note: this was started in March 2018. It was originally supposed to be the first part of a much, much longer story, but, well.

When Arthur came to, he could hear birds chirping, could feel the bright sunlight against his face.

The smell of fresh grass and lake water in his nostrils made him smile. If he kept his eyes closed, he could be living a different time, waking up before the other knights, to face yet another day of mind-numbing patrol; but of course, it wasn't going to be that sort of day. Merlin won't be pottering about making god-awful partridge stew, whinging about Arthur whinging about his cooking. Merlin, instead, will be lying by his side, exhausted and beautiful and proud, having saved Arthur's life. Arthur will laugh with the sheer relief of being alive, having overcome the biggest challenge of their lives, at least this time you didn't need to sneak around behind my back.

Perhaps he'd wait with his eyes closed for just a minute. Worry Merlin just because. He couldn't feel Merlin's hands on his body, so Merlin couldn't feel his heartbeat. Arthur was unnaturally good at hiding the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. His wound didn't hurt anymore, so the quietening of Arthur's breath was almost effortless. Let that fool the fool.

He waited, fighting down the mischievous smile struggling to burst free, and waited, and waited. He heard no voice calling his name, just those birds from before, and the rustling of the wind through the trees and the grass.

It could just as well be a scene from one of Arthur's fantasies, one in which he and Merlin ride out alone to a distant, sunny clearing to spend hours indolently exploring each other without the burdens of kingdoms to reign over and the limitations of status holding them back. Perhaps, now that he knew the measure of Merlin's love for him (and of course he had heard Merlin screaming I can't lose him, though he cannot recall to whom or at what), Arthur could finally give voice to all that he had secreted away in a remote corner of his heart, realise his dream.

A beat of stillness.

Still no laughter from Merlin. A chill crept up Arthur's spine.

Abandoning his prank, Arthur sat up immediately, casting about for Merlin; that was when he finally saw his manservant, his friend (and, in his lonely whispers in the dead of night, his beloved). Merlin was unmoving, lying beside Arthur, wide glassy eyes staring right into Arthur's.

The breath was knocked out of Arthur with a jolt as he took in the sight in front of him.

Oh, Merlin, what have you done, what have you done?

Percival, bone-tired and weary with the pain of loss, found Arthur and knelt beside him. A tear rolled down Arthur's cheek — from the redness of Arthur's eyes and nose and the tension in his jaw, countless more had already silently graced the ground.

"I'm sorry, Arthur," Percival said, because he was. He was so incredibly sorry for his friend. There was no emotion left in him except a wounding sorrow brought about first by Gwaine's death, and now by —

Arthur didn't seem to have even noticed Percival's arrival.

Merlin, laid out in front of them, looked at peace, happy with the choice he had made.

Percival's eyes fell to Merlin's hand, squeezed tightly in both of Arthur's. Arthur trembled, grief and fatigue warring over his body, the former already having consumed his heart and soul.

"Let him go," Percival said, and Arthur blinked. Additional words lined up on Percival's tongue, only to die before he aspirated them.

Arthur was well aware of what he was supposed to do. Arthur had lost many a good man to war and battle and needless sacrifice and he had buried all of them. He buried his own father and steeled his heart after, but how could he, how could he possibly bear to look away from Merlin's face, to contemplate the thought that there existed a last time that he would ever look at it, that there already was a last time for Merlin's voice and his words and his cheeky grins?

Arthur couldn't stand it. He couldn't possibly accept this depraved subversion of whatever destiny Merlin had been talking about, and yet he looked on at Merlin, who should have been given a send-off worthy of a king (it was a king, was it not, that he replaced) hours ago.

Arthur was unconscious of any time passing. It had stopped in its tracks for its king. It mourned with him.

"Arthur," Percival said, taking Arthur's arm and gently trying to pull him up.

A guttural groan wrenched itself free from Arthur, ravaging his throat, fleeing through clenched teeth. Percival dropped Arthur's arm as if scalded.

"Leave me be," Arthur wheezed, tears already reforming in his eyes. He hung his head. "Leave me."

Any rational man would know better than to leave Arthur alone, so Percival returned to his horse at the edge of the forest and waited, until night fell without Arthur having moved an inch.

The stars shone brighter that night — in solidarity, maybe.

