I'm still not dead. I still plan on updating an actual story someday. My brain currently thinks in one-shots. I didn't even think of this; this just happened. Sudden inspiration before posting tells me this someday might have a happier companion. Also, it is two in the morning. I feel like I should be more tired than this.
As always, enjoy.
Ask ev'ry person if he's heard the story, and tell it strong and clear if he has not, that once there was a fleeting wisp of glory called Camelot.
"Finale Ultimo," from Camelot
Sometimes it all weighs down on him when he's lying in bed at night and can't sleep. He stares at the ceiling and tries not to panic, because he knows all too well that he could die at any moment, this one included, and that's not even what haunts him most.
No, dying isn't quite what makes the walls seem to press in around him and turn his world into a tiny box sans breathing room. He isn't afraid of not existing, even though his brain can't bring itself to wrap around that concept.
He has his destiny, and most of the time it's what keeps him going. Every breath is a breath breathed for Arthur Pendragon, the golden king who will bring about the dawn of a new era, the dawn of Albion. Camelot will shine like a beacon for all to see, and bards will sing songs of glory and beauty until their voices become dry and cracked.
Merlin, or maybe Emrys, will be at King Arthur's side. The servant, or maybe the warlock, will stand tall and proud with his friend, and the very heavens will flood them with a light even brighter than what shines on their beloved kingdom, because they'll be like gods staring down on their creation.
Albion will be magnificent.
But Merlin knows - and sometimes, it's all he can think about - that for as long as King Arthur and Camelot and Albion might shine, they will still crumble. The bards will stop singing; the words will fade with time. Camelot will fall, and in Albion's place, something new will rise, never to equal what once was.
People will forget. He will have spent a lifetime creating perfection, and everyone who lives it will swear Camelot was the brightest star ever to shed its light on the world, but when it dims, there will be no one left to remember the greatest king who ever lived, much less the peasant boy at his right hand.
It's this that threatens and suffocates him when his mind has nowhere else to run. Someday, everything will be nothing.
He knows in the morning he will wake and find this path still worth trodding. He will look at his king and invision the day that he leads the Five Kingdoms to unity and victory. He won't be able to fight the grin when he thinks of what is yet to come, when magic is free and the secrets will be over and destiny will at last be complete.
But for the moment, he can only see the darkness that comes after.
Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot."
"Finale Ultimo"
