The sound of waves lapping gently over rocks, swelling and receding. The warmth of the sun. These were the first sensations Arthur perceived. He was comfortable, as though floating, and wanted nothing more than to remain in this place halfway between reality and unconsciousness. But the more he struggled to return to sleep, the faster the world pieced itself together in his senses. He could feel his chainmail cold, damp, and heavy about him; could smell the moss and sand; the sunlight pried its fingers against his eyelids.
This was not how he should be waking up. Where was his bed? His chambers? Merlin pulling open the curtains with that years-old greeting of, "Gooooooood morning, sire!" ?
With that realization, his eyes opened, and Arthur stared in confusion at the blue sky overhead. Hazy white clouds drifted over it in a slow wind, and judging by the sun's location, it was already afternoon. A small bird, indistinct but as a black silhouette, lazily traversed the sky.
Arthur sat up, and he came face-to-face with a lake. Wind brushed wrinkles over the water's dark surface, and in the center was a low, green island, speckled by grey ruins – little more than blocks and stones. The chill waves lapped at Arthur's feet, filling and emptying his boots.
Camelot's regent wanted to say that he knew this place, but the most he could say was that it resembled his kingdom's Avalon. The Lake of Avalon was surrounded by a great forest, while this place was not; the island at its center, too, was but a benevolent shadow of the Isle of the Blessed.
Similarities aside, his armor was water-heavy from shoulder to foot, and his feet were still submerged, meaning Arthur must have washed up out of this lake. Just where was he, and how had he gotten here?
Arthur dragged himself with his arms further onto the shore before turning onto his knees and pushing shakily to his feet. It took a full minute before he trusted his legs to support him.
This was bad, and it was getting worse by the second. Here he was, in an unfamiliar place, with no memories of how he had gotten here, and lacking the strength to defend himself. Reflexively, his right hand sought the pummel of Excalibur at his hip, only to grasp at air. Panic filled his chest, squeezing his heart. He looked down, disbelieving his grip, but his eyes told him the same story – his sword was gone.
He immediately cast his eyes about the shore, not wanting to think that it might be somewhere at the bottom of this lake, gone forever. Then… there! Gleaming in the sunlight, it lay only a few meters from where Arthur had washed up. He stumbled toward it, thanking every god he knew for the miracle, and plucked it from the rocks. Water droplets ran down the blade, dripping onto his hand. Arthur held it aloft, looking at his face in the reflection on the metal, and he had the strange impression of a long time having passed since he had seen his own image. His face was both familiar and unfamiliar, but he knew the blonde hair and blue eyes from years of owning them and quieted the uneasy feeling. Sighing, he lowered the blade, already feeling better with it in his grasp.
Arthur used the tip of Excalibur as a walking staff as he shuffled away from the lake into the woods nearby. When he judged himself secluded, he slumped against a tree trunk to rest. Quickly, he removed his boots, draining the water out of them. He needed to get out of these wet clothes soon, before sickness set in. With the last of his energy, Arthur removed his gloves, unbuckled his gauntlets, unstrapped his breastplate, and pulled his chainmail over his head, all the while wishing Merlin was about to do it for him. Where was Merlin, anyway? It was not usual for them to be separated like this.
As he stripped to his undergarments, Arthur could not suppress the worry fluttering in his heart for his manservant. What did it mean that they were separated? Just what had happened? He was obviously forgetting something important, but it felt like something more than that. There was something he desperately needed to remember.
Regrettably, he was without his flint and tender, but he managed to build a fire all the same. It was soon burning brightly, and he arranged his armor about it. He grabbed for his chainmail but paused when his fingers slipped through a hole in the links. Curious, he held the chainmail up and observed that there was a hole just below where his heart would sit. Arthur felt suddenly short of breath. He had been stabbed.
At once, the memories came flooding back to him – of Camlann, of Mordred, of Morgana, of Merlin. Arthur had not just been stabbed, he had been dying, and Merlin – who was a sorcerer – had dragged him across the kingdom for two days trying to save his life. Had they made it in time?