Arthur finally rose to his feet, Merlin stiff in his arms. Percival was at his side in an instant.

Quietly they loaded him onto the boat that was originally meant to be the final resting place for King Arthur Pendragon. Percival restrained his gasp for Arthur's sake when he saw the pool of blood staining Merlin's tunic, just below his ribs. Arthur's fingers restlessly smoothed over Merlin's neckerchief, once, twice, before he gave in and took it off Merlin with the gentlest touch, shoving it into the gap between his mail and his shirt.

"He had magic," Arthur said, hoarse. "He took my wound and gave me his life."

"You loved him," is what Percival replied with, having nothing else to say.

Arthur's face crumpled.

Arthur did not set fire to Merlin's boat. He should have, though in the end it wouldn't matter what Arthur did to honour Merlin now when it was too late. To give him a knight's farewell, however, would too closely resemble the punishment meted out to sorcerers in Uther's Camelot; Arthur simply could not abide by anyone or anything having the opportunity to misunderstand the reason for Merlin's death.

It is as if all Albion grieved with him.

Zephyrs gusted through Arthur's hair in misery, and all the birds and animals in the forest were struck dumb. The night shrouded Arthur in inky darkness (the moon unwilling to come out) as he, mustering every bit of the strength remaining in him, gave Merlin's boat the final push.

"Please." The word shattered in Arthur's mouth and coated his tongue with shards of anguish. "Come back."

He watched the boat float further into the pitch-blackness of the lake, feeling the life Merlin sacrificed for him draining away with it; somehow he was sure that when the boat reached the end of its journey, Merlin would be… would be all right.

He turned when his eyes could no longer distinguish the outline of the receding boat. Percival stood by Arthur's forgotten sword, Excalibur.

Arthur bent down for it.

This sword had killed one Pendragon, he thought suddenly, recalling Morgana's deathbed gurgle, why not two —

"NO!"

Percival tackled him to the ground, wresting the sword from Arthur and flinging it into the lake all in one motion.

"How dare —" Arthur roared, only to be choked by his own words.

"Arthur," Percival said, waiting until Arthur could no longer bear to let any sound leave his lips, "Don't waste his life."

That was far more reasonable than Arthur wanted it to be, but how did anyone expect him to just — carry on, now?

His night was spent sleepless, hollow, waiting for the ache to return.

The ache returned in the morning. Arthur's body, unable to cope with the fatigue of the past weeks, silenced his mind and let him doze off.

The ache returned in the morning. Arthur opened his eyes, scrambled to his feet and vomited ten feet away from his bedroll.

The ache returned in the morning. Arthur spat only bile from his mouth, no blood. Merlin had made sure he would never bleed again.

The ache returned in the morning. Arthur's heart was on fire. His throat was parched. His lungs only filled with air because Merlin gave, very literally, all he had for that purpose.

Percival packed whatever meagre items he had had with him while Arthur sat at the edge of the water and stared off into the distance, the lake stretched out before him. A tower loomed in the distance; Arthur would have liked nothing more than to seal himself away in it.

(He had tried to swim across to it the night before. He'd got as far as three steps before a furious wave rose up, solid as stone, and shoved him back to hard ground.

What are you doing, you idiot, he thought he heard in the whisper of the wind, and if his heart had beat a little stronger since then, it was only because Merlin was the only person who was so bold so as to reach deep within Arthur to his real self.)

The journey back to Camelot grew heavier on Arthur's back with every mile, sinking his shoulders. Percival informed him in short words of Gwaine's passing once the walls of Camelot came into view, and Arthur spared a moment of pain and guilt for his dead knight, dead Merlin's dead friend.

He wasn't thinking about how to break the news to all the people whose hearts Merlin had settled into. All he wanted was to curl away from the world for the rest of his meaningless, useless life. It hurt him to think that he missed Merlin, that he even had to miss him. There might be a roaring fire and a warm bed waiting for him at the castle but Arthur wanted no part of them, for they wouldn't have been readied by Merlin. Merlin was…

…gone.

The bells signalling the king's return clanged through Arthur's mind, jerking him out of his spiralling thoughts. Guinevere and Gaius were both standing at the foot of the steps to the castle entrance, and one look at their stricken faces told Arthur they knew.

