A/N: This is another story based on a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. It hit me all at once one day and wouldn't let me write anything else until I had it written down. I'll post the poem as the epilogue. Enjoy.

Guinevere sighed as she set the royal seal of Camelot aside for the last time. She spread her shaking hands on the desk before her, looking at them in wonder and tried to remember just when they had grown so gnarled, the skin so thin and spotted with age. What happened to all that time? Even now, all she needed to do was close her eyes to see Arthur again, his hair golden in the sunlight, those bright eyes full of warmth and love.

And yet. . .

Guinevere had reigned over Camelot nearly forty years, and only four of them had she been Arthur's queen. While her starkest memory was her last earthly sight of him- rushing to lead his men against Morgana's forces at Camlann- she refused to let that be the memory that lived on. She chose instead to remember him as he was on their wedding day, when both their lives had stretched out so wide before them and no strife could touch their happiness. A smile spread across her face as she looked around the room. Their room. At odd times, she imagined Arthur as he might have been, growing old alongside her, his hair turning silver and the crinkling laugh lines around his eyes deepening into wrinkles. He would have been as handsome in his old age as he had been in youth, she had long ago decided.

And in those moments when her grief overwhelmed her- even after so many years- she imagined the children they never had, the sons who would have taken his father's place and the daughters he would have doted upon. In her imagination, they all had Arthur's eyes, that crystal blue of a midwinter's noon. They were tall and beautiful, and upheld all those values their father held so dear. They seemed so real she would try to touch them, to hold those phantom children until tears blurred her vision and they disappeared into the world of What-Might-Have-Been.

In the days after Camlann, every twinge in her body, every moment of dizziness, every pang set her alight with a delirious hope that Arthur had left her with child before that final, terrible battle. But as the days turned to weeks, Guinevere realized all that hope was in vain. There would be no child, no blue-eyed son or daughter to carry on the line. She was the last of the Pendragons.

That knowledge, that last ember of hope burning out, had sent her into a despair she thought she would never emerge from. Until one dark Imbolc morning, she woke to find Merlin lighting her candles to remind both of them that the sun would return and that even this, the darkest of nights, would pass.

She patted the seal on the parchment, found it had hardened at last and lay it and the royal seal within a delicately carved wooden box. Her gnarled fingers had enough dexterity to manage the clasp, and she gave the little box a satisfied pat when it clicked shut. "Elayne?" she called, her voice as fragile as spun sugar.

"Yes?" The lissome girl's face appeared in the doorway, her fine blonde hair wreathing her face, a halo in the candlelight. Her pale beauty was a thing of morning and new worlds.

Guinevere smiled. "Take this box to Constantine in the morning. There are instructions for him, and a gift."

"Yes, Majesty," Elayne bobbed a curtsey, "Do you need anything else?"

Stay awhile, child. Let me soak in your beauty. Remind me of what it is to be young and in love. Help me forget that time passes so quickly and so slowly. Guinevere wanted to say those things, wanted to tell the girl this was the last she would see of her queen, but. . . These new days were for the young, and Elayne was a new bride. She longed to see her knight in shining armor as much as Guinevere had when she was young. "No, my dear. Go to your husband. Be happy." The girl's smile was a flash of sunlight in the darkening room. Then the door closed, and she was gone. "Be happy, my sweet girl," the aged queen whispered to the empty room as her thoughts turned melancholy, "Remember to live. And may you have all the happiness that Arthur and I never had." Tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped them away, commanding her weary soul not to show such weakness. Not now. Tonight was not a night for grieving.

The old grief, once a bitter foe, had turned into an old friend. Time wore its ragged edges away, dulling it down until she could grasp it tight and move it into a new light that reflected not her old agonies, but new reasons to move forward. Old friends who had died too young, who had been gone so long, gave Guinevere the strength to carry on. She worked so their sacrifices would not be for nothing. For Gwaine, she built a kingdom worth dying for; for Elyan she made his new values into her own and lived for both them; for Lancelot, she worked to be a queen worthy of his endless devotion. For Arthur, she made it her life's work to make his most ardent hopes and brightest dreams a reality.

It had taken all the remaining years of her life, but it was all worth it. Albion's golden age had dawned, and for years, there had been no war in the five kingdoms. She knew she had fulfilled Arthur's hopes the first time she heard the people say it- 'In Arthur's day, kings made peace. And their queens kept it.' Now, the people remembered not the strife of Arthur's youth, but the victories that had ensured that peace.

And last of all, for the one who had died after Camlann but still lived- for Merlin- she had struggled to forge a future worthy of his endless, unnamed sacrifices.

After Camlann, after Percival returned with that hateful news, Merlin had disappeared. Days and weeks went by without a word until they all thought the sorcerer had abandoned the world. Then one wintry day, in the wake of a rain-soaked wind, he returned to them a changed man, silent and weary, and lost in his own sudden stillness. He grew thinner, his skin bleached pale as the lucid moon, as though he had been distilled until only his deepest essence remained. He came and went like the wind, and men feared the grief dwelling in his eyes.

Until one night, after vanishing for a season, he reappeared with a new purpose burning within and a new light shining in his eyes, igniting as the first star at the dawn of time. 'I remember now, Gwen, what all of it was for' he had said, his first words since Camlann, 'Arthur will return. When Albion's need is greatest, he will rise and reign as king once more. And I will be there to serve him again.' Life slowly returned to Merlin, though in a different form. No longer a man of their world of flesh and stone, but a man who lived at the intersection of the waking world and the dream; the world of the living, and the land of the dead. In time, she began to understand that while she lived for the future, Merlin lived for all times- the past, the present, and the far-flung future.

Guinevere dismissed her idle maunderings and slowly pushed to her feet. Her bones protested the movement, reminding her that she should have been in her warm bed, not shuffling about her chambers on a snowy night. But winter had taken root in the queen's bones a long time ago and, like her grief, she had learned to manage it. Her fingers only shook a little as she pulled the jewels from her ears and put the necklace away. The only finery she kept was her wedding ring, still as bright as the day Arthur had placed it on her finger. Her gown was of deep red velvet trimmed with gold; only the finest would do for this night. The cloak took longer than she thought to drape around her shoulders, the hood covering her coiled white braids. She had only just set the jeweled cloak pin in place when the breeze came.

Warm it was, scented with spring, rain, and ten thousand longings. She turned to find him standing there, looking as he ever did- tall and too thin, his skin pale as moonlight and hair as black as a raven's wing. His eyes were the clear blue of the mid-summer sky, and Guinevere swore, when she looked into them, she saw the depths of stars held within. "My Queen," his smile was bittersweet as he clasped her aging hands in his ever-youthful, "Are you ready?"

"In just a moment," She cast her gaze about the room, at the candles a young Merlin had lit for them, the desk where Arthur had gone about the kingdom's business, the bed where she had curled up next to him and he had whispered words of love into her ear. So much had changed. So very little had changed. "We had had some grand times in this old castle, did we not?"

"We did." Merlin's fingers tightened on hers. "And we will again."

"Everything returns in time, doesn't it? In a new form, perhaps, but it returns all the same." The light in Merlin's eyes confirmed what her heart told her was true. She smiled up at him, at peace at last. "I'm ready."

"Close your eyes," he whispered.

She did so, felt the rain-soaked breeze wrap around them, felt the stars wheel around them, and Queen Guinevere left Camelot for the last time.