Le Retour d'Arthur

by Marckzzz

After waiting for a millennial Merlin is approached by a stranger who promises he can give him what he wants the most, his beloved king and all of his old friends, but at what price? The stranger claims that Albion's time of greatest need is near and in this battle the whole universe is at stake, will Merlin accept the responsibilities or say no to a chance to see his king again?

1. Chapter 1

Le Retour D'Arthur: The Return of Arthur

Here is my first story. You should know that though English is my favorite language, it is also my second so I expect this to be far from perfect. Please send me a lot of reviews so that the next chapters will be even better. Hope you like the story.

**By the way, this will eventually be Merthur

Chapter 1

"Another day" this was the first thought that popped into Merlins mind as he woke up in some dark alley inside some dirty box. This same thought had accompanied him in his waking hour every day for a long time now, he thought that he would eventually tire of it, that one day he would wake up and his first thought would be something more... cheerful or even something slightly different but it seems like he was beyond help after all that time.

It was time to start his daily routine. Even though Merlin went to sleep in a different dark corner every night to avoid attention, it came as no surprise that he could easily find his way around the place since he had seen the whole city as it was built up from the ground. As they did every day his legs took him to the lake that once bore the name Avalon but was now an unknown body of water surrounded by one of the cities of the new world. As Merlin walked by he dared not look at the island directly, experience had taught him that every time he did nightmares would haunt his normally dreamless nights and it was not a welcomed experience when the old ghosts in his mind made themselves known in his dreams. For Merlin, having to deal with them in his every hour of consciousness was more than enough. Since he couldn't "feel" anything had changed he walk on to his next destination.

The library had been Merlin's sanctuary since one was built close enough for him to visit, Merlin didn't know exactly how long ago that had been, five hundred years? a couple of hundreds? A few weeks? He didn't keep track of time, it would have been an unnecessary habit for him and maybe, just maybe, he was a little afraid to do so... afraid... No, that was not the right word, afraid would indicate that he could actually feel it, the word reluctant would be more like what he was trying to express since it would indicates simply thinking rather than feeling. The thing was that Merlin had been unable to process feelings for a long time. Don't get the wrong idea, his senses were perfectly fine, it could have been said that they were better than most humans, even without magic, so he could technically "feel" things around him perfectly fine. On the other hand feelings like happiness, sadness, fear, or even relief were now beyond Merlin, he had thought about it for quite a while after it happened and the only explanation Merlin could come up with was that it was some kind of defense mechanism in his brain, was it because of his Magic or some kind of psychological trauma? He didn't know.

Psychological trauma, that was one of the new things Merlin had learned on the library. He learned after all that time surrounded by books that he could collect amounts of information that were humanly impossible, he could read and memorize the largest tomes in in less than half an hour. He had read every book in the place but since they had installed public computers Merlin had been able to access the wonderful realm known as the World Wide Web, the amount of information he could access was practically infinite so he kept his reading materials purely educational, always learning and cramming new information into his head. How far did his collection of information go? Well, he couldn't possibly claim to know all there was to know but with the right materials he could have built a last model jet or even a particle accelerator, he could have also had an intelligent conversation with almost any scholar from most fields.

But it was just that, an immense collection of facts that Merlin keep filed on his head, he didn't think about it, didn't analyze it, didn't even try to put the information together to form new things. It was just a pastime, like putting stamps on a book, one never goes back to see the stamps again, you just keep putting new ones inside. So why did Merlin keep doing this if he found it so pointless? Simple, his old ghosts, when it was said that his feelings were locked away one might have thought that he didn't have to deal with his past and the effects it had on him any more, well, so had Merlin at first, and he too had been wrong.

When this defense mechanism kicked in, Merlin had been on the verge of madness, he had felt like he was being eaten alive by the many dark things inside of him, the ones he called his ghosts, guilt, shame, anger, regret, and so many other, but above all sadness, so much overwhelming sadness for so many things. Now when he thought about it those strengthened feelings might have been because of his new ability to contain things perfectly in his mind, something he'd gained in the crystal cave. Well, he was about to be crushed when it all just shut down, one moment Merlin was about to claw his heart out convinced that it was all his fault and the other it was all gone, all that was left was peace, a comfortable emptiness. For a few weeks it was perfect, he just lay there in the middle of the forest, only getting up to do his daily walk near Avalon, getting back and just laying there in the middle of the forest, enjoying the emptiness, looking at the effect the passing of time had around him. For a while there he thought that he could just repeat this and lay there every day until the appointed time he supposedly had with destiny, but then the memories started coming out from the back of my mind.