Guinevere did not embrace him as he dismounted from his horse, fetched for him by Percival. She had tears in her eyes, the kind of pained understanding twisting her mouth that made Arthur quiver in his heart.

Yes, his eyes said.

He had lost the one great love of his life.

She quietly fastened the royal seal Arthur had bequeathed her around Arthur's neck. Arthur met her gaze. She didn't smile at him, but she cupped Arthur's face in her hands and kissed him, a brief press of lips that was no more than a condolence, an acknowledgement that she grieved for the loss, too.

"The battle of Camlann is won." Arthur forced the words out, for there was a crowd gathered around them with bated breath. "We are at peace."

"Well done, my king," Guinevere replied for the ears of the crowd, and the assembled people of Camelot began rejoicing loudly, oblivious to the gaping injury in their king's heart. Arthur shakily climbed up the steps, unable to stand the happiness, and somehow found himself in his chambers, Guinevere and Gaius at his heels.

Gaius shut the door behind them. Arthur collapsed into his chair at the desk and held his head in his hands.

"I am sorry," he said. "I have failed you. I cannot bring him back to you. He exchanged his life for mine at the lake of Avalon" — Arthur had heard Merlin say the name of the place while he had still been delirious and close to death — "and I didn't know what he had done until I opened my eyes and saw him dead beside me."

Guinevere rested her hand on the back of Arthur's neck, more the comforting touch of a friend than a wife, and squeezed gently. Arthur appreciated that she remained silent, for nothing could have been more eloquent at that moment than her gesture.

Gaius sank into a chair opposite Arthur.

"It torments me more than I can say, sire," he said slowly, "but it doesn't surprise me at all. He loved you most in his life."

"And how do you propose I live without him and his love?" Arthur snapped, instantly angry at everything and everyone around him. At Merlin for thinking Arthur was worth his sacrifice.

Gaius recoiled. Arthur was fully aware he was being a selfish bastard.

"I apologise," Arthur said, reaching out for Gaius's arm. "I know he was your son in everything but blood."

Gaius nodded once, stiff.

Arthur curled around Gwen in bed that night. Gwen held him tight and close, and Arthur began to think sleep had come a lot easier to her than him when she spoke.

"When Lancelot died, I had you to rely on. I know you cannot and will not rely on me in the same way, but I will be there for you."

"How can you love me?"

"How can I not?"

Arthur shifted so that her fingers had comfortable access to his hair.

"You are far more than I deserve," he said, attempting to breathe slowly, evenly, and attract sleep to erode the sharp ache in him.

"And so are you, Arthur," Gwen answered. "It is crystal clear to me that the one sharing your bed should have been Merlin. He already shares your heart, doesn't he?"

Arthur's lungs contracted.

"Gwen, what do I do?"

"Honour his memory," she answered simply. "Be the person, the king he saw in you."

Arthur closed his eyes.

"I have caused you so much pain," he said.

"I caused you no less, and I should rather say we've balanced each other's marital transgressions out now," Gwen said, dropping a small kiss to Arthur's forehead. Arthur snorted, wondering that he could even smile at all.

Despite all of Gwen's kind outreaches, ice frosted over his heart during the upcoming weeks, and when in the new year he woke up, he was a changed man. Guinevere's eyes held sadness when she glanced his way, Percival stood rigid, and Gaius could only pretend to be Arthur's father as he rubbed him on the back in heavy sorrow.

Word of Merlin's sacrifice spread through all of Camelot in an undercurrent of rumours and whispers. No one had enough courage to say 'sorcerer' out loud lest the aloof king hear and break into pieces again.

Arthur was out on patrol when it happened. One of the greener knights was too loud in his foraging, too obvious, attracting the attention of a dangerous beast that Arthur was certain he'd seen before, in another time where he was a prince and Merlin's smile wasn't yet for him.

Merlin, Arthur knew now, had killed the beast and let Arthur take the credit for it. There was no Merlin to help him now, and the idea of dying was frighteningly attractive, enough that Arthur only half-heartedly raised his lance for the sake of the knights grouped behind him.

"On me!" Arthur roared. He fully intended to storm the monster alone and bring about their mutual destruction, but his knights needed to be stayed first — Arthur hadn't forgotten his duty to his people.

Prat.

Arthur froze. An involuntary shudder rippled through him at the thought of the only person in his life to have called him that.

