Chapter Text
“And as Arthur took his dying breath, Merlin felt all the hopes and promises of a better Albion dying with him.
“He held on tight as his friend grew cold and heavy in his arms, and felt the weight of the world crumble on top of his shoulders as he realised it had all been for nothing.
“Every battle, every near miss, every petty argument and pointless squabble. The resentment over ‘destiny’ and forced proximity turning to easy camaraderie, to genuine friendship and care and love, to trust built between them over years at each other’s sides, solid as a mountainside. Two sides of a coin.
“All for nothing.
“For in the end, Arthur had been no more than a lamb bred for slaughter, and Merlin his rearer, shepherding him towards the abattoir at the right place at the right time. Just a pawn in the sick game the universe called ‘fate’.
“Over and over, Merlin had been told that his destiny, his one purpose, the reason for his very existence, was to protect Arthur, to keep him safe and alive. But he couldn’t save him in the end, not when it mattered most. He had never been supposed to.”
Merlin glanced up at his audience; took in the ashen faces of children and their parents, young couples and loitering teens, pensioners who’d just happened to sit nearby to take the weight off their feet, all of them staring at him in mute horror.
Merlin couldn’t really blame them; this wasn’t how he’d wanted the story to end either.
He cleared his throat, which had grown hoarse, and swallowed down the painful lump that had been forming there.
“But he held onto hope,” he continued, aiming for a more chipper tone before the children sitting cross-legged at his feet started crying, or someone started throwing things, as had happened a few times before. “As he drifted Arthur’s body out over the Lake of Avalon and watched it float away into the mist, he recalled the Great Dragon’s words:
“When Albion’s need is greatest, Arthur will rise again.”
He didn’t mention how long he’d waited. The hundreds of years spent walking the earth, searching. How he’d used magic to keep himself young so that Arthur, who’d no doubt be disoriented when he finally awoke, would have a familiar face to welcome him, but how he’d dropped the habit after only a few centuries, letting himself grow withered and frail, black hair bleaching white and bones becoming brittle.
He stared down at his wrinkled old hands, feeling the weight of so, so many years settle deep into his bones. He’d have to return to youth soon if he didn’t want to shrivel away for good. But oh, he was tired. Tired of outliving every friend he’d ever made, of seeing the landscape of his homeland change until it was unrecognisable. His heart had long ago been torn apart and remoulded with grief as its new matter. Grief for the many, many people he’d lost, but mainly for a man he was losing hope of ever seeing again.
How much longer could he bear to wait?
He didn’t tell his audience any of this. He let the final words of his story be words of hope. Someone deserved to still feel it at least.
Realising the tale really was over, the audience gradually thinned, grumbling their discontent to each other as they shuffled away, some promising their companions that better versions of Arthur’s legend could be found elsewhere, not spouted in a park by a senile old man.
Merlin ignored them, more than used to this after years of travelling and telling his story. People never liked the ending, but what other ending could there be?
He leant over, his back giving a low creak of protest, and began counting up the coins that had been cast upon the blanket below his stool. Fewer than usual. Always few for the last show.
As he was shuffling the last couple of coins into his wallet - enough for a hot meal, at least? - a shadow fell over his blanket.
“Mr Ambrose?” said a voice, clear with youth, using the false name he’d chosen for this particular visit.
Merlin looked up into the bright, resolute eyes of a young girl. She couldn’t have been older than 14, face plump and pimpled in the midst of adolescence, and stature too short to be done growing. She stood at the edge of his blanket with her arms folded. At her heels, untethered, waited a dog large enough to be mistaken for a small horse.
He recognised her, though he didn’t know her name; she’d been there since the first day he’d set up his stool in the park and started speaking, transfixed on his every word, with wonder in her eyes whenever he spoke of magic, and arms tight around her pet at every tense moment in his and Arthur’s escapades. Except now the wonderment had vanished, and she looked just plain cross, bottom lip stuck out in a pout and eyes thunderous. Her stubborn posture, paired with her wavy, golden hair, had him reminded suddenly, painfully, of Arthur, stood in his bedchambers scolding Merlin for missing a spot when polishing his armour or forgetting to muck out the horses.
Honestly, Merlin, could you be any more useless?
“So?” said the girl, snapping him out of his spiralling thoughts. “Did he ever come back?”
Merlin swallowed a sigh and forced what he hoped was a grandfatherly smile. This happened sometimes; people who weren’t satisfied with the ending demanding more. At least with his aged form, people were more hesitant in their anger lest they cause a sudden heart attack.
“Well, some say he was reincarnated as the Duke of Wellington,” he said, unable to keep the weariness from his tone. “His name was Arthur too, you see. Defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo.”
“And are they right?”
Merlin let out a hollow chuckle. “Well,” he said slyly, “it’s not as though anyone was there who can tell us for sure.” He paused, surveying the girl contemplatively. “But… no,” he said, surprising himself in his honesty. “I believe when Arthur returns, it will be as himself, not some reincarnation. I hope so, at least.”
The girl looked somewhat thoughtful at this, and Merlin took the opportunity to bend down and begin packing away his little setup. He tried to, at least, except his knees gave a loud pop of protest that revived the girl’s attention, and she shooed him away and began rolling up the blanket for him, grass stains quickly forming on her jeans where she squatted on the ground. She did a shoddy job of it, the rolled blanket ending up too thick and threatening to unravel, but Merlin tucked it under his arm and thanked her all the same; most disgruntled audience members weren’t so kind.
