Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There were days, months, years sometimes, where Merlin longed for Camelot with all his being. His grief had aged like wine, turning sour and sharp in its bitterness. It thrummed through him, resonating its haunted melody along his bones until he thought he might bleed with soul-sick yearning, but there was no going back.

The place where the castle once stood was nothing but open farmland. There were not even any ruined walls. Over a thousand years or more, the stones had been robbed and carried away elsewhere to build new homes and structures. Perhaps, beneath the earth, the tombs of the knights he had once called his friends still waited. Maybe Gwen lay at peace: a stately queen who did her best, but whose kingdom fell to ruination upon her death.

Arthur was not there. He lingered in Avalon, though that was a story Merlin had stopped believing long ago. Those had been the last words of comfort from a dying dragon: a thread of hope to sustain him.

And oh, how he had hoped.

It was not merely the citadel he missed. If it rose from the trenches of its empty foundations, new and gleaming, it would do nothing to ease the ache in his heart. It was the people within its walls that wove a tapestry of belonging around him.

Home had been in Gwaine's laugh and Lancelot's warm smiles, Percival's quiet compassion and Elyan's stalwart certainties. It had written itself in the comforting press of Gaius' palm, the wry twist of Leon's smile and Gwen's heartfelt joy.

Home was with Arthur.

A shuddering breath passed his lips as a tear fell from his chin, unnoticed. The cup of tea clasped in his hands could not chase back the chill of his misery. After all these years, he did not understand how it could still hurt so. He felt like a child, lost and alone in a vast, unseeing world where nothing made sense and even his magic had almost abandoned him.

'What more do you want from me?' he whispered, looking up at the sky above his head, where only the very brightest stars could be seen through the haze. 'Haven't I suffered enough?'

He did not know to whom he directed his appeal. The gods of the old religion, perhaps, or the background, static hum of a far-flung universe. It was, in the end, an entreaty to existence itself. 'Can't I go back?'

And out there, in the heavens, an answer rung out amidst the darkness, unheard by anyone, but absolute all the same.

'Yes.'

Merlin walked down the pavement, ducking through the crowd of pedestrians as he tucked his shoulders up to his ears. London's traffic buzzed around him, belching exhaust fumes. Summer in the capital stank of grease, sweat and pollution. Even now, at almost eleven at night, there was no sign of the place slowing down.

He heaved a sigh, thinking longingly of when everything had been so much smaller: towns and cities and the whole damn world. Looking at him, no one would think he had lived to see London swell to its current size over the centuries.

To an outsider, he looked to be no older than his late twenties. It was a good age for a body to be. The worst of the hormones were gone, and it had not yet become too creaky. He might look young, but he still felt every year of his existence down deep in the marrow of his bones and the bloody pieces of his broken heart.

If he had any choice in the matter, he would have ended things himself long ago. He had tried, once or twice, but life always found him again, dragging him back from the shadows. He was stuck here, in a world that had no place for him anymore. No destiny. Somehow, he doubted that would ever change.

Rounding the corner on to Marylebone, he shuddered as a prickle of awareness raced over him, making the hairs on his arms quiver upright. Halting on the edge of the pavement, he looked behind him, scanning the crowd, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Pedestrians carried on, oblivious, and the gleam of traffic was as it should be.

Merlin shook his head, not knowing what he had expected. There were no sorcerers or bandits anymore. No wyverns stalked the skies. In this modern world, there was very little that could truly do him any harm.

Abruptly, the air fell still as England's mighty capital city ground to a halt. Cars gleamed, their lights smeared and frozen in time. People stood like statues around him, caught in a single moment of their lives. Overhead, the clouds thickened: dark and oppressive.

Power slammed into him as the world rushed back in, all noise and motion. Agony flared along his nerves as a tide of magic rose up through the soles of his feet. Yet it did not come from him. It was something far greater than he had ever held in his own hands: ancient and merciless, ruthless and raw. Beneath it all there was a sense of desperation, as if this was a last-ditch attempt at saving something from the wreckage of destiny.

A second wave hit him, and Merlin staggered, his ankle twisting as he stumbled off the kerb and into the road. Distantly, someone cried out in alarm, but he barely heard it over the sound of screeching tires. The stench of burnt rubber coated the breeze. There was a sense of impact, dull and overwhelming, before a bright, awful flare of pain reached its crescendo.

Darkness rushed over him.

Merlin breached the surface of the lake with a gasp, spluttering as his chest heaved in shock. His mind lost itself in a pinwheel of confusion, and he flailed around, trying desperately to catch up. He knew what death felt like. It might not be permanent for him, but it always carried with it the same cold touch.

Whatever had happened, it had killed him.

