps down across the horse’s neck, burying his face in the mane, eyes shut tight. Eventually someone jerking at his sleeve forces him to look up.
“Come on, we’re home,” Arthur tells him. Merlin manages a nod, and lets the prince tug him down from the horse and set him on his feet.
“You’re free for the rest of the day,” Arthur says briskly, turning away once he’s satisfied that Merlin isn’t going to fall over. “Go let Gaius look at you.”
Merlin goes instead to Morgana’s chambers, overwhelmed by sudden empathy. She opens the door after his knocks and blinks, surprised to see him. (If Merlin weren’t so distracted he might wonder why she opens the door and stands in the entrance instead of telling him to come in, why her hair is disheveled, why she’s wearing only a robe, but he doesn’t.)
“Merlin? I though Arthur wasn’t coming back until tomorrow…?”
Merlin just shakes his head and pulls her into a tight embrace.
“I’m sorry, Morgana. I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything.” She pats his back, a little awkward, until it all gets to be too much and he pulls away to disappear down the hall.
(“What was that about?” Gwen asks from the bed. Morgana shrugs, shedding the robe.
“I’ve no idea.”)
Merlin avoids Gaius, and the dragon, and everyone else for the rest of the day. He hides himself away in a rarely used tower until it’s dark, and then lurks around outside until he sees the window in Gaius’s chamber go dark. He wants to throw up, wants to claw open his brain and pull the images out so he can look around again without being reminded of death. The thought of trying to explain it to Gaius or anyone else just stirs the bile in his stomach.
His bed, once he goes to it, provides little relief; every time he manages to nod off, he’s startled awake minutes later by the nightmares seared into his brain. After four or five repetitions of this, Merlin stops trying. He spends the remainder of the short summer night reading his magic book, and takes off to start his chores at the first hint of sunrise.
He exercises the dogs, polishes the armor, checks on the mending with the seamstresses and the laundry with the laundresses, and collects the week’s reports from a confused and sleepy guardsman. Even with all that, Merlin finds himself in Arthur’s bedroom well before the prince is awake. He sets out breakfast, puts the reports in chronological order, arranges Arthur’s clothes for the day, does everything else he can think of while waiting for Arthur to stir. When Arthur finally does raise his head, Merlin is refolding the already-folded clothing in the wardrobe.
“You look awful,” Arthur announces, taking in the dark circles beneath Merlin’s eyes.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Merlin mutters.
“Why not?”
Merlin just shrugs and goes about his business. Arthur watches him for a few minutes and then, when Merlin’s refolded the same shirt for the third time, he sighs.
“Merlin. Is it anything to do with what happened yesterday?”
Merlin carefully sets the shirt down and says “I thought we weren’t going to talk about that.”
“I said you didn’t have to. But you’re obviously being a great big girl about it, so you might as well just tell me. You saw things.”
“The future.”
“And it wasn’t good.” Arthur swings himself out of bed and pads over to the table to prod at his breakfast.
“Things happened, a lot of different things, but mostly it was people dying. Mostly you dying.”
“Was it a good death?” Arthur lifts the jug, pours water into his goblet.
“What?” Merlin turns around, finally leaving the wardrobe, to stare at him.
“Everyone dies someday, Merlin. So long as it’s in some worthwhile way-“
“There’s no worthwhile way for you to die!”
“Sure there is. If it’s in the service of something greater than myself, if it’s for the kingdom, or,” he reaches for the goblet and takes a sip, staring at Merlin intently over the rim, “or for someone that matters to me, then it’s worthwhile.”
It takes Merlin a moment to understand what the look and the goblet mean, but when he does it makes his chest hurt in a way that’s entirely different to what he’s been experiencing since the visions.
He’s never allowed himself to think too much about what happened on that beach. The rush of relief at learning Arthur wasn’t dead after all had washed over anything else he might have been feeling at the time, and afterward… Afterward, he told himself that taking the poison had been the only way for Arthur to pass the test, that Arthur must have realized that. But on some level Merlin knew that Arthur hadn’t been thinking of the test when he grabbed the goblet; Merlin knew this, he just didn’t quite know what to do with that knowledge. He still doesn’t know what to do with it, or what to do with the look in Arthur’s eyes now, which seems to be challenging him to acknowledge it.
