Dear Dollophead….
A/N: This is based on some pictures I found on pinterest. I think they originally came from tumblr? Anyway, go check them out. They are really sad and beautiful. I cried for a lot of them. Enjoy this! Or not, I don't mind. The first chapter is more from Arthur's point of view.
One.
Arthur woke, gasping, in a field of wildflowers. He ran his hands frantically over the wound on his side….only to find no wound at all. He wasn't even tired. He was also not wearing his armor. The shirt he was wearing reminded him of the one he'd worn before going on that quest to find the Fisher King's trident. The trousers were black velvet. He wore no shoes. He sat up, perplexed. He was also pretty sure the sky wasn't supposed to look like the bottom of a clear lake. He stood up, tracking the progress of a boat across the surface of the….sky? Lake bottom? He watched as it was set aflame, as it was consumed and became ash. Then he saw him. Merlin. God, he looked awful. As if one of his best friends had just….oh. Right. He remembered that bit now.
He watched Merlin fling a sword into the water. Excalibur. Somehow, Arthur caught it. He saw Merlin smile a little at that and walk away.
"Wait! Merlin! Merlin, you idiot, turn around!"
"He can't hear ya, Queenie. I've tried, too. We all have."
Arthur whirls around, "GWAINE?! How the hell did you get here?" Gwaine gives him a sad smile. Arthur notices they are wearing much the same clothes. Others are standing behind Gwaine: Elyan, Balinor the Dragonlord, a strange druid girl who looks vaguely familiar wearing a tattered red dress, Arthur's mother-oh, god his mother, that lad from Ealdor named Will, Lancelot, Mordred. That last one gives him pause-didn't Mordred murder him?-but then Gwaine says something that he was desperately trying to ignore.
"We died, mate. All of us."
"Hang on, what is this place? Where are we?"
"Avalon," the druid girl replies.
"Who are you?" Arthur asks, perplexed.
The girl smiles, "the Sidhe call me the Lady of the Lake, or Niniane. Merlin knew me as Freya. I'd think you would've remembered me, though." There is a heavy pause, a thick tension. "You killed me, after all."
Arthur takes a long time to forgive himself for so thoroughly messing with everyone's lives, but he eventually musters the courage to ask forgiveness; only to find out that they forgave him long ago and were just waiting for him to realize it.
Gwen comes to the lake sometimes, dressed all in black, begging for him to return because she needs him. Because Merlin needs him. Merlin never comes to the lake.
The next to join their number is Gaius. This is also the first time any of them have seen Merlin since the day Arthur died. If Arthur thought his friend looked bad before, he looks practically dead on his feet now. The poor man appears as though he hasn't slept or eaten in months. He drops to his knees heavily on the gravelled shore, and whispers only a few words.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't save him, Arthur. Just like I couldn't save you."
When Merlin comes back nearly a year later, he looks a bit healthier, though there are tears on his face. Hunith has just joined them in Avalon, and this is also when Arthur learns that Balinor was Merlin's father. Merlin is angry now, screaming his voice hoarse, ripping branches and bark off trees, hurling stones into the water. Sending fireballs scorching through the clearing with a flash of gold and single word. It is terrifying, and terribly heart-breaking. Hunith weeps for her son, and Balinor tries yelling back at him even though he knows it won't do any good.
The rest join them over the years: first is Geoffrey, then Percival, then Leon, then Bedivere, Galahad, Kay, Bors, Geraint, and Gwen last of all. After the lighting of Guinevere's funeral pyre, they don't see Merlin again until they rise from the lake's waters. It is painful, the not knowing. Even more painful is the knowledge that Merlin has not aged since Arthur's death, even though Gwen looked to be in her seventies when she died. (Arthur is thankful her youth has returned to her upon entry into Avalon. Gwaine teases him mercilessly over this.)
When they find Merlin, he is wearing strange clothes, sporting a short scruffy beard, pointing some kind of weapon at them. There is no recognition in his eyes.
A/N: There is chapter one for y'all! Hope you like it. I shall be posting when I have the time between working on this and my other story, If You're Still Breathing, You're the Lucky Ones. Not gonna lie, I mostly started this to give my brain a break from trying to fix what I didn't like with my draft of the fourth chapter of that other story. Also, can someone help me figure out how to reply to review and/or PM people, as I'm fairly new to this site? Thanks!