To tell you the truth, the absolute truth and nothing but merlin missed his old life
He missed...
Oh, there was so much, he missed... waking up in his small wooden home surrounded by thrush and chaffinch, feeding the robins the hard ends of the bread his mother made with what they had to hand. Bathing in the river with will, it was so cold. The water, clear glassy and clean but oh so cold just like his favorite days when the air was so clear and fresh and he gulped it down like a starving man in a red land of worn down stones and harsh never ending summer. They would laugh and splash at each-other and it was as close to love Merlin had ever been- except this was a different sort of love, love for a friend Love for a brother. Love for a comrade .. jeweled tears slipped down his face like satin, tasting of salt water from the sea, the oh so blue sea and he was reminded of the sky so clear, not even the sheep dared mar the perfect surface he glimpsed through wispy hushing branches as there was a susseration, will liked that word and so did he. Merlin liked it very much, it reminded him of grass swishing in a windy field he remembered when he and will had rolled in it like a greedy man gold , running through the scratchy wheat as old men Simmins chased them away with fair warning even when they'd only come for an escape.
One day Merlin found a hawk,Archimedes he called it, he had a funny squinty eye and a broken wing but Merlin didn't care, he loved him like a mother would a babe and so will had invented their favorite childhood taunt then and there declaring Merlin the ultimate "mother hen" for miles around. But it didn't matter. For all his words will was the one who helped Merlin wash the wounds and being the older of the two and a country boy found the herbs that saved him, Merlin remembered the day Archimedes left him, it was the day he learnt what the word forlorn truly meant or sorrow, sorrow. It tasted like tears on his tongue sweeping low drooping branches like a willow weeping Merlin thought weeping willow sounded back to front will agreed, big fat tears from the sky dripping slowly down the hunched sciloette crying literal rivers in its sorrow.
Merlin remembered it very clearly he was inside hanging over the windowsill as his mother made porridge waving the sticky spoon at him every once and a while when he got too close to dropping out of it, it was one of those moments you cant replace, when your mother isn't paying attention and the wind blows and somewhere in the world something shifted, Merlin was laughing The sky was full of cotton , overcast and heavy, and the forest was like a crowd of twigs or upside down saplings stuffed into the earth by moody giants, Archimedes was cawing flapping his wings and Merlin was hanging out of the window . his eyes sparkled with joy in the form of liquidized gold as small updrafts splayed the hawks wings and thrust him upwards into the sky, he beat his wings for the first time in months and Merlin kneeled where he'd fallen hands pawing at the cill as bright blue eyes seeped liquid onto the rough dull wood, Archimedes was just one small dot in a painting, getting smaller , he gave a little grateful caw ending in a screech and turned as if waving,
Merlin never saw Archimedes again.
But he never forgot, he laughed about it now because he knew it in his bones that his dear old friend was out there somewhere- just as he knew it in his bones that will was dead and was never coming back. He remembered fondly those days and held them close to his chest like pearls glistening from the sea. and he would never let them go.
