Chapter Text
Bethnal Green, 19th November 2025.
“—It’s gonna be a long one, London! Layer up on those jumpers, because meteorologists are now suggesting that the oncoming cold weather bomb might actually be a polar vortex—”
The radio playing above abruptly flickers, followed promptly by the fluorescent shop lights. Merlin would have assumed he’d imagined the moment of stone silence if not for the shopkeeper furiously rebooting her register afterwards.
“Bloody power grid,” the woman grumbles, jabbing at the keys bruisingly, “Damned city! Can’t even keep the lights on long enough to change me own knickers–”
Nearby in front of the produce stand, Merlin drops an avocado into his reusable mesh bag and recalls the days when smelly oil lamps and messy wax candles lit up London's cobbled streets. And although the night sky was eons clearer minus the light pollution, he really can’t complain. Despite its faults, electricity might have to be his favourite innovation from the seventeenth century. There have certainly been less fires.
Actually, plumbing takes that particular cake. I’d rather be plummeted back into darkness than have to empty another chamber pot.
He does miss the stars, though. Astrology hasn't been quite so accurate since.
Merlin bags some aubergines then approaches the cashier with his grocery haul. He conjures a crisp new banknote with the swish of his hand right in front of her, but apart from a little bit of confused blinking there's no reaction over the little toss of magic.
He suppresses a giggle.
It’s no wonder she can’t see her own pants.
Merlin regularly uses magic in his day to day life, mostly for trifling little mundanities like washing dishes, folding laundry, and manifesting spots to sit on the Underground during peak hours. Like this cashier, people tend to dismiss seeing it as a figment of their own imagination anyway so he’s not secretive about it at all. Those few times the Spanish Inquisition, the Soviets, and later MI6 did come after him all he had to do was snap his fingers until all memory of the sorcery was vacant from their pliant human brains.
(Instant ripening mangoes in the Costcutter who? Not this funky ageless warlock!)
There aren’t exactly Questing Beasts or rogue Priestesses demanding Merlin’s attention. There hasn’t been for a millennium. Gone is the land of myth and time of magic, and the destiny of the great Kingdom of Camelot was apparently just as short-lived and inefficacious. For soon after the queen’s reign, the earth’s magic had begun to trickle back down into the ground until nothing but Merlin stood above it, more powerful than ever but without reason to show for.
No, the great warlock Emrys had not died all those centuries ago, at an age any ordinary person should have. Merlin briefly pondered what the purpose of his immortality even was, but agonizing over his existence got dreadfully boring, fast, so he doesn’t do that anymore.
Life is a game of patience, he muses, and mine is the final boss.
That isn’t to say that he hasn’t kept busy, though.
Groceries in hand, Merlin unlocks the front door to his cozy clinic in East London. Smushed between an Ethiopian restaurant and a dusty pub, the place is far grander than it looks on the inside. He’s been selling home-made elixirs, poultices, and medicinal soaps from century old recipes on shelves out front where his current secretary Gintare runs reception. In the back there's a few private rooms for patients, a loo, and a break room for staff and guests.
Why a clinic? Well Merlin has tried every job under the sun out of sheer curiosity but he's always felt compelled to be a healer of some sort. A natural inclination which he supposes is the ghost of Gaius' lasting influence. He can no longer recall his uncle’s lined face or kind diction, but that feeling of comfort and belonging associated with the physician has remained true and lasting.
Merlin will admit he used to be complete rubbish at healing spells, but since then his abilities have been honed to the limit of flat out necromancy. All of the magic in the dormant earth’s core waits at his disposal, bubbling eagerly beneath his feet, begging to be harnessed and released.
So now he uses naturopathic medicine and massage as a cover to straight up cure patients of their varying ails and they are none the wiser.
His clinic is closed on Sundays so he passes through the quiet space to his living quarters. Down the corridor and past the loo, the creaky steps behind an unassuming wooden door lead to Merlin's personal flat which is, quite magically, about the size of a small palace. (He's collected a lot of stuff over the centuries, okay? And the room containing an entire field of wildflowers is very necessary for his mental health thank you very much. Sometimes one just needs a good frolic below snow capped mountains in the heart of the city on a long day.)