“I didn’t see all the details,” Merlin says finally, ignoring the look. He feels a little like a coward but he’s unprepared to be brave when he still vaguely wants to vomit. “I don’t know the circumstances. I just know - you’re supposed to be great, and I’m supposed to protect you, and I must fail because it just keeps going wrong, you keep dying-“
“And what happens in between?” Arthur asks.
“What?”
“You see me now, you saw me dying - what happens in between? We all enter this world alone and bloody, and leave it more or less the same way, and no king, however great, is ever going to change that. But there’s a whole lifetime in between. What of that?”
“I never thought of it that way,” Merlin says, blinking.
“That’s because you’re an idiot, and I’m brilliant. Merlin, you barely look to the future enough to get my winter socks mended before I need them. Don’t go worrying about what some madwoman in a cave thinks is going to happen. Someday I’ll die, but there’s a lot I plan to do first. And you aren’t going to be much use to me if you’re sleep-deprived.”
“You don’t understand, Arthur. I can’t stop seeing it. Every time I close my eyes, every time I stop to think-“
“Can’t imagine that happens too often.”
“Very funny. You’re very funny. Every time, I just keep seeing it, how horribly wrong everything could go. I know I saw a few things that weren’t terrible but I can barely remember them over all the images of death and destruction.”
“Sounds like you could do with a distraction,” Arthur says. He’s still holding the goblet, still watching Merlin closely.
“If you’re going to tell me to muck out your stables-“ Merlin doesn’t think that’s what Arthur is going to say. He’s remembering Arthur’s hands on him in the cave, Arthur’s breath in his ear trying to calm him, Arthur’s insistence that the woman grant him a good vision. He’s remembering, suddenly, every time Arthur has ever shown him affection without admitting to it, and realizing exactly how many such instances there are.
“If rearranging my wardrobe isn’t helping, I don’t imagine that will either,” Arthur says evenly. He sets the goblet down, pushes his chair back, and stands, never taking his eyes off Merlin. There’s a challenge there, and an offer - play dumb and nothing changes, or rise to this, and find out what does. Arthur moves toward him, and Merlin stares back, fighting to focus on this image, on Arthur’s bed-rumpled hair and wrinkled nightshirt and not the dying man behind his eyelids.
“What did you have in mind then?” Merlin asks. He didn’t see anything like this yesterday; the only private moments that appeared in his visions were concerned with magic or marriage, everything big and dramatic and life-altering. For all the time Merlin spends saving Arthur, worrying about Arthur, trying to make Arthur the man destiny requires, he’s never really stopped to think about what he himself wants of Arthur. This, though, this fierce quiet concern woven in under the insults and the teasing, this might be it.
Arthur stops right in front of Merlin, so close he can see the stubble above Arthur’s lip. Arthur rests one hand on Merlin’s shoulder, raises the other to cup his cheek, all the while studying his face, searching.
“We could outfit you for sword practice, knock you about until it dribbles out of your ears with the rest of your brain,” Arthur says. “Or borrow some of Morgana’s things, dress you up like a girl, see how many people we can fool into thinking you really are one. Quite a few, I’d expect. Or-“ He pauses, moves his thumb just slightly so it brushes the corner of Merlin’s mouth.
“Or?” Merlin asks, not flinching from Arthur’s gaze and hoping that’s enough to answer the question there.
“Or I could do this,” Arthur says, and closes the small gap remaining between them to press his mouth against Merlin’s. It’s cool and clean and light, just a soft touch, a gentle nip at Merlin’s lower lip, but it’s more than sufficient to blot out all the terrible things racing through his mind. Arthur retreats just enough to look Merlin in the eye, and Merlin looks back, steady.
“That last one,” he says, a little breathless with the awe of getting something he hadn’t quite known he wanted, “I think that last one would be good.” Arthur grins, then, and leans back in, and this time it isn’t cool or clean or light at all.
Later, Arthur’s fingers brush the bruises his hands left on Merlin’s sides yesterday, and Merlin remembers what he saw. But the fear is tempered by the more recent memory of Arthur’s skin, hot and living, by all the unspoken feeling in Arthur’s eyes, by the rush of contact and build-up and release all mixed in with Arthur’s teasing and Arthur’s smile and Arthur’s laughter. Merlin still remembers what may be to come, but it’s nothing in light of this promise of everything good that he hasn’t seen yet.
*
In a dark cave fancied by white stags and prone to curiously controlled rock falls, a woman looks into her silver shifting light and smiles at what she sees there.
“Well done, young Pendragon.”