I don't own Merlin.
"Something is coming, sire," you say. (You don't want to tell him, but someone needs to say it, and you've always said things no one wanted to hear in the past. You've got experience telling Arthur bad news.)
Arthur does not answer. He merely stares at you -his eyes the same blue as they were the day you met. They haven't changed, even though everything else has. Even though the lines in his face speak of every hard winter and bad harvest, of every war and every knight killed serving under him, just like yours must speak of dark sorceresses, a hundred men killed by your will, and a blind devotion to your king that has caused you more heartache than the girl you left at the lake.
"Surely you feel it, my lord," you whisper.
"Of course I feel it," he says, for he's not afraid to whisper, and glances out the window at Camelot- his kingdom- or the future, which you are not sure. His gaze ends on you -it always does.
You see the sadness in him, as you have so many times before. He has always strove to be the king you knew he would be, and it has cost him much to get it. You know Arthur blames himself for every misstep that comes his way.
So does the Queen, and it is her touch that soothes him- brushes away at the conflict in his mind and the tension in his posture. (You're not sure she deserves to comfort him.)
You feel jealousy seep into your stomach and chest - a longing and a rage that you've grown far too used to- but you ignore it as best you can.
Albion needs an heir. Camelot needs a Queen.
Arthur loves Guinevere.
The King was never meant to be yours- no matter how much destiny you share.
"It's Mordred," you say. You've felt his power brewing for months. You've been preparing for this since the day you started believing in fate- when you'd raised that poisoned chalice to your lips.
It is what you've always feared -the very thing that your nightmares are made of. Arthur's eyes clouded, chain mail slick with royal blood, and pale lips that will draw not a breath more -those are the things that you see, and you always wake up with a strangled cry on your lips and a frantic feeling in your chest. Mordred will be his death; Camlan will be his end- the Dragon told you this.
(You wish you would have let Uther kill him when he was still a boy. You know Arthur has no such wishes.
You wish he did. )
"He is going to kill you, Arthur."
"I know," he says.
There are tears hidden in your eyes, ones that match the Queen's. (You stopped calling her Gwen the day you found out about her affair with Lancelot, because even if your friendship for the girl you met in the stocks would not die, you knew that you could never forgive her this. Even, you think, if she had love enough for both. For, she will still break his heart. )
"I shouldn't have helped you let him escape."
Arthur glances at you, and, for just a second, he is just the Crown Prince and you are just his manservant but it crumbles in your hands like some forgotten thing- you know that some things aren't meant to last- because he is the King and you are the Court Sorcerer and things carry consequences now, for you are both no longer boys- no matter how much you wish differently.
"You had no way of know-"
"I knew," you confess, feeling something in you chest you cannot name. It is something like regret, but something closer to shame. "I knew."
"This isn't your fault, Merlin."
You choke out a bitter laugh. "It certainly feels like it is."
"You've saved my life a hundred times. Death was bound to catch up with me sooner or later," he says in that distant, worldly voice that makes you want to shake him until he realizes how much Albion needs him -how much you don't want him to die- how you won't allow this to happen while there is a single breath in your body.
The Queen sobs quietly. (Gwen, you think, but push the thought from your mind.)
You feel like joining her.
"Let me meet him in battle, my lord." The words are pulled from your mouth. You hadn't meant to ask. He couldn't say no if you didn't ask.
"Merlin-" Arthur says, and his voice is both soft and commanding.
"For Camelot," you say, unable to look him in the eye. "For Albion." From the set of his jaw you know he sees right though you. He knows you wouldn't do this for Camelot, or for Albion.
He knows that you'd do this for him, and somehow that makes this all the worse- this final honesty.
"No," he says. You don't understand why he won't look you in the eye, nor why Guinevere touches his wrist. You're too distracted by your own guilt and self-pity.
You'd follow any order he gave to you -you'd incinerate the world, if he asked- except this one.
You won't sit by and watch him die.
You don't notice when Lancelot steps forward, but you hear his words -a match to your own.
Lancelot will fight for honor and to serve Arthur. He would die in seconds, you know, for his honor.
You probably will too, but not for honor.
"No," Arthur says, and you don't miss the glance he gives to his wife. (Perhaps you think, that Arthur's heartache is closer than you thought. Not that you'll be around for it, anyway. You really don't expect to come back.)
When you are dismissed you head straight for the stables.
The guards fall unconscious as they try to stop you, and Lancelot's honor is no match for the gold flash of your eyes as you whisper 'slaepan.'
Mordred is waiting for you at the break of dawn, in a field some miles from Camelot.
"This is not your destiny, Emrys," he whispers in your mind. "You're not meant to die by my hand."
"I won't let you kill him," you say aloud, staring at his ice blue eyes. You wonder how you ever thought he was innocent -that he was good. There is no feeling in his face, and no warmth in his eyes. There never has been.
"Then you shall die," he says.
You've never felt pain like this. This burning, aching exhaustion.
You've never used this much magic in your entire life, and yet it is still not enough. For you are losing. You are dying.