One could certainly say Merlin is content with this life. He’s made it his, grown comfortable in its longevity and impermanence.
So when everything changed on a random winter weekday, he simply rolled with that too.
⁂
Bethnal Green, 23rd November 2025.
“Wow, your hands are just magical!" An arthritic client swoons after his acupuncture session. "I feel as if I’m twenty again!”
"You’re too kind, Mr. Cooper." Merlin chuckles, retrieving the older man's walking stick– that which he uses out of psychological belief rather than actual need.
Merlin healed Mr. Cooper of his arthritis several months ago, right after his car accident, but the elderly Jamaican keeps coming back for fruitless adjustment sessions to chat Merlin’s ear off about his husband. Merlin had to convince him that his private practice is actually aligned with the NHS just to relieve himself from the guilt of accepting the twenty pound notes constantly slipped his way.
“Please, call me Badrick!" he chirps, "I’ll try to convince Giuseppe to pop in sometime. He's had a bad knee since the accident. I keep telling him you’re a miracle worker, s’worth coming all the way from Richmond, but he’s being a bit of a tit.”
Merlin accompanies him on the short journey to the front. "I'm happy to do an in-home visit, if that's better?"
"I couldn't request such a thing, it’s terribly far! And he’s gotta get his arse out the house sometime anyways.”
"If I’m in the area I can give you a ring. How about that?”
“Well… I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. I’m sure you’re a busy lad.”
Merlin opens the door, doing his darndest to politely usher his client out. “I insist. Please give him my regards.”
With a little more reluctance the old fellow is on his way, and Merlin is finally given a moment of reprieve– he’s been booked up all day since half past eight. Yes he’s a bit of a workaholic, but he enjoys his job, and it sure does make the time fly by.
And boy, does he have time.
“What a sweetie," giggles Gintare, ruby nails clicking on her keyboard, “Richmond is a little far for a house visit though.”
“It’s fine, I've been meaning to visit the Kew gardens anyway.” Merlin says.
“With all due respect there isn't much to see there in winter.”
“Not with that attitude!” he tuts, retrieving his navy parka from the coat rack, “Be back in a bit, yeah?”
With a twinkle of the chimes above the door Merlin is welcoming the bite of wind at his nose.
He reaches for the engraved bronze cigarette tin in his pocket, pulling one out for a puff. He knows the image of the hippy-dippy naturopath smoking cigarettes is a strange one, but they don’t detriment his health in any way.
He supposes some nuance could be spared, as flat out telling people “I’m a mystical being made of energy itself, titanium bullets, let alone tobacco, can’t exactly hurt me.” doesn’t garner much belief.
The chance to take a step back for just a minute is what has really kept him smoking. Not so much the nicotine itself, but the reprieve it offers. Although the acerbic taste and the way it sticks to his teeth did grow on him.
An expertly hand-rolled cigarette touches his lips when a voice from beside him comments, "Those will kill you, you know."
Merlin takes a long drag, because if only.
Here we go again.
Pretty annoying how he's smoked tobacco since 1492 and only in the last few decades science has decided it's bad for you.
"Tell me about it." he quips, and it would have been left at that had something in the strangers voice not compelled him to reconsider. A lilt of familiarity centuries not heard, but instantly striking Merlin like lightning to a tree.
A chuckle. "Guess it's nothing you haven't heard before."
It is 2025 and Merlin has not met anyone from his first life since before literal science was invented. Yet there is no mistaking that hair, finer than gold, gleaming like treasure. Or that voice, velvet yet commanding, having just escaped a mouth which could’ve been sculpted by Michelangelo himself.
He is the spitting image of Merlin's fractured memories– always the one face he has never failed to remember for it had been seared forever onto his very soul. How could a coin forget its other side?
Arthur Pendragon does not look a thread out of place in the 21st century. He's dressed in a crisp trench, glossy leather shoes on his feet. His trousers are an expensive-looking custom tailored situation which instantly draw the eye down long legs to his generous behind–
Merlin chokes, nearly hacking out a lung in the process.
