Merlin hurried through the war camp, carrying medical supplies double time into the tents where men were being patched back together like half-finished-not-quite-dead-yet Frankenstein projects. Blood stained everything and the scent was thick in the air, accompanied by the scents of antiseptic, burned flesh and the dearly departed. Despite this the entire camp felt alive. The Allies were closing in on Hitler and Germany's defeat was inevitable. The dying and living both were waiting with baited breath for the end of the war.
Merlin wheeled the supplies over to the head doctor and began to distribute the bandages and bottles of antiseptic to the nurses and other practitioners. He was desperate for this war of wars to end, too many of his loved ones were a part of it. Arthur, Gwaine and Lancelot had been at the front constantly while Morgana worked behind enemy lines leaving Merlin and Gwen behind in the trenches to wait and watch for the end when god willing all would be as it should, with them together still.
Merlin was frantic today, this last attack was meant to be the last of the war, a decisive end but it was close, so close. Every time that the others were reborn Merlin remained and over centuries of practice, of watching them die and waiting for their rebirth, Merlin had developed an inner timer, this timer was right almost to the day and it was nearing the end of this cycle now. Soon, soon someone he loved would die and the wheels would begin to turn again.
He worked like a maniac in the medical wing to distract himself from his thoughts, cruel and dark as they were. He loved all of his friends, really he did, but these feelings had gradually crept into his heart over the last few centuries, during the last few cycles of death and rebirth. Every time he felt their time together coming to an end he found himself wishing, pleading and hoping against hope that Arthur would last the longest, that the first to die would be someone, anyone else but his prince of Avalon. And they were close, so close that he could almost taste it, so strong and so close a feeling that his heart felt as though it had already left his chest and was beating from some frenzied future he could not see, only feel.
Suddenly the radio began screaming static at them as the long awaited message came over the air waves, "Germany has surrendered!" Amidst the cheers and screams of joy Merlin felt something snap, the inner timer chimed once, the first of many had gone.
Arthur was dead.
In that moment, that horrible silence after the toll, Merlin felt his heart rip asunder. He had tried so hard to hold the love of centuries, to stretch his love across the ages and reach into the future that he had not noticed the signs: the fraying at the edges the long thin threads flying away in the wind and the deep darkness within; the creeping despair that had never spread its wings until now.
The hopelessness and loneliness of waiting for centuries for his loved ones stretched ahead of the wizard, a dark expanse that went on and on and on. Once it had been passable but now it is an endless trench in front of Merlin that he would never see the end of. The moments he would have with Lancelot, Gwaine, Morgana, Gwen and Arthur were bright stepping stones in that darkness but now they were too far apart, like the distances between stars, and where before he could see their light and wait for them to come his way now all he could see was the empty spaces between.
In that instant his magic was under his control for once and not the other way round. Unable to escape the pull of the future he shattered like glass, reflecting the world and all its facets like crystal.