He whispers words so powerful that you wonder why the world around you isn't crumbling. It has taken hours to wear you down, but now your words are broken, and the spells are barely formed on your tongue before his blow has landed on you, sending you to the ground, blood on your lips and bruises on your knees.
You limbs are on fire, and your heart is sputtering in your chest, beating on will alone - for Albion, destiny, Arthur- and soon even that won't be enough. It is hard to imagine that you are shattered at the feet of a man half your age; you, the greatest warlock Camelot will ever know. He is far more powerful than you have been led to believe. You've weakened him, and he is still standing -unaffected.
His power seems limitless. He could raise mountains with one word, bring a hundred fields to harvest with a gesture, save a thousand lives with his touch, and yet he chooses death, destruction, and famine over life, happiness, and prosperity.
"I will not let you kill him," you whisper, breathless and choking on your own blood, and raise your hand with magic making your eyes glow gold.
Useless, you know. He lands a blow to your ribs that sends you sprawling into the dirt, your lungs beaten.
"He is worth a thousand of you," you spit out, blood dripping down your chin. You're past fighting now. Now all that's left are you last parting words to the boy you once helped save. "No matter what you do, he will always be greater." You inhale a breathless shutter, and cough up blood. "It is his name that will be written first. Your name-" You sputter for breath. "-shall be but an afterthought to his story. Without him you would be nothing but ashes to the wind -forgotten to the ages."
Something flickers in the cold depths of his eyes, and it sparkles like rage. He kicks your chest, just above your sputtering heart, and it hiccups unsteadily as you cry out in pain.
Your magic keeps fighting, even when you've given up- when your heart has given into an unsteady, declining beat. It creeps across your skin and dances on the stones at Mordred's feet. When he laughs it suffocates him, and you can feel your magic seep into places where eyes are not meant to see.
There is evil in his soul- but you already knew that.
It's the power that surprises you. It is endless- this corrupted, dark power- so much more vast than you could have imagined, and it bleeds into your magic. You take it, strong and harsh and intoxicating, until you can take no more.
It breaks you, and you know you've failed, because although you have weakened him he's still strong enough to kill the greatest king Albion with ever know.
She comes for you, when he leaves you broken and bleeding, sure of your death.
She comes for you, and places a hand on your chest, whispering a magic so old that not even you can comprehend it. Her eyes are the color of priceless yellow gems and her hair blows without a breeze to stir it, rippling like lovely blood. She is a goddess, you think, even though you've never believed such things.
She comes for you, and you know that she is not here to save you. She is here not to mend your hardening heart, nor to breathe life into your broken lungs. She is here, you know, to see you go- to lead you into death- and she is all the lovelier for it. In that moment, there is no one you love more, no being you would more willingly follow, save your own king. You know her name though she has not uttered it. She is magic, creation, life, love, destiny, and you know her well.
Your sputtering heart quickens as her lips move. Her voice is soft consonants and whispered vowels, sounding to the world like the rustle of the treetops in a midsummer breeze. Her words resonate so strongly that they seem real to you, and in the dying light of the day you can see them twisting their way through the air like some living thing, streaming out of her rosebud lips like breath in the frozen air of winter. You imagine them landing on you, feather light and golden like sunlight, working their way into your body.
The darkness of Mordred's fractured magic works it's way from you at this magic. It raises like shadows from your bloody lips and slips away into trees, drawn from the deepest holes in your soul with a heavy tug. You feel both relief and horror when it's gone.
"Merlin," she whispers, soft fingers brushing your hair back. You think you see tears in her eyes.
"It's not over," she says. "Some things aren't meant to end."
Her tears burn your cheeks as they fall from her eyes, for such pure grief is not meant for mortals to withstand.
"Arthur?" you whisper, dying to know.
"He is the Once and Future King, and he shall live again," she whispers, and it sound like the answer to every prayer you've ever made.
"Good," you say, and your eyes fall shut. There is nothing else that matters to you now that you know that this life will not be his last- that some part of him will live on.
"And you shall be there for him, when the time comes," she says, as the sun is just a fading glimmer on the horizon. "This is not the end, Merlin."
You hear nothing after that, for your breath has gone from your body and your heart beats no longer.
Arthur finds your broken body. He's led the search for you, when you did not return to Camelot.
His eyes, upon seeing your still body, are devoid of hope.
He knew, as you knew, that you would not return.
He had hoped though, and it is that hope, lost on the sight of your bloodstained mouth, that causes him to cross the ground to where you lay with the slow, heavy tread of a beaten man.
He doesn't know why he bothers to bend his ear to your mouth, nor why he put his fingers under your nose when there was obviously no breath to be heard or brush of air to be felt.
There is something in him that breaks then, angry and sad and desperate, as he finds you without breath.
Once his hand start trembling he brings your limp body to his chest- hands gripping you so tightly that the servant readying you for the pry will find dark bruises that match the king's fingers on your pale arms- and cries.
He had told you once that no man deserved your tears- he'd made no mention of men deserving his.