I’m dreaming. I must be.
"Woah, that wasn't an invitation to prove me right." Maybe-Arthur says, patting Merlin on the back. Not expecting the man to freaking touch him, this makes the coughing worse.
Nope, he’s real.
"Let's get you some water, yeah?"
“Please.” Merlin doubles over, winded.
Fifteen hundred years. Fifteen hundred years and nothing– no Arthur, no Gaius, no Gwen nor Gwaine. Morgana, Uther, Mordred. Hunith. Not a soul from his past has ever reappeared so why now? What could possibly be so apocalyptic that this reunion had to happen on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon outside his clinic on a smoke break instead of during the literal upcoming global-warming induced Armageddon? Even 2020's pandemic which shut the world down for two entire years would have been a more sensible time to kill everyone.
You'd think after so long intimate with the universe Merlin would understand it a little better.
"Here." Arthur (?!) returns bearing a tall glass of water. And not just literally.
"Cheers." croaks Merlin, draining it instantly.
"Maybe that was a sign from the heavens." suggests Arthur cheekily, "Y'know, to quit."
"Wouldn't be the only sign from the heavens today." Merlin replies, and only after saying it realizes just how it might sound.
Indeed, the eons alone did completely remove his brain-to-mouth filter. At least what was left of it.
"Oh? Fateful day, is it?"
A Freshly Reincarnated Arthur Pendragon is flirting with me, Merlin realizes, and nearly erupts into fits all over again. He panic-responds and plays along, desperately fearful of pushing him away before understanding how or why he’s even back.
"If by fateful you mean incredibly embarrassing then absolutely." he offers a miraculously steady hand, “I’m Merlin.”
He hopes for a reaction of some sort at his name but all he gets is a very ordinary if not slightly professional handshake and a comment about his tattoo.
Compared to the first time they'd met, it's a great deal less antagonistic.
“Arthur. Nice ink.”
Arthur flips over Merlin’s hand and sees the intricate crown inked on his right dorsum manus. Merlin had got it years ago as a permanent reminder. A winding dragon on his shoulder followed soon after.
“Thanks. Stabby Sam down the high street did it.”
"Stabby Sam?"
"Yeah. Great bloke." says Merlin. "Light hand, y'know?"
The barest hint of a smirk lilts Arthur's lips. "The name would suggest otherwise."
"I suppose it would."
Merlin is immediately at a loss for what to say next.
What happened to that easy banter they had before? Merlin likes to think he’s long matured from his former awkward, clumsy demeanor but clearly he’s kidding himself. This Arthur is a stranger, not the person he knew more intimately than anyone else.
“You're from around here, then?” Arthur ponders oh so casually, taking no notice of the other man's internal dilemma.
“Ah, yes.” Merlin lies. Though he supposes it really isn't a lie, as he's lived in Londinium, now London, longer than anywhere else. Something about the grand city has kept him here. A certain feeling, like home, but not quite right. A most familiar stranger.
"That's my practice next door, actually.” he nods at the orange sign above his clinic reading,
Dr. Merlin Hunithson ND, Naturopathic Medicine and Massage Therapy.
“A masseuse, huh?” Arthur’s eyes sparkle mischievously and that look is NOT good for Merlin’s well-being, nope. Abort abort abort. “You must be good with your hands–”
“Are you from London?” Merlin blurts, because he can’t bear to hear the rest of that sentence. He cannot.
“Er, not exactly. I moved here for work.”
“Where from then?”
His accent is still so bloody posh it’s hard to tell.
"Was mostly raised in Cardiff, but I did sixth form in Bristol and uni at Oxford."
“Ah, a Welsh dragon.” says Merlin, finding it quite ironic but not surprising, as the ancient lands of Albion used to contain some of those parts out East. “Well then, what brings you to this shitty pub specifically, above the milieu of other shitty pubs in London, if not Stabby Sam's gentle handiwork?”