And at first it wasn't bad at all, Merlin could go over all his memories as if watching a movie and feeling absolutely nothing of it, he could just watch and put himself on everyone's shoes and taking the perspective of an observer. That was when he understood what had really happened, why things had gone as wrong as they did at the time, Merlin understood so he thought he was at peace with it, that when his ability to feel came back his old ghosts would be at peace and quiet at last. He was so very wrong, his feelings never came back and he learned that his ghosts were far stronger than he had ever given them credit for, when they found they could not pull down Merlin's consciousness into their fiery hell they just turned to burn his body. At first it started as a simple ache, it's a bit humorous because he first thought that maybe his body was actually turning the age that he had made it look like, that he was feeling the aches of an old person. But the pain increased, from a dull ache to a billion daggers being stabbed all over his body all at once every single second, the first day that it started to be so agonizing Merlin could not even stand up he had to slowly drag himself to the shores of Avalon, and there he screamed and cried as the pain took control, unfortunately the place was still deserted back then, if it hadn't been someone might have taken mercy and put him out of his misery.

It wasn't clear even to him how long he spent like that but it must have been a very long while, eventually he accepted the pain, realized that it was so unbearable because he wanted it to be, that this was the replacement he got for the absence of his remorseful feelings, that somehow this was a small way of atoning, a self-inflicted punishment that his subconscious had provided, and once he realized there was no escape from this it became bearable enough for him to act as if the pain was not there. Merlin lived the past millennium with this pain reminding him every day of his past, when he slept he could escape this punishment for a few hours and when his mind was busy with something else the pain became more of a buzz in the background hence his precious habit.

Merlin's next stop for the day was a homeless shelter, he stopped by these place at least once a week to get something in his stomach and put some leftovers in the satchel he carried around just in case anything happened. Something else that Merlin discovered on this long wait was that he didn't need to eat in order to survive; this became very useful during the long winters he had to live through while being in the forest. His magic kept him warm but when he realized that he would not find any food in the frozen lands he thought he was going to finally die until he realized his magic was keeping him alive, when his magic found no nutrient to feed off of in his body it started extracting energy from the surroundings. Merlin survived many difficult situations thanks to this and even lived for years without taking anything to eat. There was one disadvantage to this trick, when it got to the point where Merlin had to use the energy around him to survive he became weaker than a grown adult, he couldn't use any magic and his ghosts became more unbearable than usual. Merlin didn't like feeling vulnerable so he fed himself using these shelters.

As he stepped into the line no one took notice of him but some did look at him with a confused look on their faces for a few seconds. With his homeless looks and a bit of unconscious help from his magic Merlin was normally unnoticed in any kind of crowd, but it seemed he looked a bit too dirty and was starting to smell a little rancid, no wonder the librarian's nose had wrinkled when he passed her by. Merlin decides he would need to take a bath at the lake and wash his clothes. He ate but no pleasure came from it, sure he could taste everything in the stew and could probably tell exactly how it was made, but there was no reaction to it in his brain.

Merlin went back to the library and spent the rest of the evening burying himself in books to keep away the ghosts. As the library closed he was off to find a place to rest, he found the same cardboard box from the last two nights and decided to use it that day, he would have to throw it out the next day and try to find a new one, this one had too much dirt in it and would have undone the bath he was planning to take. Merlin dragged the dirty box to a new dark corner, squeezed inside and prepared himself for some hours of relief from the cruel reality. As he went deeper and deeper into unconsciousness the last thought that visited his mind was "Another night, how many more?"

-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-x xxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxx xx-

Just as Merlin finally fell asleep, on the other end of town, in one of the newer, fancier buildings of the city, a red door with a metal dragon head on the center opened and a tall figure cloaked in fabric so dark and fluid it practically looked like shadows stepped through.

-Are you sure this place is our best bet?- asked the cloaked figure into the dead of the night

- This is where the old Avalon lays. If we are to find him we will find him here, of that I have no doubt- the owner of this new, distorted but powerful voice was nowhere to be seen and yet the cloaked figure showed no sign of surprise. He nodded and walked into the night seemingly becoming one with the shadows around him, the last words that could be heard were:

- Let's hope so... For all our sakes-