"Do you believe this was meant to happen?"
Arthur's voice was low as the moon was that night. He and Merlin were out side in the rubble of the village streets looking around at the carnage. There was blood, people, burnt homes everywhere they looked. Merlin stopped at a little house that was now only a patch of hay; he saw something in the hay and bent over to retrieve it. It was a little wooden doll. The doll was splintered but seemed not to be touched at all like everything else Morgana, Morgues, and Mordred had hurt.
Merlin turned the doll over in his hand and his eyes melted yellow. The splintered pieces became whole again and he presented the doll to Arthur who looked at it sturdily as if he could see the owner in its widdled eyes.
Merlin looked back up to the castle and said to his friend, "Destiny is something no one knows, Arthur, but I imagine things happen for a reason."
Arthur frowned at the warlock and used his hand to motion around them, "You think this, this tragic event, was meant to happen, Merlin? People died to night, homes were lost, everything they worked for or lived for is lost to them. People won't know what to do. I don't even know where to begin."
" I'm not saying this is a good thing, Arthur , but maybe it was meant to happen to show us what it means to stand together. People have never been this happy when your father was king, and not many lives were lost thanks to you. So, destiny is a funny thing it's good or bad or sometimes both."
"When did you get so wise?" Arthur smarted back to Merlin. He received a smirk in answer. They were just heading back to the castle when a shriek of a little girl came from over the hill. The pair turned to it and saw a little girl running to them her hair mattered with soot.
She flung her self at Arthur and smiled at him while tugging at the doll. Arthur raised an eyebrow and held the doll out to her.
"Is this yours Annabelle?" he asked upon recognizing the butcher's daughter of six years.
Annabelle smiled a toothy grin and shook her head, "yes, Arthur , it's my doll I thought I lost her!"
Merlin chuckled and watched the scene as Arthur handed back her doll and talked with the little girl trying to find out were her parents were. They were at the castle like the rest.
Merlin was proud of Arthur because he was a great prince made unofficially king. He knew all the people by heart and never failed to help them out. In truth, he put them, his friends, and kingdom before himself. Merlin was also glad Arthur had accepted who he was and not like his father. He couldn't have a better friend.
As the pair walked back to the castle and to the people Merlin's thought of something, something he would tell Arthur much later in life, " if destiny was so easy then we wouldn't be alive. To live is to find and to find is to regain. You, Arthur, are who most people in the years to come will want to be. Your story will be told through time and time again. You, Arthur , are what made me live when I wanted to die from the hardness of it all. You, Arthur, are destiny to people, never forget that."
The funny thing is Arthur never did.
