Hey Welcome all to my new story (I know I've finished the others but writers block sucks)

I got into Merlin a few weeks ago and watched all the seasons (it was good times) and I fell in love with Merthur (which, come on, is practically canon maybe even more so than Destiel but I digress) and felt compelled to write a story. And so here it is.

It will be updated regularly since I'm on break now. Woot!

Key points:

One: This takes place after the events of season 4

Two: Lancelot did not die in season 4 and the whole him and Gwen thing with the bracelet and the kissing did not happen! Yet...

Three: The story may seem a little choppy at first, but it's because I have to bounce around between a lot of characters. If you have any questions just PM me and I will gladly clear up the confusion (I will be introducing characters who have their own agendas so I will be following a lot of people)

Four: This will contain Merthur (Merlin/Arthur) and Gwen/Lancelot (i don't know the ship name for that) and other pairings that I've decided on yet, so if you got problems with that then this story is not for you

Five: It will be violent and dark in most chapters. I can't write happy stories for some reason, so the rating is true and angst will abound.

Six: Everyone I mention has an important part to play and everything will eventually come together at some point later on. Be warned!

So, I don't think I've left anything out. I don't have a beta so all mistakes are my own.

Enjoy!

-The lyrics used in the beginning are: Landon Pigg, This is the Way it Ends

Chapter 1: The End

We walk in the shadows

We do

Find out what we all know

Our time is near

If this is the way it ends

Don't tell me it's meaningless

There'll be no compromise

We fall and we too shall rise

We will be spilled in blood

And this is the way that they'll remember us

The scene shifted.

He was surrounded by carnage.

Blood littered the ground below. All around him were bodies, pieces of bodies, mixed with blood, weapons, and dirt. Torches as well littered the ground making some of the dead faces look even more grotesque as the light reflected off them creating tiny beacons in the night.

Smoke filled the air above; thick smoke that obscured his vision and filled his lungs to the point where it was becoming difficult to breathe. It moved, the smoke, as a solid shape twisting and turning in the sky as if it was a living thing and it warped everything in its path.

He could see all of it, smell all of it, and feel all of it as if he was there. In the back of his mind he felt he was there, but at the same time knew that he was not. It was a disconcerting, yet familiar feeling.

The scene shifted.

He was being shaken. He was being yelled at. He was being shaken and being yelled at for something he remembered doing, something he was currently doing, and something that he will do. The words flew at him in perfect clarity, because he had lived it, is living it, and will live it.

"Why? Just explain why because I don't understand!" The tone was angry and pleading.

Then he was responding with words that were all around him, inside of him, and completely out of his reach.

"Fix it! You think this will fix it, that this is the answer. That—that everything will be better now!" The tone was falling in intensity as apathy began to take over.

The shaking began again.

"Ho—" The voice broke and he could feel his heart break with it. "Why Mer—Merlin?"

The scene shifted.

The breeze felt nice. He had been in Camelot for five years now. He had spent countless hours outside and inside the castle. He knew just about every door, passage, and crack in the castle he now called home. And the countless times he had been to this part of the castle, he had never noticed the calming breeze.

He was glad he was able to feel it now, it was reassuring. He knew what he had to do and he knew that he had already done it; it was just a matter of the physicality of it.

He heard, somewhere behind him, a voice calling something that sounded like his name. His attention was captured by the merlin that landed next to him. He didn't wait for the voice to reach him.

"Merlin!" The voice was familiar and loud and yelling in his face.

Merlin awoke with a gasp; his blue eyes flying open and frantically looking about. His mind was still reeling from the images that had passed through him and was trying to take in both his current surroundings while latching on to the scenes shown to him. The future and the past overlapping with each other causing Merlin's mind to ache.

His sensory receptors came back and the first thing he felt were two hands on his shoulders. He followed the hands up to the arms, which is when Merlin realized his own hands were gripping the forearms of the person who was holding him up. His grip was vice-like and he could not muster the strength to let go.

The arms eventually reached shoulders, which reached a neck that turned into a face. The face was pale making the blue eyes stand out even more than usual. The lips were moving, but he could not comprehend the words that were being said. He focused back up on the eyes, which were piercing him with a worried expression, no, a fearful expression. That's when Merlin realized that his breathing was erratic and his heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest.

"Ar—" He was gasping and it was frightening. "Arth—"

The pale face, Arthur, lost some of its fearful expression. "Merlin." It came out as a sigh of relief.

Merlin realized he could hear again. He could hear Arthur who was still holding him as if he was physically holding him together; maybe he was. He could hear other voices to. The voices were recognizable but he was too tired to place the sounds with identities.

His breathing began to slow down along with his heart. He took in a lung full of air and pain shot up from his left side. He must have winced because Arthur's expression became a mixture of worry and guilt. Guilt? He looked to see if there was an injury on his side and that's when he realized he was on the floor.