He draws out the rest of the smirk at that. “I was dining at the Ethiopian restaurant, actually. A business dinner.”
"And does your business usually involve eating injera and drinking honey wine?"
“Not as often as I'd like. I just met a prospective partner.”
Merlin wants so badly to ask him a million more questions: What is it you do? Is your father still around? Do you KNOW that you’re the reincarnation of a legendary king? Or furthermore– the undead love of my life?
But the moment isn't appropriate. Their conversation is still so tentative. The person before him is an entirely fresh slate. Hot on one hand and cold on the other, simply talking with him is both intimidating and relieving.
There isn’t that level of familiarity the two used to share in lifetimes past, where silence could comfortably stretch on for hours, entire discussions could be had with a glance, meaning invoked with mere touch, actions often spoken louder than words. They have no inside jokes, no memories of common hardship and trauma. That level of comfort has disappeared, and if Merlin wants it back, he has to create it anew, because difficult as it is to admit, this Arthur certainly does not remember his old life. He’s essentially a stranger.
However, there’s a silver lining on this burgeoning storm cloud. They’re beginning their acquaintance upon a balanced power dynamic. This man is not his king nor his employer. He is not the other half of a prophecy, nor an inevitable destiny he must keep secret. He's not even the arrogant prince who'd tried to take Merlin's head off with a mace for undermining his authority. He’s just a chap Merlin met on the street who gave him lip about smoking and turned his entire world upside-down again.
The sound of a generic ringtone tears through the air. Arthur swallows back whatever he was going to say as he pulls out his mobile.
"That'll be my uber."
He waves to the guy in the driver's seat in the sleek black Mercedes which has pulled up on the street right in front of them. Then he glances back at Merlin and says, “Sorry, gotta go.” while actually appearing unhappy about it.
Merlin panics a little (read: a lot) because SHIT, he's leaving? Is that it? When on earth am I gonna run into him again? It can’t just END like this–
"Here." Arthur pulls out a business card from his pocket and hands it to him. “My number is on there. See you around?”
Merlin nearly drops his jaw on the floor.
"You know where to find me." he gets out.
“I’ll take that as an invitation for a massage, then.”
With a wink (WINK!) Arthur steps into the car, and away from Merlin, leaving him very much adjourned.
Merlin doesn’t know where to even begin unpacking what just happened, because he still isn’t quite certain that it did.
He pops his head into the clinic to bark at Gintare to cancel the rest of his appointments for today. Before she can protest he’s gone and collapsed onto a barstool in the aforementioned shitty pub next door.
And then the storm hits.
⁂
There’s not much that’s special about the White Hart. It’s your typical English pub– cheap pints, dingy booths, greasy fare, with Wednesday quiz nights and a handful of regulars yelling about Millwall on the telly. It's next door to his clinic, but Merlin hasn't really been inside since alcohol doesn’t affect him like it did when he was younger.
Usually he's pretty chill with being an almighty magical being but for the first time in a while his inability to get drunk feels like the bane of his existence because what in the sweet fuck just happened? How could anyone expect him to process it without liquid assistance?
He gracefully faceplants against the nearest surface.
"Long day?" the patron beside him wonders.
"More like long life." Merlin mumbles against the bar counter (ew, it's kind of sticky).
"I'll drink to that."
Merlin hauls his head on his elbows and calls over the bartender. "D'you have mead?"
She nods, "Gosnell's alright?"
He flashes her a thumbs up.
The guy beside him barks a laugh out over his stein. "Mead? What are you, a pirate?"
"Pirates drank rum, grog, and beer actually."
Merlin would know, he sailed across the Atlantic to Nassau on a stolen Spanish galleon once.
"Well shit, my bad mister historian."
"I'm a naturopath not a historian." Merlin informs him, although he guesses he technically is a historian by default. Y'know, having bore literal witness to most of the major events of human activity since the Dark Ages and whatnot. And he did get that PhD in Egyptology at Cambridge way back then, but that was when his fascination with death was excessive– because the Egyptian idea of spending your present life preparing for your afterlife intrigued him as an immortal. Plus Queen Nefertiti was SO COOL.
