Of Idiots and Prats
Q sighed. It was really too bad that Jean-Luc didn't remember, but then, he always had been a prat.
"Q, what are you doing in my ready room?" Picard snapped. "Get out."
"I think not," the alien responded, glaring at Picard with ancient eyes. "You really have no idea, do you?"
"How am I supposed to know why you're in my ready room? Do I look like Counselor Troi?" Picard glared back.
This battle of wills they had fought for centuries, and it really was getting rather tiresome. Perhaps it was time that Picard remembered, after all.
"For once in your existence, will you stop being such a prat?" Q replied, and snapped his fingers.
Picard gasped as the memories flooded into his mind of a time long, long ago. "Q…what have you done?"
"Jean-Luc, I have only reminded you of who you really are. It's time you knew. I was your friend, you know. I still am."
The Captain wasn't listening. He was seeing impossible images of a castle, knights with gleaming chainmail and shining swords, of fire-breathing dragons swooping down, of horses and a lovely queen, and pulling a sword out of a stone.
"Q," Jean-Luc exclaimed. "No, it's not possible, I couldn't have been him!"
The alien grinned then, and it was the same familiar goofy grin that he'd had millennia ago, whilst tripping over his gangly teenage legs on the cobblestone paths or carrying laundry down the stairs.
"You were him, Jean-Luc. And it's high time you knew."
The Starfleet Captain looked stunned. "Merlin?!"
Q bowed with a flourish and his image transformed into that of the young warlock. "Of course. It was always me, and always will be me."
"How…"
"What do you think happens to someone when they're a creature of the Old Religion, with magic running through their veins? What do you think happens to them in the end? How do you think the Q were born? Throughout the universe, on different planets, there always have been people like me, Jean-Luc. Beings as old as time, with pure energy flowing through them…we don't just grow old and die, you know. We become part of the universe. It's part of us, you see."
Jean-Luc raised an eyebrow. "You could have told me years ago. Idiot."
"Prat." Merlin grinned.
The End