Fanfic | Merlin: Noticed History
Title: Noticed History
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Arthur/Merlin
Word Count: ~1400
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: major character death
Spoilers: S2E09
Summary: It happens on the fields of Camlann, where the war is won and the rain falls to the earth, fighting their own war with Merlin's flames.
Note: Companion to Unnoticed History
Noticed History
I am dying. How strange that with all these hectic days with no pause for thought, this is what I think whilst I am dying. I thought I’d be … more original, Arthur muses.
The sky is set ablaze in red by the shower of Merlin’s magic and dragon’s flame and the sun that was either rising or setting. By now, he has lost track of time.
He isn’t sure where he is wounded - whether it is supposed to be fatal or not, but he knows he is dying. “Merlin,” he croaks, and the effort burned his throat so fiercely he wonders if that is where the wound lays.
Merlin turns, eyes still colored gold from magic. His expression twists into something like agony when he realizes that Arthur is dying.
This is it: the end of their road, the last of the adventures of King Arthur of Albion (of the Prince of Camelot, child and servant to destiny) and it is raining.
“No,” Merlin says brokenly, as if with that one word he can twist his magic to control life itself and bring him back. He has controlled the power of life and death before - on the Isle of the Blessed so many years ago - and he can heal wounds and stop pains, but they both know that Arthur is too far gone now, his wounds too severe. This is beyond what the warlock is capable of, regardless of the many times he bent the rules of magic to save the life of Arthur.
This is the end of their destiny.
No, no. There is never an end for destiny. Not for the two of them, not for Arthur and Merlin, not for the prince and his manservant, not for the king and his warlock.
For a moment, Arthur thinks he feels at peace. He’s done his duty, united Albion. That promised Isle, he should like to go to it - him and Merlin, a reprieve for tired minds thirsty for privacy and tender words.
Only it seems Merlin has a different idea. He begins a spell, chanting it in a foreign language, voice husky and deep. If it were any other time, Arthur would be appreciative of that tone, but it isn’t any other time, so Arthur fears for their lives.
Merlin never verbally incants a spell - he blinks at most. This spell, whatever it may be, is powerful. Far too powerful for Merlin to be dabbling with. (Merlin has thrown the sea apart by exhaling, aged trees by looking at them and lit the night sky in glowing lights with a single thought a bright laugh as he promises Arthur forever.)
It becomes clearer the longer he stares at him. They are both dying. Both of them. The king and his warlock. The prince and his manservant.
“Don’t do this,” Arthur hears himself beg, voice straining with every word.
Merlin shakes his head, voice trembling from the weight of his spell.
“We won,” Arthur tries again to make Merlin see reason. It is true - that have won the battle and war, there’s nothing left in his destiny for him to live for besides Merlin, who is dying the same as him.
Unsurprisingly, Merlin refuses to see reason, and instead stumbles blindly toward him, the spell still lodged in his throat.
He forces himself to stand taller, stabbing at the earth with Excalibur as he reaches out with one hand to take a hold of Merlin and shut him up.
His hands - and lips - meet air. No final, romantic kiss for them. Not for the prince and his manservant, for the king and his warlock, for Arthur and Merlin.
At first, he doesn’t know what to think. Is Merlin gone as in dead or gone as in, Sorry, Arthur. I was floating over the sea, didn’t know how to get down without drowning myself. Took a bit of thought.
It’s happened before, so he is trying not to think too much of it, but the empty, hollowing ache inside of him tells another tale.
Merlin is dead.
He vomits violently, bile spewing from his mouth like a great, infectious thing. “Knights, to me!” he calls out when he straightens up and wipes his hand across his mouth.
Fewer knights come to him than he expects, some of them carrying fellow knights. He scans them for the least injured.
It is Bedevere, but when he makes to call for the man, a woman comes out of the lake. Hair black and wavy - like Morganna’s, he thinks painfully - and voice like many thousand others when she speaks. “King Arthur,” she whispers, but it booms across the skies.
“Bedevere,” he says, voice low. He knows who that woman is. Merlin spoke of her once, and Arthur knows what she is here for.
The knight scrambles forward quickly, and it is a thing to be noticed, the way his eyes do not stray to the woman. He lifts his sword out of the ground (it makes a sound that calls out destiny and love and forever) and hands to Bedevere, hilt first. The blade doesn’t cut his hand, no matter how tightly he holds it. Reverently, the knight took the sword from him. “My lord,” he breathes in awe.
Arthur nods toward the woman in the lake. “Give the sword to her,” he commands.
Bedevere’s head jerks up in disbelief, looking from him to Excalibur to the woman, and Arthur says, as authoritatively as he can, “Now, Bedevere.”
The knight stumbles to the lakeside, kneeling as he holds the sword before him. The lady makes no move for it. “You would relinquish this sword, my King?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “No more biting steel for King Arthur, no heavy links of chainmail or cold, stifling armor. No more days of mowing down of men who do not bow to Albion. The way to Avalon is yours.”
It is then that Arthur realizes all his wounds are healed and have been healed. Merlin.
The Isle of Apples, how sweet it must be to walk among the trees there. The smell of peace fills the air and a breeze brings him all the nostalgic images of the Isle. He steps forward and his knights all surge toward him, crying out, “Sire!”
It is their cry that brings him to his senses. A fading wind whispers peace longingly, but he shakes his head and hears a laughter that means more to him than any of that. “Will Merlin …?” He doesn’t know what he is asking, but the answer is no.
And so his answer is also no.
“You won’t claim your reward?” she asks, her voice soft and contemplative. Then she smiles, bright and radiant. (And Arthur understands how Merlin fell in love with this woman for an unwavering week.) “Then take Excalibur, my lord. This is yours, for as long as you roam mortal lands.” The sword transforms into a gnarled, wooden stick in her hands.
He stares at it a bit incredulously. “A stick? What do you expect me to do with a stick?” Even his knights snicker a bit behind him.
“Merlin will join you in his own time. For now, my lord, take this. It is a walking stick,” she says with a teasing lilt.
The words resonate as a promise. Merlin will join him again, he has nothing to fear. Reaching out, he takes hold of it, almost expecting to be cut for his momentary betrayal (Merlin always told him Excalibur had a soul, and if he was right then Arthur certainly didn't want to feel the wrath of a disgruntled sword) despite its harmless appearance. He isn’t, and the walking stick feels as right as Excalibur did - does - in his hands.
He’ll walk, then. For eternity, if he has to. The woman smiles and sinks back into the water. He calls for Bedevere.
“I died here today.”
All the knights cry out in outrage, but they also sound sad, knowing that Merlin is dead.
“Listen to me. I died here today. This is where King Arthur fell, on the fields of Camlann. Are you listening? Do you understand? I fell in combat after we won and I went to Avalon, to the Isle of Apples.” The words are an order.
Arthur turns, and walks. He hears his knights crying, hears Bedevere’s voice booming as he recounts exactly how King Arthur fell, hears the rest of the world waiting for him, for Merlin’s return.