"A natural path? What, you guide hiking trails or something?"
"Hah, not even close." Merlin slides his mead over, “Here, don't knock it until you try it."
There's something about this stranger… it’s like his face is off. The hair is far too short, lacking a couple of centimeters. Those circular framed glasses are wrong wrong wrong. And he really ought to grow a beard, his bone structure would suit it, almost like–
For the second time today Merlin's jaw hits the floor.
"Well I never say no to a free drink."
What in the celestial heavens is going on? He's missing the armour, silver necklace, and omnipresent stench of sweat, but that glint of amusement in his eyes, the pint perpetually in hand, those laugh lines framing his grin– it's Gwaine!
"Cheers, mate." he salutes before taking a swig.
Merlin's heart races as the man beside him embarks on what can only be described as a face journey.
First, a funny grimace. “This drink– I’ve had it before.” he murmurs, eyes widening, “This mellow flavour. It's so sweet, it's like..."
He has a second sip, and Merlin dares himself to think maybe, just maybe…
"I used to drink it all the time… at the tavern… playing dice… with– with the knights. Knights? Wait, what am I saying– the fuck is in this stuff?”
Gwaine sets it down to hold his head in place, as if he can’t keep it on straight.
"You were there too."
Merlin can hardly believe what’s happening.
“That’s– what? I don’t even know you!” he rises suddenly from his stool, raging with mounting anger. “Did you fucking slip me something, asshole!?”
“Oh my stars no!” Merlin yelps, whipping his empty hands up. “I swear on my dead mother I did not drug you!”
"Ugh." Fingers rubbing his temples, Gwaine croaks. “Wait, woah.”
Merlin hesitates. “Are you alright?”
There's a moment of silence, then,
“Dunno. I…”
Something clicks.
“Merlin?”
“I didn’t tell you my name.” the warlock breathes, awestruck.
"What in the name of King Uther’s Holy Hipples is going on?"
Merlin wants to cry, he just might, because that's Gwaine. His Gwaine, another friend who died younger than he should have, way back in what's now called the Middle Ages. He's here in Bethnal Green in 2025, and it makes no modicum of sense, but at this moment he couldn't care less about the logistics.
Merlin leaps off the stool and attacks him with a bone-crushing hug.
Oops, damn, he really is crying now.
"Still a sap, eh?"
“We never got to say goodbye.” sniffles Merlin, squeezing him tight like he might just disappear into an uber like Arthur did. "I missed you."
"And I you, old friend."
More damp hugging and several questioning stares later, the two migrate to a booth to figure out where to go from here. They both order another round of mead, this time clinking their glasses together like they used to on those sporadic occasions Merlin actually did join him at the tavern.
"So your memories just poofed back into your brain?" he clarifies, trying his best to figure out if any sort of supernatural is at play.
"The mead definitely triggered it." the former knight taps the glass, "It was a little stupefying, I'm sure you could tell. Everything from my current life is still here, but now so is all the past stuff. It feels like I've got double the brain space now. Not that I didn't have a huge expansive brilliant brain before."
“I wouldn’t exactly say wits were your forté, Gwaine." Merlin says, "You did have a habit of poking wasp nests and starting bar fights. With the King.”
“I’m going to ignore the rest of what you just said and instead revel in the fact that you called me Gwaine.”
“... Is that not your name anymore?”
“It’s just Wayne.” his companion replies, “But Gwaine is so much sexier!”
“Well you’ll always be Gwaine to me.” Merlin assures him, grinning like a loon. Unlike with Arthur, banter is easy with this old friend. Natural, like breathing air and walking on two feet and performing impossible magic.
“You know what’s especially weird about today?" Merlin mentions, "I also ran into Arthur. Just outside. Except he didn't remember me."
"Seriously? Not at all?"
"Nada."
"First things first, maybe we need to look at the bigger picture.” Gwaine says thoughtfully, “Why did you meet both Arthur and me on the same day after fifteen hundred years?"
"Give or take a few decades."