Moisture pricked at his eyes. He could still see Merlin's face above him, wet with tears and filled with despair; he could even feel ghosts of the drops that had fallen on his face from those weeping blue eyes.
They must have made it in time – after all, he was here, alive. So, where was Merlin?
He could not believe his friend would make such a journey to save him only to abandon him once the spell was achieved. Something must have happened, then.
Arthur wanted nothing more than to rush off into the woods, shouting his manservant's name, but he was not sure he had even the strength to stand. He supposed nearly dying had a way of taking it out of a person. As much as he desired to search for Merlin, he would have to rest a while longer, let his clothes dry, ensure that Merlin's journey had not been for nothing. He would not survive such an ordeal only to beckon death again with his own stupidity.
As his clothes dried, he stared into the flames, trying to quiet his thoughts. It occurred to him that a fire would quickly attract the attention of any Saxons prowling the area; then again, it might also lead Merlin to him. His eyes began to drift shut, and he did not realize as he fell to sleep again.
Arthur awoke with the dawn. The fire was nothing more than cool ash, and his skin, though dry, felt cold and stiff. His stomach immediately grumbled to alert him that he had not eaten in two days, and had not eaten well in at least five. If he did not find Merlin soon, he would have to start looking for food instead. He could hear the taunts already – how Merlin would accuse him of caring more about his stomach that the man who had saved his life!
He dressed quickly, relieved that his muscles were cooperating with him today. The armor stunk of algae and sweat, but it would have to do, until he could find Merlin and have him clean it all.
The king, pulling on his last glove, paused at that thought. After finding out that Merlin was a sorcerer – a powerful one, who had saved not only his life but the entire kingdom – could Arthur really expect him to continue a life of servitude? To hell with his words about being born to serve Arthur; obviously he was just being the same overly humble idiot as always, accustomed to receiving no rewards. Of course Arthur could not ask him to continue being his servant. He would have to be made Court Sorcerer.
Another thought that made him pause. If Merlin's magic was acknowledged in Camelot, wouldn't that mean Arthur had to repeal the ban against magic?
It did.
The king laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. Extraordinary relief washed his limbs, as though a great burden had been lifted from him, one he had been carrying his entire life. He knew what it was – the burden of his father's Purge, the curse that had begun this cycle of hatred within the kingdom. It would finally end, and Arthur would end it.
He needed to find Merlin, now, and tell him the news!
"Come on, you idiot," he growled at the trees. "Where are you?"
In a few minutes, Arthur stumbled out of the woods and into an open field. Low stone walls stretched across it, clearly dividing it into plots, through which carved a path peculiarly black in color. A herd of sheep wandered over the grass. Only patches of trees were visible in the distance, where Arthur expected to see lush forest.
Then, there were towering wooden posts protruding from the ground, with metal hooks at the top, across which were draped long, tarred ropes. These constructions stretched as far as the eye could see, from one end of the field to the other.
Arthur could not remember seeing any such place in Camelot or in any part of Albion he had visited in his life. He wondered just where he could be and if he even remained in the five kingdoms. Despite the forest at his back, he felt exposed.
There was nothing for it. He would have to try the road and see if it led him to any villages where he could collect information. Perhaps he could even find Merlin there, gathering supplies or finding shelter.
The road, it seemed, was made of a continuous, tough, gray rock, one that Arthur could not identify. It was certainly not a building technique he had ever seen before, but it was one of which he could immediately see the benefits – no slurries of mud and dangerous holes created by rainstorms, for example. Depending on where this rock came from and how expensive it would be to obtain, Arthur would have to consider employing it in Camelot.
He walked along the road for several minutes, more unnerved by the second. Then, he heard a roaring in the distance, approaching at a great speed. Looking behind him, Arthur spotted a great, colorful beast plowing up the path, and he quickly jumped into the grass to hide from it. As the 'creature' came closer, though, Arthur realized it was not actually a living thing. It had four wheels like a wagon, and it was covered in glass windows. In fact, Arthur could spot the figure of a person sitting inside of it. The only question was, how was it moving? There were no horses pulling it, so it must have been magic.
