Chapter Text
There are truths older than language. Older than flesh, even. The world has always whispered them, low and patient beneath the clamor of human hearts. Whispered them even when the screams of the hurt were louder than thunder. These truths are infinite. So much that some call them magic. Some call them gods. But they are not gods—not in the way humans mean. They are will, shaped and given hunger.
Merlin was born of that hunger.
He did not come into the world crying like other children. He came quiet. Watchful. The wind stopped outside the window when he drew his first breath, and in the nearby woods, a tree cracked down its middle, though there was no storm. The midwife crossed herself and said nothing. She would never speak of that night again.
Gaius knew something was strange with the boy the moment he met him.
He didn’t know everything, not then. But he looked at the boy—pale, wide-eyed, unnervingly still—and felt the weight of a thousand stories press down against his chest. He had seen things in his time. He had studied scrolls in forgotten tongues, dissected beasts whose bodies bent reality. He had believed, once, that magic was a wild thing to be tamed.
And then he met Merlin. The boy was not possessed. Nor cursed. Nor gifted. He simply was—as fire is, or the sea, or the yawning dark between stars. He is like the bird flutters its wings, like the breathing of a distressed child.
And he loved. Fiercely. That was the part Gaius had not expected.
There was something in that love—ancient and aching—that made Gaius wonder if the world had misunderstood what power truly was. Not in thunder or spectacle, but in the quiet choosing of kindness, again and again, even when it hurt. Especially when it hurt. Merlin didn’t shine. He endured. He bent and broke and stitched himself back together with thread no one else could see. He pretended to be like them. To be… human. Gaius learned then that some beings do not become —they reveal . Layer by layer. Softness by softness. Until the shape of divinity looks like a boy with too much heart and not enough sleep.
Now, years later after first meeting him, Merlin walks the halls of Camelot like a shadow wearing skin. He jokes. He stumbles. He gets yelled at by guards and mocked by nobles and sneered at by Arthur himself. And none of it means anything. And all of it means everything. Because Arthur is his. Not by choice. By destiny. (And even if it wasn’t by destiny, Merlin would choose Arthur over and over again.) That word—destiny—is a bitter thing on Merlin's tongue. It binds. It wounds. But it is also the only truth he knows. The fabric of the world hums with it, and he walks in rhythm.
He watches Arthur spar in the courtyard, sweat-slick and golden, barking commands like a man who believes the world will yield if he shouts loudly enough. Merlin loves him. Deeply. Desperately. With a devotion that borders on the divine. And Arthur, for all his pomp and arrogance and pig-headedness, loves him too—in his own stupid, oblivious, infuriating way. But Arthur does not know. Cannot know.
He sees only Merlin the servant. Merlin the fool. The one who forgets his chores, who stammers through excuses, who always somehow arrives in the right place at the wrong time and is always late. The one who always stands too close. Who watches too long.
And that’s fine. That’s the way it must be. That’s the way the threads were spun.
Until the earth speaks.
It is not a voice, exactly. More of a shudder. A pulling in of breath that does not belong to lungs. Merlin wakes from the dreamless place he sometimes falls into—not quite sleep, not quite silence—with the taste of ash on his tongue and his fingertips humming.
Something is moving. Beneath. Beyond. He stands barefoot on cold stone and closes his eyes. The castle is quiet. But outside, the wind is wrong. Too still. As though holding its breath. In the north, there is a tearing. Not literal, not yet. But soon. Soon.
Gaius is waiting when he enters the workshop. The old man does not look up.
–I felt it, —he says, simply, looking for a brief moment at the pale boy, worry crossing his features for a second. He then looked back to the table. .
Merlin nods. Gaius sighs, setting his quill aside.
—Do you know what it is?
Merlin walks to the window. His eyes are not glowing. But the light seems to bend slightly where he stands.
—An army. Not born yet. But nearly. They come with steel and fire, but not for conquest. For…—he stopped himself for a moment, searching for the words that were spoken unto him in a language no person should understand —...cleansing.
—Camlann? —Gaius asks, voice tight.
—No, —Merlin says, lips pressing unto a thin line in disgust —That’s later. This is smaller. A test.
He doesn’t add that it’s also sooner. Soon enough that time presses tight against him. Soon enough that he has to speak to Arthur. Soon enough that everything—everything—might break if he doesn’t. But Arthur is busy. He's always busy these days. The king-to-be is drowning in preparations for a royal visit from the western lords. There are banquets to plan, tapestries to hang, egos to soothe. Merlin tries. Three times. The first, Arthur waves him off with a muttered insult about laundry. The second, he doesn’t look up from his scrolls.
The third, he says, flatly,
—Merlin…—He separates the “ Me ” and the “ rlin ”, he always does it with the faintest smile (Merlin always notices) —... unless you’ve caught fire, I don’t have time.
Merlin opens his mouth. Closes it. Bows. Leaves.
And the magic—his magic, the world’s magic, the endless, weeping current he carries in his veins—howls.He goes to the forest. To the old circle of stones that predates the castle, the kingdom, even the language that names them. There, he kneels. Not to pray. To listen.
The wind carries whispers. The ground thrums. Somewhere in the distance, a child cries, though there are no villages for miles. He lets go of his body. Lets it dissolve into the hum. Becomes the thing beneath the skin. And he listens, he listens for the time, for the earth, for the trees, the grass, the flowers, the rain. He asks his magic for it to tell him when disaster will strike, He feels warmth, sadness, a sudden grief that chokes him for a moment.
When he returns to himself, hours have passed. Maybe more. He walks back slowly.
Arthur is in the courtyard again, laughing with Leon, sword in hand. The sunset catches in his hair. He looks like everything the world has promised. And for a terrible moment, Merlin wants to let it all burn. Just to see if Arthur would finally see him.
But he doesn’t. He never does. He just turns, smiles crookedly, and says: —There you are. I need you to polish my boots before dinner.
Merlin bows. And somewhere beneath the earth, the teeth of something vast and vengeful begin to gnash, to tear, to rip. And the anger inside Merlin becomes stronger.