"What happened?" How did I end up here?

Arthur, who looked a little less worried now, gripped Merlin's shoulders tighter and tried to sit the servant up. Merlin, figuring out was Arthur was attempting, tried to help and he ended up half sitting and half leaning on Arthur. One of his hands was still locked on Arthur's arm.

"You just collapsed." If anyone heard Arthur's voice crack, no one commented. "I—no one reacted fast enough to catch you and you hit the floor and began shaking. You were clutching your head and muttering. I tried—Gaius told me that you needed to stay still; needed to stop moving, that you'd hurt yourself."

Merlin grazed his hand over his side. "Seems like I managed to injury myself anyway."

"No one expected any less," the strained teasing voice belonged to Sir Gwaine who stood a few feet in front of Merlin. He was smirking, but it was obviously a front. The other knights, who were scattered around the room along with Guinevere, shared similar faked looks.

Merlin appreciated the effort.

"I'm going to have to insist that you leave this meeting and come back with me." The voice of Gaius filtered in from the side not occupied by Arthur. Merlin nodded, knowing there was no way he was going to be able to stay and he really needed to talk to Gaius anyways about what he saw.

Lancelot, who was the closest person to him besides Arthur, stepped forward and grabbed one arm while Arthur grabbed his other and they both lifted him to his feet. He tried to push the two men away, but he couldn't muster the strength to do so. He let the man lead him to Gaius's room.

An Hour Later

"Visions?"

"Yes, like when I touched the seeing crystal only this time, it was just in my head." Merlin trialed off as he lay propped up on Gaius's, as he liked to call it, 'Treating Table'. He was moving about his room/laboratory with surprising speed for someone his age as looked about for various potions.

"You had a vision without the aid of a seeing object? Have you experienced this before?"

Merlin shook his head. No and I don't want to experience it ever again.

"The only seer I know of that's living is Morgana and she still only had them when she slept, when her mind was at rest. To see visions when awake, that is a rare gift." Gaius sounded more worried than awed or proud though and Merlin could understand why. He did snort at the 'gift' comment though. It's a gift I would gladly return.

"Great another thing that I shouldn't be able to do shall we add it to the list?" His sarcastic question was not graced by and eyebrow nor a pointed look. That cued Merlin into how nervous Gaius actually was about the situation. He understood that it would have been a frightening thing to witness, his collapsing into fits, but this nervousness was not caused solely by that.

"You don't think this is a onetime thing do you?"

Gaius paused in his movements. He turned around to face Merlin. "I have met powerful seers Merlin, seers that were born with the ability, but none of them have ever received visions like you did."

Lancelot was the first to visit him.

It had been a few hours since he had collapsed onto the floor. His head was all but fine now and the only thing still sore were his ribs, which Gaius believed that he may have broken a couple of them, so they would be sore for a while. He was currently sitting on one of the benches in Gaius' room sipping on some soup.

He had expected Lancelot to show up after the meeting had finished.

"What happened Merlin?"

Lancelot sat down next to Merlin, straddling the bench so he could face his friend. Merlin looked up from his soup bowl and gave Lancelot a small smile.

"I don't know; had a vision of some sort."

Lancelot did not look surprised. "I knew it had to do with magic, but I've never seen this happen to you before."

"No one has." Gaius stated without breaking his concentration on the potion he was working on.

"Will it happen again?" Lancelot looked at Merlin concerned because it was a frightening thing to watch your best friend fall into fits without being able to do anything about it. Lancelot could face down beasts, bandits, and whole armies without flinching, but this was something he could not solve with a sword. He was powerless when Merlin fell and he could only watch as Arthur tried in vain to help their friend.

That was the question Merlin feared. He could live with knowing that this was just another thing he survived in his long list of close to death interactions, but not knowing if it would happen again or when truly scared him. It was not the visions either, he could live with that, it was that feeling afterwards where he could not tell reality from fantasy, where his breath would leave his lungs, and where all his senses were dulled to the point where he felt dead.

"I don't know, but Gaius is pretty sure that it was a onetime thing." Merlin told the lie before his brain made the decision to do so. Gaius did not look up from his potion or give any indication that what he had said earlier was the opposite of what Merlin just told Lancelot.

The lie was worth the utter relief Lancelot's face displayed. "I'll make sure to tell the others. They are all very worried about you Merlin; Arthur even canceled the meeting." Merlin was surprised to hear that. "Agravaine and some of the older councilmen were none too pleased. Gwaine took some pleasure in that I think."

