I decided I wanted to give myself a bit of a challenge, and since this project started out as nothing more than a drabble... Well, long story short: No chapter is going to be more than five hundred words long. I'm going to try to keep it more to the two or three hundred range, actually, but I'm not the best at keeping things short, so I wanted to give myself some wiggle room.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even Merlin.


All Those Lifetimes


*.*.*.*.*

Merlin didn't wander around London in his true form very often, but when he did it put him in the best sort of mood. Nothing creaked or popped or ached, he could stroll jauntily, grinning, humming, whistling annoying tunes from his boyhood that only stung if he thought of how the noise had often annoyed Arthur.

It was a crisp autumn afternoon and, being a young enough lad, he let his jacket fly open, the breeze barely grazing his skin, though it bit at the tips of his ears and nose, and he ducked quickly behind his scarf to avoid the worst of it.

He didn't have any plan for the day, he rarely did, and the park he was walking through was fairly empty, so perhaps he would just—

His shoulder bumped against someone, then, the force more shocking than painful. At the impact, he felt the most curious sort of feeling: his magic surging against him, wanting to rebel in a way it hadn't wanted in over 1500 years now.

The man who'd bumped into him—or perhaps it'd been the other way around, he hadn't been paying much attention—turned, his blond hair catching the sun in a familiarly breath-taking sort of way, blue eyes softening from inconvenience and anger into recognition and relief almost instantly, his indignant cry of, "Oy, watch where you're going, mate," falling into a whispered plea of, "Merlin?"

Merlin shook his head in disbelief, tears forming as the distance between them was closed and Arthur's arms were around him, just as strong and warm as they had been all those lifetimes ago.

*.*.*.*.*