It was too late to find a place to hide in this flat and featureless field; Arthur could only watch with dread as the enchanted wagon slowed to a halt beside him, growling low and deep. One of the windows disappeared, and a man's face appeared from behind it.
"Jus' come from a renaissance festival, didja?" he said. "Nice suit."
Ignoring the fact that, while this stranger spoke Arthur's language, Arthur did not understand most of what he said, the king ventured to say, "I'm afraid that I'm… a bit lost. Can you direct me to the nearest village?"
"I can do you better than that, mate. Hop in."
Warily, Arthur approached the wagon, while the driver leaned to the other side and pushed a door open. "Door's a bit wonky, but she should close jus' fine. Come on, then!"
Arthur sat down carefully inside the body of the enchanted wagon, mindful of his sword, and he pulled the door closed after him. As soon as he did so, the wagon rumbled into motion again; from somewhere within its interior, the king realized there was music playing, a stringed folk song with raucous singers.
"Really is a fine suit," the driver said, eyes on the road. "Especially like the sword. Where'd joo buy it?"
Arthur fingered his hilt protectively. "It was my heritage."
"Right on. I'll have you know, I collect weapons. Kind of my hobby, guess you could call it. Don't suppose I could buy yours off a ya?"
"I doubt you could name a price that would make me part with this sword," Arthur replied carefully.
"I hear you, mate. No harm askin', though, is there? Tell me, waz your name, anyway?"
"Arthur."
"Nice ta meet ya, Arthur," the driver said, extending his right hand under his left arm, which was holding a wheel to apparently direct the vehicle. "I'm Ralph, but my friends call me Ralphie."
Arthur accepted the handshake. "It is good to meet you, Ralph. Thank you for carrying me."
"Don' mention it! I rather like picking up the occasional hitchhiker. I know, I know, they say it's not a good idea anymore, pick up all sorts of unsavory folk, but I've had nothing but good times meeting new people on the road. Make a lot of friends that way."
"Do you travel often?" said Arthur. He was still unused to the mode of transportation, but he was beginning to feel comfortable in this man's company; he did not seem to be a threat but instead was a simple-minded and good-hearted fellow. Arthur took a moment to look closer at the man's appearance. He seemed no older than Arthur; scrawny, like Merlin, with a shock of orange hair and a beard to match. He was clean, and he wore tight blue pants and a loose red jacket unlike any Arthur had seen before.
"For me job, you see. I'm in the business of 'postal delivery'." He jabbed his thumb into the air, pointing into the back of the wagon. Arthur could see several burlap sacks, full to bursting with their contents.
"Right," Arthur said slowly, having no idea what a 'postal' was. Whatever it was, it was in those bags, and this man delivered it in various areas. Perhaps it was another magical contraption or ingredient. Sighing, he decided that he was farther from home than he had originally thought. Merlin. How dare you dump me in this place and abandon me?
"Do many people here have… erm, vehicles like yours?"
"Oh, this old girl?" Ralphie said, patting the wheel like Arthur might pat the rump of his horse. "I'd say most people have something a little newer, but she does me just fine. Aaaand, there she is! That's Leitchester, there, see?"
Arthur followed Ralphie's pointed finger through the window. Nestled in the valley ahead was a large village, a cluster of white, blue, grey, and red stone houses, between all of which ran the hard grey road. Even from this distance, Arthur could spot more of the strange, magicked wagons – it looked like nearly every person owned one.
Arthur's stomach chose that moment to growl, long and loud.
Ralphie laughed. "I know what you need, mate. There's a bloody good café here in Leitchester – you ever been?" Arthur shook his head. "Then I'll drop you off there, won't I?"
Merlin had been alive for one thousand seven hundred eighty three years. Days went by so quickly now that he could remember events from centuries ago better than he could remember the last week. The only reason he knew his age was that he made a point of tracking it; rather, he made a point of tracking the number of years since his king had died. It was a number that filled him with hopelessness as it grew ever larger, but it also connected him very pointedly to his past. This number was one of the few tokens he still had from those days, and whenever he began to doubt that Camelot had been, he could look at his calendars and know that Camelot existed in time, if it no longer did in space.