A resounding crack split the forest, followed by a gust of air terribly resembling a long-suffering laugh.

You and your reckless, suicidal tendencies.

And before he knew it, Arthur had hurled the lance straight at the beast's belly and aimed his palm at the charging beast, feeling the unmistakable buzz of magic surging through his veins, words of sorcery flying unprompted from his mouth.

He thought he fainted; his eyes rolled into his head and he fell the the forest floor.

The knights were strewn about on the ground, unconscious, when Arthur's vision cleared, and he knew without knowing how that they wouldn't remember this. Just like Arthur had never remembered a thing. Isn't that right, Merlin?

They left the dead beast to rot as Arthur raced back to Camelot. The rapid thundering of Arthur's heartbeat matched the pace of his horse, all the way back to the citadel and to Gaius's infirmary.

"I used magic," he said by way of greeting, slamming the door closed behind him. "I used magic that wasn't mine, and killed a magical creature."

Gaius wasn't prepared to believe him. Arthur understood; why should a man who lacked sorcerous powers for most of his life suddenly display them so overtly? Arthur tried to prove that he did anyway. He tried to summon the buzz again, aiming his hand at a bush lining the window, shrivelled long enough to be unrecognisable. Arthur didn't know the words for whatever he had tried to do, and they didn't come to him. He just pointed at the plants and willed them to come to life again.

Nothing happened.

Gaius shook his head mutely. Arthur stood there, breathing, breathing, waiting, pleading.

The sweet scent of jasmine permeated the dusty room full of Gaius's chemicals and jars and potions and herbs, overpowering the smell of the foulest of his concoctions and rushing to Arthur's head, evoking memories of his dead manservant standing dangerously close to Arthur, doing all the things Arthur agonised over at night: smiling, teasing, tugging at the laces at Arthur's collar.

Gaius took a deep breath, sat down in the nearest chair and wept openly.

When Arthur looked at the window again, gorgeous white blooms flourished out of season, dark green, leafy vines curling over the wood of the pane and clinging lovingly to the walls. His eyes stung with unshed tears.

This was Merlin's magic without a doubt. Somehow Merlin had given his magic to Arthur, along with his life. Arthur didn't know what to do with it. Arthur didn't know how to treasure Merlin in his death, just as he hadn't in his life, so he elected to sit by Gaius and comfort him as best he could.

"Merlin?" Arthur whispered.

Gwen stirred in her sleep beside him, but Arthur hadn't been so loud so as to wake her.

"Merlin," Arthur repeated. "Can you hear me?"

Merlin was dead. Merlin was dead and Arthur was on a fool's errand.

Nothing happened. The night remained dark. The stifling air continued its sluggish pace around the room. Not a sound could be heard.

Disappointment cut Arthur through like a fresh wound. What had he been hoping for? The voice he had heard before to answer him? He couldn't possibly be foolish enough to expect whatever magic there had been around him to be at his beck and call. It was just — it had felt so much like Merlin, like his laughter and his bright eyes and all the hugs he had tried and failed to make Arthur accept.

Arthur settled in for another sleepless night, curling into Gwen's side, wishing his pillows weren't so soft and comfortable.

The window creaked open by itself. Arthur sat up immediately. All the suffocating warmth of the room escaped to be replaced by a flurry of air that ran not around the room, but around Arthur, and Arthur only.

It felt like an embrace. It felt like there were fingers in his hair and gentle kisses on his lips and loving caresses on his neck and all down his shoulders and sides.

"Merlin?" Arthur said, voice cracking. He didn't know what else to say.

There was a soft, brief pressure on his lips again, before all the air stole out of the window again. Arthur found himself in his previous despair. He had no answers, but even more questions, all coated with the grief of Merlin's… loss? Absence? He wasn't sure Merlin was dead anymore, even after having seen Merlin's lifeless eyes, felt the conspicuous lack of a heartbeat in his chest.

"Arthur," Gwen mumbled.

Arthur looked down at her. She was staring at him inscrutably, inching a hand towards his shoulder.

"Go back to sleep," she begged.

"Did you feel it?" Arthur asked her, hoarse.

Gwen sighed.

"No," she said. "What are you talking about?"

"There was something in the room with us just now. Someone."