'Fuck,' he wheezed, treading water as weeds wrapped his calves in their ribbons and his heavy boots dragged at his feet. This was new. Normally he woke up either back in his body or, if it had been destroyed, then in a magically constructed copy nearby. That had happened more often than he would like, and it always left him sick and horrified.

'Fuck,' he hissed again, because it bore repeating. Squinting around, he tried to find any hint of light that might lead him towards land. There should have been plenty. Streetlamps, headlights, or the glow of storefronts and the beam of theatre spotlights in the West End. Here, there was nothing. Literally nothing. It was an uninterrupted canvas of black, and Merlin shook his head before looking up.

Stars. Thousands of them. He had never seen a sky like that in London, and he groaned as he realised he must have been transported out of the capital. Sometimes his life was an absolute joke. He had to work in the morning, and how was he meant to get back without a car?

Clenching his teeth, he shook his head. He'd handle that later. First things first, get out of the water. The cold was starting to nibble at his bones, and he couldn't stay afloat indefinitely. His magic was weak these days, but he had enough for a quick spell: something that would at least help him find the way back to dry land.

'Bewlátung mearcwæd cregelád.'

Power punched through him, brazen and bright. He sucked in a breath, choked on a mouthful of water and valiantly tried not to sink beneath the waves in shock. Energy rose in him, spilling through his veins and warming his muscles. He could feel his eyes glowing. Yesterday, they hadn't done more than glimmer, and he had barely had it in him to reheat his coffee. Now – God, now it felt like it did back then. Like he could level mountains or part seas.

It shook him to the core, and he thrashed to stay afloat as he stared at the bright gold ribbon leading him across the water. He'd expected, at best, a thread of illumination, not a road that looked as if it had been painted by the sun itself.

He could probably magic himself to shore if he put his mind to it, but Merlin hesitated. He didn't quite trust himself not to overdo it. His power hadn't been like this for hundreds of years. It had ebbed from him so slowly that he had not noticed the true extent of his loss until it all came rushing back. No, this wasn't normal, and while he'd always been told not to look a gift horse in the mouth, he was not about to rely on whatever this was too heavily. Not yet.

It was a slow, cold swim, and by the time his feet touched the sludgy bottom of the lake, he was shaking and breathless. The golden path fizzled out the moment he was free of the water, and he flopped down on the coarse shoreline, closing his eyes with a groan.

His stomach fluted with each starved gasp. He'd not had to swim anywhere for more years than he cared to count. At least it was a bit like riding a bike – impossible to forget – or he would have been screwed.

Peeling open his eyelids, he surveyed the sky, taking in the stars again. Out in the lake he'd only noticed their multitude, but now the more he stared the more subtly wrong they felt. He could still pick out constellations, but there was something off about them, and he cuffed a hand over his face, too tired to puzzle it out.

A chill wind blew, making him shiver, and he rolled onto his side before staggering to his feet. His boots squelched sadly, and his jeans dragged at his hips while his sodden t-shirt clung to him like a second skin. Merlin worried at the ring through his lip: an anxious habit he'd developed over the past decade or more. The familiar pressure of the metal was a comfort to his whirling mind, and he cautiously touched his fingertips to his clothes.

Magic flared, and a moment later everything that he was wearing, even his underwear and socks, felt like they had just come out of the dryer.

Yesterday, his power had been so frail that he'd had to tell it precisely what he needed. Even then, there were strong odds that it would not work. Now it leapt to obey his will, acting without the direction of words, joyful and vivid and alive.

God, he didn't realise how much he'd missed it. His relief almost cut him off at the knees.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he glared at his dark surroundings. Trees pressed around him, their solid march taking them to the waterline. The thin strip of shore beneath his feet was mostly pebbles, but beyond that, he could see very little.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled free his phone. He'd never dared to check if his mobile lived up to its waterproof rating before, and now he held his breath, waiting for the dark screen to come to life. His delight when it bathed his face in its sharp blue light was fleeting. His phone might work, but wherever he was, there was no signal. He wandered around, waving it in the air as if that would make any difference, but it remained stubbornly unhelpful.

So, it seemed he had an abundance of magic but no GPS.

Great.

He raked his hand through his hair and huffed out a breath, clenching his jaw as he half-turned, his body moving even as his mind raced. A glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye made him hesitate, and he froze, staring in surprise.

It was nothing particularly remarkable, just the shape of one of the rocks on the shore that sparked something in the back of his memory: a bone-deep sense of recognition that told him he had been here before.

'Leote!'

The blue orb leapt from his hand, limning everything in soft turquoise. It sparkled off the ripples of the lake and threw the rocks into sharp relief. Long shafts of light pierced the battalion of pine trees at his back, but Merlin paid it no mind. Instead, he swallowed hard as memories he had thought were lost forever assailed him anew.