He had done many things in his long lifetime. At first he merely remained in Camelot, aging himself as his friends aged, advising the kingdom on how to return sorcery to the land, always keeping his immortality a secret. Then, everyone he knew died, and Camelot's new king had not been so fond of sorcery. Merlin watched as that man's kingdom fell to the Anglo-Saxons, leaving the citadel as nothing but ruins.
For years afterward, Merlin lived in a little house near Avalon, waiting and watching for the prophesied return of his king. Decades passed, and history moved about him, and no matter the horrors wreaked in Albion, Arthur did not return.
Merlin was at first afraid to move too far away from Avalon, never knowing when Arthur might appear. But, as the centuries passed, he grew in his despair and restlessness, and every now and then he would leave the country for a few months. The world was a big place then, and the new discoveries he made every day abroad made life back then bearable, if not happy.
Then, the continent-wide purging of witches and warlocks came about, and Merlin sunk again into seclusion. He did not fear for his life, but he was saddened by the meaningless deaths surrounding him and could not bear witness to them. The earth cried out in pain; it cried in his very blood.
Since those times, when the world entered the modern age of science, as it was called – there was hardly any magic left. In the recesses of ancient forests, there still dwelled fantastic creatures, and in small covens, witches and warlocks continued to practice their diluted forms of magic. The truth was, however, that the age of magic had ended. Despite everything he and Arthur had worked for, it had been driven to extinction; and even seventeen hundred years later, nations had not found peace.
When travel lost its luster, Merlin moved permanently into his house near the lake. He changed his appearance and took on odd jobs, content to lead a quiet life in a small village, where people had few worries other than leaving that town and putting food on the table.
His current guise was of a young man called George. He had reached the end of his 'life', so he faked an old man's death and arrived again in the village shortly afterward, pretending to be his own nephew, there to take care of the house. George was roughly eighteen, fresh out of school, with the ambition to be a painter, although somewhat lacking in the skills. His magic made it easy enough to forge the papers.
Merlin did not know why he was still alive. He once thought he was made immortal to wait for the return of the Once and Future King, but he had waited for nearly two thousand years, and Arthur was not here. If only Arthur came back, he thought, perhaps then he would finally be allowed to die.
Then again, since he was the embodiment of magic, maybe he merely needed to wait for magic to completely leave the world, and then he could leave it, too. Only, the earth itself overflowed with untapped, natural magic, the same that continued to flow strong within Merlin, a magic that would never die, even when no one practiced it. In that terrible, terrible case, Merlin would never be allowed to die.
About two hundred years ago, he resigned himself to that fact and several others, including the idea that Arthur may never return and he had lived for centuries by this lake for nothing. He did not even know that was where Arthur would reappear, or if Arthur would return in the same form he wore in life. But, it was the only lead Merlin had, and it was the last place they had seen each other.
By resigning himself to these facts, he was able to purge some of the sorrow and hopelessness from his bones. He made a point of focusing on the people he met over the years and not on himself, though at the same time not becoming too close to them, not wanting to renew the sense of loss he had felt so strongly in the past.
He got up and left the house everyday because, if he stopped, he knew he would never leave it again.
George had applied for a job at the café, brewing and serving coffee beverages and waiting tables. Leitchester was a small town, so besides the occasional passerby, the café hosted the same patrons every day. Merlin easily memorized their orders and quickly became one of the most efficient and polite employees the manager had ever hired. He bragged that he should have known, given George's uncle.
Today was busier than usual. The good weather must have lured the townsfolk from their houses. Being summer break, the young people of Leitchester had little else to do besides eat pastries and take advantage of the café's free WiFi. They huddled quietly in the back of the shop, headphones dangling from their ears in a variety of colors, fingers swiftly sliding over their laptops, electric blue screens reflected in their eyes. Farther toward the front, the retired folk had set up, the ladies with their knitting and several of Merlin's old chess buddies. "George" periodically brought them coffee, so unobtrusively that the patrons went unconsciously through cup after cup, earning his manager many a pretty coin. Merlin's coworker, a blonde girl called Tilly, tried to do the same with the biscuits, with varied levels of success.