"There can't have been; there was no sound. Arthur —"

"It was Merlin."

"Oh, Arthur."

Arthur mutely waved a hand at the open window. Gwen had shut it just before they went to bed. "I didn't get out to open it," he said.

"It could've been a particularly strong wind," Gwen said uncertainly, but she gazed for a long time at the stars before slipping back into sleep's clutches.

A year passed by like this, with Arthur mindlessly spilling litanies of Merlin's name from his lips each night.

Queen Guinevere moved into her own chambers at the end of that year.

Arthur could have persuaded her to stay, could have convinced her with just a few selfish pleas, but he stilled at her words — "Arthur, I can't see you like this, I can't see you so torn, I can't bear to hear you calling out to him every night as if he's still alive and waiting, I simply cannot bear your pain" — and let her do as she wished. She took a consort in Sir Leon, and Arthur gladly bowed out of the way.

Camelot's ice king reigned alone.

The day of Arthur's birth — his mother's death, though it had been a long time since anyone had remembered the old Queen — itself began fresh and brisk, with a glowing sunrise, as if the very earth itself wished to greet the king. How different it had been seven years ago, when it had wept with him.

Arthur treated it like any other day, though everyone around him took it as a reason to celebrate with all the more cheer. Breakfast was a lavish spread of breads and cheeses and fruits that Arthur partook of but scantily. Gwen pursed her lips when she saw him, but to Arthur's gratitude, said nothing.

His knights clapped him on the back with rare lack of ceremony when it was time for drill — Leon and Percival between the two of them lifted Arthur into the air and shouted slogans for praise for their king while the newer knights gawped at the sight.

"You don't look a day older, sire," said Leon, grinning. "I doubt I would see grey in your beard were you to grow one."

"Seven years and you look exactly the same," added Percival.

Arthur attended the feast that was held in his honour, and managed his first real smile since Merlin's death.

Seven years and exactly the same.

Three years after that, they said it again, but there was a strange, knowing sadness in their eyes.

Nine years since Merlin's death, and Gaius passed away in his sleep. Arthur watched his last link to Merlin snap before his eyes; Hunith had wept herself to her end a long time ago.

Merlin would have mourned them better. Or perhaps he wouldn't have had to.

Fifteen years since Arthur lost his entire world, and now he was certain there was something wrong with him. He was still fighting fit, still his hair shone gilt, his beard did not grey. His queen and her consort gave rise to twin boys, one of whom died in infancy due to sickness — the one physician skilled enough to save him was long buried in the ground, and Arthur dared not use the magic Merlin's death had given him, lest another generation be filled with a stronger hatred of the thing, commit even crueler sins.

A dragon came to him once Arthur left Camelot's borders for good.

"Merlin will come back to you," it promised. Arthur did not recognise it as the Great Dragon, though of course it was him. "The true Dragonlord Emrys may have transferred his life and his fate to you, but in turn he took up yours, you see."

"So I wait?" questioned the ice king. "For how long?"

The dragon did not respond until many moments later.

"Death is an eventuality that will skirt you until you find him, but I cannot predict when that will happen. I am sorry, my king," it said. "Had I even suspected what he was planning as he flew on my back, with you in his arms, I would have stopped him.

"I would gladly have let you die."

"You should have," Arthur replied, fighting the ravages of his love for Merlin in his chest. "I killed him. Because he loved me, he died."

"I killed him many years before then." The dragon bowed its head, and Arthur was stunned to see its eyes glistening. "Farewell, Arthur Pendragon, Once and Future —"

It did not finish its valediction as it rose into the air. Arthur never saw it again.

And when a thousand years of loneliness later he passed by the lake, a modern, monstrous truck thundering past him, he wondered if Merlin would stop him were he to fling himself into its waters again.

Of course, you idiot, the breeze whispered, dancing around him.

He smiled. "I wouldn't die, though," he murmured, far older, far wiser than he'd ever wanted to be.

Doesn't mean you need to prove it, the waters of the lake sang.

"Return to me, dearest. Your magic ill suits me."

Soon, my heart, the sunshine said.

"Why do you linger there? How many debts are you paying off? I won't wait forever," Arthur lied.

I wish you didn't have to.

Arthur inhaled Merlin's voice, and started walking again. He didn't have to, but he would.