'That's not possible,' he murmured, shaking his head as he wrapped his arms over his stomach, trying to hold himself together.

He couldn't remember when the lake in which he'd set Arthur adrift had finally dwindled to nothing. Like the fading of his magic, it had happened slowly, the shore getting bigger year-on-year until, eventually, all the water was gone. He could recall the day he'd returned to see not even marshland, but solid earth. He had wondered if that meant the way to Avalon was shut for good, and tried not to weep as the last of his hope fled.

To say it had been a bad time was an understatement.

Now the water was back. He'd woken up in it, and while logic told him that he must be mistaken – that this must be some other lake somewhere else – his heart knew he wasn't wrong. He'd said goodbye to too many of the people he loved in this very spot not to know it. Grief had carved the shape of it in his bones, and he could barely breathe over the thrum of his heart, because if the lake had returned, did that mean Arthur...?

Merlin swallowed hard, his throat clicking as he tried to shove aside the emotion that welled, bright and painful, in his chest. He couldn't do this to himself. Not again. How many times had he looked around and remembered "When Albion's need is greatest"? How many times had he stared disaster in the face and told himself that, this time, Arthur would return? It never happened. Not for plague or war or any of it.

The wind picked up, wrapping around him like icy silk and making the trees behind him creak. The orb of light bobbed like a fishing float at sea, and Merlin reached up a hand to steady it, cocking his head as he listened. That was something else that had been niggling at the back of his mind: the quiet.

There should be a main road nearby, and even at this time of night there would be a vehicle passing now and then, but he'd not heard a single engine. Looking up again, he scanned the sky, searching for the familiar blinking lights of aircraft. Nothing but the stars returned his gaze, solemn and steady. The only sounds were the ones of the forest behind him: the trees, an owl, and the occasional scratch of something small in the undergrowth.

He cast the woods a critical look. Now he thought about it, he was sure there hadn’t been this many trees the last time he was here. They'd been felled to make room for roads and fields. Only tiny copses, scattered here and there, lingered on. Maybe he was wrong. Perhaps this wasn't Avalon after all, because an entire forest couldn't have sprung up so quickly. Especially not one that looked as if it had been rooted here for centuries.

Between the boles, something golden caught his eye. It was nothing much, a flickering hint, but it was a light in this dark place, and where there was light, there were probably people.

He doused the orb floating above his head and began to pick his way through the woods, wincing at every twig that cracked beneath his feet and the rustle of dry pine needles. It reminded him powerfully of being with Arthur on hunts – of the fond, irritated looks he'd cast in Merlin's direction when he completely failed to be stealthy. It made his heart clench with age-old sadness, and Merlin drew in a shuddering breath as he peered ahead, taking in the low glow of what looked like a campfire.

A deserted one.

The flames still burned, nibbling happily on the firewood. It cast a small circle of light, striking deep shadows across several bedrolls. Merlin stared at them, noticing blankets instead of sleeping bags. A soft huff made him jerk his head up to stare at the four horses picketed nearby. They watched him, more curious than alarmed, liquid eyes reflecting the firelight.

This was... weird.

Not because it was strange, but because it was all so familiar. Even the tin plates set beside the fire seemed to taunt him. His body twitched, old habits half-forgotten about tending the camp stirring in his veins. His fingers fluttered at his side and his heart ached, full and heavy, beneath his ribs.

Maybe he hadn't died, after all. Maybe he was horribly hurt instead, and this was all just a realistic fantasy his mind had conjured to comfort himself. A return to a time he had last been truly happy – when there was more to do in life than wait for a destiny that would never come to pass.

Here, with firelight bathing his face and the woods calm and still around him, he had never felt more at home.

The press of something between his shoulder-blades made Merlin freeze, his body locking tight as his breath stuttered in his throat. He'd been robbed in dark alleys enough times to recognise this feeling: a sharp pressure against his skin and the broad wall of threat at his back.

He'd been too lost in his thoughts to hear anyone approach, but now there was a soft, metallic rasp nibbling at the edge of his hearing. Something he almost recognised, but not quite. He spread his hands to show he was unarmed, holding them up and out to either side of him as his breath shivered between his lips.

A hand grasped his arm, sending a brief thrill down Merlin's nerves as he was forced around to face the person behind him. Armour gleamed in the firelight: supple chainmail glinted, and the solid iron of a pauldron curved lovingly over one broad shoulder. The length of a sword blade separated them. The point hovered, steady and sure, over Merlin's heart, braced to run him through, but he did not care about any of that. He was too busy drinking in the sight of the man before him.

He could never forget him, no matter how many centuries had passed.

'Arthur?'