Warning: Spoilers for Series Five. Could be either friendship or slash depending on how you want to see it.
The hills are wild and misty, strewn with daisies and buttercups which feed and grow fat on the fog that rises from the lake; the one with the tower in the middle that no-one ever seems to visit. It has become a part of the background, lost in the mist and the rain, dwarfed by the landscape. It is summer, and yellow and white petals sway and swing in time to the wind, dripping dew. The flowers are happy.
He comes to the hills because he is not happy; he is old, and his bones ache. It seems no time, and all too much, since he left the edge of the lake and made his way into the world to exist alone, with isolation nibbling at the edges of his mind and turning his hair grey.
He has waited and grown old for a thousand years; the world has wrapped itself around him as it has developed and he has watched it with wonder and pity. And something else, perhaps something close to apprehension.
Arthur will come back. The thought barely keeps him hopeful nowadays, but he clings to it anyway. They hadn't had time for goodbye at the side of the lake, surrounded by sweat and blood and tears. He has regretted that for a thousand years, and will regret it for a thousand more, he is sure, before someone can come and forgive him.
Everyone who could have forgiven him is dead. Since them, he hasn't made any new friends. He can't open his heart to them, can't open himself up for scrutiny and disapproval and too many questions. He remains the crazy old man in the hills.
He picks the nearest flower and holds it delicately between two of his wrinkled fingers – he doesn't like to think how long they've been wrinkled for – before whispering something softly into his palm. The little flower curls and uncurls obediently, once, twice, three times, waving and smiling at him. It gives him pleasure to watch, but then he has to drop it and pretend it was never there as people with backpacks and heavy boots appear on the path above him, and move on.
Up here, on the wild and misty hillsides, with the fat daisies surrounding him like the fine rugs he used to know, and which no-one makes any more, he knows everything is supposed to be perfect. There is no smog or smoke, the cars and vans are far away. He is alone, and he can pretend it is the time of before, and that his bones do not ache, and that he is not lonely.
But it is not perfect, because he can only pretend.
He is old, and the children who grow and turn into adults and become old themselves far too quickly avoid him because they do not know why he comes to the hills. His hands are wrinkled and calloused, veins protruding. He can see the blood pulsing in them, busy as a road, one with lorries and cars whistling by so loudly that, even though he was alive at the time of their invention, he has never managed to get used to the scale of noise. The world has become far too noisy for his liking.
But the hills are quiet, and that is good. He is alone, but he has waited a thousand years, and will wait more. He has no choice, and he would not abandon Arthur, not for an entire kingdom.
He stands, and his bones do not ache. The old man is surprised, and he looks down and sees the wrinkles on his hands have vanished without a trace, retreated into smooth skin he hasn't seen since…
He turns towards the lake, and begins to run.
End.
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