“Are you a historian or something, then?” she asked, picking up his stool, too, when the tremors in his hand nearly had him dropping it. She followed him to the park’s exit with it, her dog trotting happily along by her feet without need of a leash. “You seem to know a lot about Arthurian stuff.”
“Just an old man with a passion,” Merlin wheezed, struggling a little to hobble along at her pace in case she accidentally ran off with his only stool. “I suppose you could say it’s a story very close to my heart.”
The girl hummed thoughtfully, continuing to walk with him until they reached a bus stop a little ways down the road, then waiting patiently as he took a seat at the bench there before passing back his stool. “Well, if I see any lost kings wandering around, I’ll come find you.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Merlin said with a chuckle that felt more substantive than his last one.
His heart was made of grief, but it was still a heart, and it still found ways to feel fondness for the people he met, and the little kindnesses they granted him. Humans never changed much, he’d found, no matter how much the world around them did.
“But if you do find one, I hope it will be soon,” he said. “I won’t be around much longer.”
“You’re dying?!” the girl cried instantly, eyes widening in horror as the dog at her feet gave a little whine of concern at the fright in her voice.
“No, no,” Merlin quickly reassured, a little touched that she seemed so panicked, but also a little insulted. He didn’t look that old, surely? Maybe he really was overdue for a de-aging spell. “Just off travelling.”
He didn’t like straying far from the Lake of Avalon, though the place went by a different name now, and towns and roads had grown around it. It was where he’d layed Arthur to rest, and where, he suspected, Arthur would rise. But he couldn’t shake the nerves that Arthur would awaken somewhere else, somewhere he was more needed, and so Merlin travelled and searched, and wherever he stopped to rest, he told his story, laid out in instalments over weeks to a crowd that grew and grew until their disappointment had them dispersing with angry mutters. He didn’t try altering the ending; he’d found that a story that sparked anger tended to stick, and he needed Arthur’s tale to be remembered, so that when he finally arose it would be to a world that still knew his name, to a world that might recognise him, even after centuries, and welcome him home.
But no matter where he ventured, he always returned. Here, to this place, with the tower stretching so high into the sky it could be seen over the surrounding buildings, always in clear sight. A gaping wound marring the horizon.
Even if he wasn’t searching, he couldn’t stay here for long. Time hadn’t healed this sorrow, and it hurt more the longer he lingered, like trying to keep his hand on a hot stove.
But he wouldn't die, of course, no matter how much he played with fire letting himself age like this. He couldn’t. So long as Arthur stood a chance of returning, he would wait. He had to.
“Oh,” said the girl, expression sinking into relief. “Will you be coming back soon? Will you start your story again when you do?”
Not until you’ve grown enough to forget me, Merlin thought, but aloud, he said, “Soon enough.”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” she said brightly, like this was a fun game. “In case he comes back while you’re gone. What’s he look like, again?”
“Handsome,” Merlin said without missing a beat. “Hair about the same shade as yours. Eyes like a stormy sea. Tall and strong and brave.” He let himself smile fondly, the muscles in his cheeks aching as they locked back into a long-forgotten place. “But you won’t notice any of that because he’ll be too busy behaving like a huge prat.”
The girl let out a surprised giggle, face scrunching up in mirth and hand flying to her mouth. “You sound just like Merlin!” she said gleefully. “From your story.”
“I get that a lot,” Merlin said.
A bus pulled up at the curb, and the girl leapt to help him stand, supporting him beneath his twig-like elbow as he creaked over to the doors.
“I’ll be alright from here,” he said, patting her arm in both gratitude and dismissal.
But she lingered a moment longer while a few people made their way past them off the bus.
“I liked your story!” she blurted, still hovering just outside the doors while Merlin went to show the driver his bus pass. “Even if the ending… Well, it wasn’t really the ending, was it?”
“I suppose not,” said Merlin, though the hope in his heart had long ago been drowned within the grief. “But it’s all I have.”
“For now,” the girl added, stubborn expression back on her face and hair ruffling in the breeze, the evening sun igniting the strands in gold like the glint of a dragon crest on a shield. “Maybe there’ll be more when you come back.”
Merlin missed the days when he had that kind of naive certainty. “I hope so,” he said. “I wish you well, miss…”
“Eleanor,” she said just before the doors slid shut.
Merlin creaked over to the closest seat, nearly tripping on his way as the bus began to move, and waved through the grimy window at Eleanor. Just before she faded into the distance, he watched her turn, her dog lolloping happily by her heels as she strode toward a tower on the horizon.
A short distance away, there lay a lake. It had stayed pristine and resilient for thousands of years, and it would remain for thousands more, marred only by an island at its centre with a tall tower protruding from it, piercing up into the sky.
It lay in perfect silence, its water still and clear as glass. Not an insect made a sound at its banks, no birds passed overhead, no fish stirred beneath the surface, almost as though time was standing still and the world was holding its breath.
And then a head broke through the surface.
The glass shattered, water frothed, fish fled, a bird let out a cry and took flight from a nearby tree. The figure thrashed, gasping and spluttering, fighting to remain afloat despite the heavy armour threatening to pull them back into the darkness below. And somehow, through sheer stubborn will, they managed to stay above the surface long enough to drag themselves ashore.
Arthur Pendragon collapsed onto the muddy bank, exhausted and soaked through to the bone, and gazed up at the sky as he drank in his first breaths in over a millennia.