Water

As Merlin stood by the endlessly surging ocean, the years flooded past him. It was a torrent of memories, roiling and tumultuous, the moments of his life played out in flashing colors and images, a whitewater of terror made of his own and Arthur's fearful destiny. Merlin had been alone for many a long immortal year. The wind stirred his dark hair, the scent of the ocean filled his lungs, touching his face with a ghost of salt mist. He hunched his thin shoulders and shivered in the cold touch of the ocean spray. The moon shimmered on the waves that surged on the shores of the long lost kindom of Gedref. It had another name now, but the trees still whispered under the moonlight. Here, close to the dark call of the water, he felt as if all that he loved still existed. It was only beyond his sight, lost somewhere in the velvet darkness and the boom of the surf.

Was it possible, thought Merlin, that Mithian's laughter echoed still in the corridors of her seaside towers, that the unicorn yet moved, liquid as seafoam, in the moonlight through the dark forests behind him? Was it not possible that Arthur still commanded, still ruled from the white towers of Camelot? Could it not be true that somewhere Arthur still fought with a magical sword as bright as the moonlight on the sea below him? On a night such as this, the past seemed more immediate, as if he could reach out and find the world of his youth with only a flare of his golden eyes.

Cursing his foolishness he still wished the feeling was true. Merlin refused the sting of tears as he looked out over the water. Long practice made it easy to turn away from the familiar pain of Arthur's absence. He wished for the sweet easy places of his long ago youth. For despite his hungering recall, all had been changed by the relentless passage of the years. The land had changed as other kings came and went, and the chain of years passed over the place where he was born. Nothing remained. But Merlin still longed for the clear calm streams of Ealdor, where he had played and plotted with Will, for the special spot in the river where he always went to draw water for his mother. He had been innocent then, filled with relentless energy and curiosity of childhood. The very water had thrummed with life as he touched it. Without error, he knew where the water was cleanest and sweetest, and he would bring his mother the pail of water and her smile would erase the sweat and the heat of the day like a rush of the cool water he had carried in his bucket. But all those things, even his mother's sweet smile, were gone, carried away by the relentless tides of the ocean of time.

Merlin had come to accept the eternal loss that was part of any mortal friendship. His heart still greived for those who had been with him on the beginning of the journey. He had forged a peace with the tender ghosts of Guinevere and Gaius, with his memories of Lancelot and Elyan. with the tragic death of Gawaine, and the noble end of Percival and Leon. He treasured the friends he had made and lost, the adventures and the inventions of the long years of his exile, the long span of his time without Arthur. So many faces, so many names.

But when he thought of his king, there was no peace. There was only the knowledge of his failure, of his inability to change the destiny that had stalked his cabbage headeded, arrogant, noble, true-hearted prince. His king, who at the end of all things, had been the other side of his soul.

Here by the ocean,in the familiar enduring dark of the sea, he recalled their first adventure in Gedref, when Arthur had killed the unicorn, cursing Camelot. He could still see Arthur's fierce blue eyes as he ignored Merlin's shouted warning and killed the unicorn. He recalled the noble triumphant glint in his eyes as Arthur boldly drank the silver cup of his challenge that would mend the death of the magical creature. Like a forshadowing of tragedy, he remembered the tears that had burned his eyes as he had shook Arthur's limp form as he fell, poisoned, to the wet stones. His stomach seized painfully with the memory of his horror in that moment. He had failed Arthur. The pain paled in contrast to the most terrible memory of all, for inevitably, he remembered Camlann and the shores of pain of it shook him, drowning him in the endless cold dark. He took a deep breath of the sea air, trying to calm the pain that tore at his soul.

Merlin knew the true meaning of time, the true meaning of eternity. The long passage of the years was the illusion; the moments that defined one's destiny stood immutable, existing forever. Whether for joy or sorrow, whether for love or for despair, there were events that existed outside of time. The agony of Arthur's death was eternal in his soul. It was always in the present, it echoed in the past, it shimmered like a wraith in the future. That moment in time stood unchanging, at the center of his heart. That was the meaning of eternity.

Moving quickly, Merlin shrugged out of his clothes and plunged into the water, movinginto the cold, lunging upwards as he swam. Floating on his back, the stars above him filled him with a sense of peace, tranquilizing the struggling pain that was his heart. These silent stars were his sole companions through the years. Their movements so slow, he alone could appreciate their endless dance. They had always comforted him. He had loved the stories about the shapes of heroes set in the stars, he loved their slow movement with the seasons and their even subtler movement with the years. An astronomer friend had explained to him once, that the light of the stars had left it's origin many years before, and only now could it be perceived as the light of that long ago moment reached the earth. Somewhere then, Arthur was alive in this moment, and only now was the moment perceptible to him. It gave him a strange sense of companionship. It remained enough a mystery that his soul deep grief did not stir, but accepted the balm of this one comfort. Merlin loved the sea. No one could see his tears. Not even he himself.

It was enough.