"The world has to be ending. It needs us!" Gwaine declares valiantly (and possibly a little drunkenly), "The Knights of Camelot back in action!"
“As far as I'm aware, global warming is the only real concern right now, and you can’t fight global warming with a sword.” Merlin says.
“Old me would certainly try.” Gwaine points out, and Merlin can’t help but agree. The mental image of the rogue knight slashing through a giant plastic straw with a medieval longsword comes to mind.
The fact that he is drinking and joking around with Gwaine as if no time has passed at all feels downright surreal. At the same time, his foggy memories of his friend are becoming clearer and clearer as they mutually recollect their past.
Clinking their glasses once again, Merlin remembers that mead was Gwaine's go-to at the Rising Sun, where they used to laugh and commiserate less often then both Merlin would have liked and Arthur would have believed (he was far too busy with saving the world from dark magic and all that junk). During the warmer months barmaid Magdalena made a home brew with local Camelot honey, and she had a barrel ready for the knights whenever they returned from an expedition.
"You were one of us, you know.” Gwaine insists earnestly. “For the record, I always suspected you had magic. Way before everything went to shit.”
“I wasn’t very subtle, was I?”
“Not in the slightest– I saw you light campfires with your eyes countless times. But you had Arthur fooled, although he might have just been in denial.”
Merlin sets his drink down. “I actually did end up telling him. He took it better than expected, but it was literally right before he…”
Once again, wishing I could get drunk.
“Shit, sorry.” Gwaine places a comforting hand on his forearm, “I didn’t mean to steer the conversation there.”
“S’okay. I’ve had a long time to reflect on it."
Longer than anyone else has had for anything, ever.
And it’s true, Merlin’s gone through all the stages of grief in order, then reversed, then back again. He’s spent many nights wide awake beneath the moonlight wondering what exactly the point of any of that part of his past was. Countless days searching and waiting, just because some decrepit prophecy proclaimed Arthur was not just the Once king but the Future one as well. The earth’s magic had gone dormant anyways. There was no Albion left to unite.
Eventually Merlin realised what a great load of flaming hot bollocks prophecies are. For here the supposed Future King is in 2025 lacking a kingdom to even rule. Perhaps Merlin would have believed in its validity had Arthur returned to cure the ailing during the Black Death of 1346 or stop the Nazi air raids in 1940. Maybe Merlin would have enthusiastically subscribed if Arthur was around to rescue each and every child who worked to death within sweatshops during the 1840s, right here in East London. Beyond Britain– where was Arthur during Mao’s Great Leap Forward? When forty million people died of starvation? Had he risen from the dead to aim his crossbow at the atomic bombs which hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki before they could ever kiss the ground, Merlin might have considered that the prophecy held weight. That there was a point to Arthur’s death. To the events at Camlann at all.
These questions are a relentless black hole, so he simply doesn’t think about them anymore.
“I still can’t believe you’re fifteen hundred years old.” Gwaine exasperates, rescuing Merlin from his own cosmic horrors. "Would that make me sixty? If I add my past life to my current? Simple maths right?"
"I don't really think age works that way." Merlin says, but then again what would he even know about aging?
“Either way we’re fit for a bunch of dinosaurs.” He flicks Merlin on the forehead, affectionately. "Look at you, all inked and bearded. Not to mention the eyebrow ring."
Merlin flashes his teeth. “I’ll drink to that.”
Except he doesn’t get to, because the moment it reaches his lips the lights flicker. A glass somewhere shatters, and the men watching football start losing their shit at the telly which is now just showing static.
"When did it start snowing?"
It had been chilly earlier but looking outside now, it's like the bar patrons are trapped within a Christmas bauble.
Something isn't right.
Merlin goes to the window. The wind is picking up fast, whooshing loud and angry as an unruly god.
Gwaine joins him, arms crossed. "There's no way I'm walking to the Underground in that."
"Why don't you come to mine? I live next door." Merlin offers. Truthfully, he’s not ready to let his friend out of his sight yet. He’s only just gotten him back.