The tables quickly filled up, and the other customers were forced to take their coffee and free time elsewhere, resulting in a constant stream of bodies in and out of the door. Every time it opened, a small bell would jangle against the wood; and today, it did so as much as to have a private musical show.
Around noon, Merlin was busy pouring a fresh pot of coffee into several cups on a tray of saucer plates for the knitting gaggle, when he heard the jingle of the bell and a set of strangely metallic-sounding footsteps enter the café. He shrugged, assuming it was another teenager with chains looped about their pants, as though that were supposed to make them look threatening. He treated his customers impartially, no matter how much he wanted to buy them new wardrobes, and he planted a smile on his face before turning over his shoulder to call out, "Just a min…ute…"
The pot slipped through his fingers, bounced off the edge of the counter, and shattered against the floor, splattering the area with scalding coffee and broken glass. He hardly registered the burns on his legs, which his magic began to heal immediately, nor did he hear the shout from the manager in the kitchen.
Because, standing twenty feet from him, in full armor, was Arthur Pendragon.
"Arthur," he whispered.
The young king had heard the crash and was squinting at the coffee-splattered person behind the counter. "Merlin?" he accused, stomping across the room, chain- and plate-mail chinking and clanking with every movement. "Where have you been? I have been looking everywhere for you!"
Tilly was tugging at his sleeve. "George, you alright? You know this guy?" Merlin could not breathe, let alone respond to her.
Arthur stopped at the counter, placed his fists on his hips, and grinned at the scrawnier man. "Come on then, let's hear it." Merlin did nothing but gape, tears filling his distressed eyes. Arthur's grin faded. "Merlin?"
At that moment, the manager squeezed between them, stepping carefully around the glass. He eyed Arthur up and down and said, "I'm so sorry, sir, we'll be just one moment. George, are you alright?"
The manager had to shake Merlin's shoulder roughly before he would respond. He blinked and said, "Oh…" His eyes took in the glass and spilled coffee at his feet. "Yeah." Then they returned to Arthur; Merlin was almost surprised when the king did not vanish into a puff of smoke during the few seconds Merlin's eyes left him. Could this be real? Was he dreaming?
The manager noticed Merlin's gaze and looked between the two. "George, do you need to go? I can have Tilly take over for the afternoon."
Merlin shook his head slowly, untying his apron from his neck and pressing it into the manager's arms. "I'm sorry, Mr. Stone, but I think I quit." Not taking his eyes off of Arthur, Merlin came out from behind the counter, ignoring the manager's cries of "George!" He stood in front of Arthur, staring intently into the ever more bewildered face.
"Is it really you?"
A/N: After carefully considering the advice of my coworker in Japan ("Enjoy your summer! Don't worry about teaching until you get here!"), I've decided to enjoy my summer by writing copious amounts of Merlin fanfiction. As the young people say (this author is 22 but has the disposition an old person) - YOLO! So, I'll post all five of my ongoing stories and write for all of them. (I'll do a cycle: NMR - Se edhwierft - EatFK - Castle of Arden - Zombies in Camelot - rinse and repeat). Then, when I get buried under the 10 feet of Hokkaido snow this winter, I'll pick them up again. I can't believe I'm moving somewhere that gets 25 ft of snow per year... How exciting!
Some notes about this story: Unlike most of my stories, this is neither a reveal fic or written solely from Arthur's PoV. It's refreshing! I know this premise has been tackled a hundred times already, but the existing stories have never satisfied me. I hope this story can be a new and creative take on an old idea.
The town I've placed Merlin near, Leitchester, is entirely fictional. I named it knowing the Old English word "ceaster" means "town". That's the whole story. As for British-English, please forgive me if I entirely butcher the dialect. I'm modeling their speech after what I know from watching the BBC, Doc Martin, and research on Wikipedia.
This story is a big one. If the "Once" of Arthur's story was the entirety of the Merlin series, by my reasoning the "Future" should be just as prolific. We'll have mini-arcs, new and important OCs, and the big goal that Arthur and Merlin will be driven toward. Expect many, many chapters.
Next time: Arthur and Merlin have their first conversation in seventeen hundred years.
