A/N: So this is a new writing style for me. Much more abrupt than I'm used to but it really fit with how Merlin was experiencing the world. I hope you like it! And if any of you are also reading Down at the Tavern, I apologize for the delay. I've got the next three chapters completely written except for this one scene that's crucial to the development of the reveal. Unfortunately it is also in the next chapter so you guys have been left hanging.
He opened his eyes and saw the world for the first time.
The sun was shining on those who cared about him.
The darkness was coming to an end, and the clouds cleared.
He saw life, and the beauty of nature.
He saw the new beginning.
New Beginning – Josh Abbot
Empty. Not just inside his own soul but in every corner of the very world. He's never known anything so cold, so bitter.
She'd tricked him. He knows he should have expected it, been more prepared, more alert, stronger, something, but he can't find it in himself to take the blame. So much rests on his shoulders. So much blood on his hands. He can't take this as well. It's too much.
He cannot feel their power, but he knows that somewhere up ahead is the crystal cavern. Time passes. He doesn't move. It doesn't matter. Destiny can not be fought. Hadn't he learned that already? So why should he bother? Mordred will kill Arthur. Magic will return to the land. He'd protected his King until the end. Wasn't that enough? He'd given everything. Wasn't everything enough?
He grows hungry. Eventually the hunger stops. He realizes that it's been too long. He's been to long. Arthur needs him. With one thought he drags himself forward, stumbling and crawling over the sharp rock.
It doesn't hurt. He doesn't know if anything can hurt anymore. No. That's not true. He doesn't feel the wounds that must be the source of the blood he sees dripping down on to the earthen floor with dusty splatters. He doesn't feel the ache inside that he knows he should feel considering he can't have eaten in days. But he feels the pain. He'd failed. He'd failed.
He'd failed.
The glowing crystals poking out of ground in front of his face are trying to tell him something. He doesn't know how he knows this. How could mere rocks tell him anything? Nevertheless it is a persistent hallucination so he opens his eyes.
The blond king falls and it feels as though time should slow down to give everyone a few precious moments to comprehend the death of someone so monumental, but if anything time speeds up. The battle blurs. The white dragon screams and falls upon the king carrying him high into the sky. The dark haired witch calls for it. The dragon disappears.
He turns away. Battles do not interest him. They scare him. He'd lost someone in battle once. Someone who'd meant more than the world to him. But the name slips through his grasp and he closes his eyes.
The next time he opens them he seems to have moved. This time he cannot avoid the crystals.
The white dragon lands its tortured body on the shores of a island hidden in mist. Its burden falls gently from its grasp onto the stone table. It doesn't know why it does this but it feels the pull of destiny-
NO! No, no destiny. No glorious endings. He considers fighting to end the visions and decides against it. The effort isn't worth it.
Merlin Emrys. Son of Balinor son of Ambrosius descendent from Myrddin first brother of dragonkind, awakener of Aithusa, enstater of the Lady of the Lake, builder of Albion, protector of the Once and Future King, child of Magic… Your destiny needs you.
The voice brings to mind a small white dragon the size of a horse and a dank cave filled with magic and wrong choices.
No. I am done.
Not even the fates can force you into this sacrifice. The decision is hard but make it you must. Yeah or nea, your answer must be given.
Their insistence tires him. What do you want from me?
Your king is dying. How would you restore the balance of the world? Would you allow Albion and all the rest to fall? Or would you sacrifice your Magic to restore your King?
He shakes his head. My magic is gone.
What do you say?
I would.
With a sigh he slips away into nothing at all, the world trembles and the eyes of Emrys close for forever.
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The next time he wakes he is lying on something soft and elevated. He doesn't understand. The cave is all he remembers. The crystals. He turns his head away from the wind, blinded by whatever shines upon him from that direction. The crystals had never glowed this brightly. His ears pick up the sound of something dripping and he wonders if he's bleeding again.
He blinks rapidly as his darkened eyes adjust to the newly discovered brilliance. He sees a square hole in the wall – a window – his mind supplies. The dripping comes from there. Rain.
Sun.
Curious he lifts his head slightly in attempt to catch better sight of the millions of liquid diamonds clinging to every surface. Farther above him than he could ever have imagined a blue ceiling stretches across the world. Sky.
Scared suddenly, of the bigness suggested by that word, he turns back to the lower ceiling above him. In one corner something hangs weaving delicate strands of grey fiber. Spider. Web.
Footsteps that are not his own thud against the hollow floor outside this room. Wooden steps, his mind supplies. A visitor.
The -door- opens and then a voice calls out from somewhere below. It closes again. His curiosity peaks mutely. Should he attempt to follow? He slides out from under the rough blanket and pads softly across the wooden boards. Another door slams in the next room. He enters.