"Really? Thanks mate.” Gwaine claps him on the back a little too hard, “I'll just have to ask my neighbour to feed Percy for me."
Merlin raises his eyebrows. "Percy?"
"My cat." Gwaine facepalms, "Fuck– I just realised– the name."
Merlin sighs.
"Did I subconsciously name my Maine Coon after my dead Medieval friend?"
"Fraid so."
⁂
Camelot, Spring 504 CE.
The succession meeting he'd just dissolved left the young king-to-be desperate to clear his head. He couldn't retain anything his council proposed to him, unable to command his eyes to focus on a single documented word. So he declared they were to continue their discussions tomorrow and abruptly fled the castle grounds so swiftly not even his manservant could keep up.
His feet guided him here.
The day was pleasantly sunny, with a gentle breeze whispering through freshly bloomed foliage. It was a peaceful spot, like a slice of a fantasy. Arthur had accidentally discovered the meadow one morning while looking for his wayward servant. He hadn't actually found him, but he remembered this place and felt compelled to return.
It was close enough to the citadel that he needn’t worry about bandits or the like. Arthur laid himself down on the soft grass, blocked his sight with his forearm and tried his best to listen only to the sparrows singing away. It was to no avail– his heart wouldn't quiet. The events of late had him more lost than ever.
Morgana...
Arthur's feelings for his sister were a complicated tangle. What she had done to his father– to their father– it broke him in two.
But she was his sister, the only family he really had left bar his Uncle Agravaine. If he was being honest with himself, he didn't trust that man as far as Merlin's twiggy arms could throw him. Deep down in that complicated tangle, Arthur knew that he could sympathize with all that Morgana had been through. At the core of it all, he loved her even after the betrayal.
He hated that she had magic. Of course he did, how could he not? Uther had raised them to believe that magic was a vicious weapon. A wild, unnatural force which corrupted good people and validated bad ones. Except was it not Uther that corrupted Morgana first? He planted that hatred inside of her– inside of them both. She would never have chosen to struggle and suffer alone in fear of her own father like some sick joke. Was it not Uther who turned her into the beast she became?
Alone in that meadow, he allowed himself to wonder... what if things had played out differently? What if Morgana had told him of her troubles and they had dealt with it together? Perhaps he'd have sent her to a druid camp to learn control of her abilities, or brought in a trustworthy sorcerer to teach her somewhere secret in the castle.
Fine, maybe he would have freaked out at first, but Arthur was certain he'd have come around because he too had begun doubting all they'd been taught. He was unable to deny that when it came to sorcery, his father's malice bordered on obsessive.
For Arthur had had first-hand witness of a different kind of magic. Of soft, guiding spheres of light, like North stars trickled down from the sky, there to deliver him to safety.
His heart was beginning to change, and he wished his sister had seen it too. That she had trusted in him just a little bit more.
That's it, isn't it?
That Arthur never gave her reason to was perhaps his biggest regret.
The guilt flooded him through, gripped his heart and squeezed it like a wrung cloth. He didn't know where to proceed from there, or how to fix any of the mess Uther left behind. All the while running an entire kingdom. He was bound to trip on all these loose threads.
Arthur uncovered his weary eyes, brought his gaze up to the cloudless sky. The mountains in the distance loomed above him, but they felt comforting, like kind, embracing giants. Beneath their grandeur, outside of the citadel walls, it was easier to admit that he was only just a man born both burdened and blessed.
He plucked a wildflower from nearby, brought it closer to admire its rich cobalt hue. His favourite colour.
He wondered what kind of flower it was. Whether it could be used to heal, or flavour soups, dye fabrics, or scent his bath water.
Merlin would know.
Perhaps its purpose was just to grow tall and look pretty, live a carefree life in this hidden meadow with the rest of its kind.
He inhaled the flower's fragrant scent, brushed his lips against the petals.
No, Arthur would not admit to being jealous of a freaking plant.
Foolishly, he surrendered his eyes to exhaustion, quite fortunate that only his manservant found him lain there asleep, a single cornflower tucked away in his lapel.