Merlin had no doubt that Gwaine took pleasure in the annoyance of the old councilmen or as Gwaine called them: the Curmudgeons. The title referred to Borin, Cael, and Deverick. They were the only three councilmen surviving from Uther's reign and Arthur had kept them in order to counteract the other changes he had made to his father's court. They were smart men, but headstrong and were not supporters of anything new Arthur had brought forth. They about had a fit when Arthur no longer held council in the throne room, but in his old room which was transformed into an actual Council room with the Round Table in the center of it. It was the same Round Table that they had sat on a year ago, only this one had been expanded in size to fit the knights and the six councilmen.

Merlin would know too. He was the one that had to help design and redecorate Arthur's room into the Council Room and had to help bring the monstrosity of a table into the room itself. It took a week in total and each time Merlin complained Arthur would slap him on the back and say 'You're the one that agreed to be the King's servant Merlin.'

"Merlin?" Lancelot's voice brought him back to reality.

Merlin gave a sheepish smile to the knight. "Sorry, I'm a little tired."

Lancelot nodded understandingly. "Well would like me to escort you to your chambers then?" He even stood up, bowed, and offered his arm to Merlin. Merlin gave a half hearted glare at his friend at begin treated like a girl, but accepted the arm anyways.

"I'll see you later Gaius." He called as he left the room on Lancelot's arm. Gaius called something back but Merlin was too far away to hear it.

He collapsed onto his bed, in my own room; still haven't gotten used to that.

Merlin had been given his own room in the castle when he officially became the King's personal manservant. It was not a luscious room, but it had a fairly large bed, a cabinet, windows, and a nice fireplace. It was on the floor below the knights, marking it a servant's quarters, but it was on the floor right above the kitchens making it a prime location. Gwaine had even offered to trade rooms with Merlin based on his nearness to the kitchens; Merlin said 'no'.

He missed living with Gaius sometimes with having the ability to talk to his mentor anytime he needed or just knowing that he was not alone, but it felt like the right time to move. He had been in Camelot for five years and he was well past the age to be able to live on his own. The other reason was that Gaius was getting old and the need to train an apprentice was becoming apparent. Merlin, no matter how much he loved Gaius, would never be able to take over as Court Physician; they both knew that. Merlin's place was by Arthur's side, which is why Gaius had brought in an apprentice a few weeks ago, Margret, was her name and she was now staying in Merlin's old room.

His door opened, breaking Merlin from his thoughts and causing him to sit up from his sprawled out position on the bed. "Arthur?" Merlin cocked his head slightly to the side wondering what would bring Arthur to his chambers so close to night time.

Arthur shut the door behind him and stood awkwardly in the center of the room. "Hey, Merlin." He seemed to be struggling for words. "I just…uh, I just wanted to see if you were doing better. Lancelot said you were fine but I just wanted to make sure." The statement sounded more like a question, like Arthur really did not know why he was there.

Merlin raised an eyebrow. "You were worried about my health?"

"Of course I was!" Arthur stated almost aghast at the thought the he would not be concerned, and then began to try to find the appropriate reason for being so concerned about his friend, servant damnit! "Who else knows how to muck my stables as well as you?"

Merlin put on an affronted look. "You told me that wasn't my job anymore!"

"It will be again if you keep getting injured!"

He's afraid for me. Merlin gave Arthur a small smile. Arthur recognized that smile. It was a smile that had years of wisdom behind it, one that Merlin gave him when he knew something about Arthur that Arthur did not even know about himself. It was smile given when Arthur did something that Merlin expected him to do, but just not to him. It was a smile that he could image lovers giving each other.

Arthur stupidly grinned back.

The village of Elador was, for the most part, peaceful. They had their problems once and while with bandits and thieves or the occasional large animal like every other village, but they were for most of the time, calm. Everyone if the village knew that they were lucky in this aspect.

They all, for the most part, got along too. There was Gregory, the oldest man in the village that would yell randomly from his house at the local children, but he had suffered through sixty years of lie so no one really blamed him. There was the Andersons, a married couple that no could ever figure out why they married each other in the first place when it seemed like they hated each other, but the fights they had were quick and usually not very damaging. Everyone else though, mainly got along now.

A few years ago, when Merlin was still there, the village had splintered. There were whispers behind closed doors, rumors that were passed on from children to adult concerning the boy that where ever he went strange things followed. They would talk about the cart that moved on its own or the door that Mary swore she saw open when no one was near enough to touch it. These things had built fractures in the village, but the house fire had broken it completely.

The house fire that killed William Johnson, loving husband and father, may be rest in peace. Well, part of that was true.

But then Merlin left and so did the rumors and the hushed voices and the cracks stopped breaking. So, when Hunith started to hear a voice speaking to her in her head she told no one about it because it was a peaceful village, relatively, and she knew that those cracks had only been patched back together and not mended completely.

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter!

Review! Please!