The crystal catches his attention first. It is polished and tied to a handle with twine. Not one of his crystals. Next to it is a-a book. To be read. About herbs or magic or perhaps armor. You have read books before. He wonders if he still can but his eyes move on, traveling over glass jars filled with powders and medicines. He knows what each one does and how to prepare it. That he doesn't remember the source of his knowledge doesn't bother him. It doesn't occur to him to fear it.
Across the room and out the second door. He stuffs his hands behind his back. The world is already too bright, to colorful and full of sounds and smells that he knows and does not know. It is overwhelming.
In the hallways he passes others. They stop and stare at him. Some smile. Some are afraid. He wonders why but does not ask. He is going somewhere important. They do not matter.
His feet know the path like his eyes had known the sun and the spider. It is a knowledge beyond his ability to remember, meaning that it is knowledge of the world beyond the cave. He wonders briefly why the crystals had given him this knowledge and then wonders why it matters.
His feet take him to the entrance of another room. He pushes open one of the ornate double doors without knocking. If asked he wouldn't have remembered why he should knock. If he had remembered he wouldn't have knocked anyways. The action alerts the person inside to his presence. They stand.
At first the man simply looks at him and he stares back. The other man is tall and well muscled, though not quite as tall as himself. His blond hair and blue eyes complete a framework in his mind. A face connects with a name slipping around the perimeter of crystalline thoughts.
"Arthur. You are Arthur."
They are the first words he's spoken since he can remember. His tongue feels encumbered by the syllables. His throat vibrates uneasily with the sound.
Arthur doesn't move but he smiles. "Thank you."
He doesn't understand what those words mean. He says as much. The crystals try to tell him something but his unease closes off the natural flow of information.
Arthur fills in for him instead. "It means that I know now, Merlin. It means that you don't have to hide ever again."
Somehow he realizes that he's not been given a definition of unfamiliar vocabulary but rather an explanation. A gift.
He apologizes. "I don't know you. I don't know what that means."
Arthur frowns and that is a much more comfortable communication. "Are you allright?"
More words. "I- I don't know."
He looks down to see if the answers come to him any more easily when he's not matching gazes with Arthur's knowing eyes.
"Merlin?"
He looks out the window. He doesn't know what to do next. The crystals are silent for now.
"Ah- Emrys?"
There it is again. The source of his uncomfortableness. He shakes his head.
"No. I am not Emrys." The crystals chime from somewhere in the distance and the echo resonates within his skull. He learns more. Tell Arthur. He tries. "Emrys is dead. He… restored the world? Balance. A life for a life. Magic for King…. but what king?"
The last question he asks directly of Arthur. The blue eyes close as if the soul behind them is trying to hide.
"You don't really remember any of this, do you Merlin?"
Finally. A question he can answer without doubt. "No."
Arthur nods, once shakily, twice firmly. "Allright. Allright. That's ok."
A faintly remembered pull urges him to comfort the man. The urge is remembered without the crystals this time and somehow that makes it more real, more true.
"I- If you want to you can tell me. That way I would remember."
Arthur shakes his head. "Gaius said you should be allowed to remember on your own."
Merlin shrugs. "I don't think it matters. I don't think I'm supposed remember what Emrys did."
This time Arthur moves to grip his arms. "But it does matter." The emotion in the man's voice catches Merlin off guard. "It wasn't just Emrys who saved me from my enemies and myself alike. It wasn't just Emrys who befriended the entirety of Camelot. It wasn't just destiny. It was Merlin too."
Arthur's conviction stirs something within him. A brief displacement of colors and words sends a scene blossoming across his senses.
A bright crowded square. Arthur standing in front of him ringed by knights.
"I'd never have a friend who could be such an ass."
The bedroom. Arthur angrily turning on him. "Who are you to tell me what I'm thinking?"
His own reply. "I'm your friend."
The present replaces what he can only assume was the past. He shakes his head again. "No. Merlin died long before Emrys did." Of that he is certain.
Angrily, Arthur denies this and demands proof that he cannot give. "You are Merlin. Magic or no magic. Don't you dare tell me everything was a lie. Don't you dare pretend that you weren't the idiot I know you were. I don't know what happened during the battle. I don't know who you think you are now, but the past was real. You were real."
The impassioned argument elicits no response. Merlin is numb. He feels as if his soul doesn't really belong here, or as if he had been torn away from his moorings and left to drift on a calm sea. He wants to say that he doesn't know anything, but that's not really what he means. He may not be able to find the wound but something is missing and without it he feels like an amputee, stranger in his own body. You were real, Arthur insists.
"Was I?"
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