A/N: HEY LOOK! TRANLAND DOES MERLIN, TOO!
You might not like me for this, because it's just a bunch of sadness and Merlin. Also this is my first posted fic for this goddamn show so don't kill me. Also,, I have other stuff in my writing folder, so just you wait! It's gonna be awesome, I promise. But yeah, this is depressing and idk where it came from. SORRY.
Merlin believed that his existence was some form of punishment. The cruelest form, in fact.
Every man desires eternal life. Merlin had seen thousands of attempts, and thousands of theories, and all at the same time has witnessed millions - no, billions - of deaths attempting to reach that unattainable goal, that horrible, grisly dream. Perhaps he thought of it that way because he had only ever focused on the dregs of humanity during his eternal walk around the earth. Surely if he had paid more attention to the brighter side of life, he wouldn't have turned out so terrifyingly bitter all the time.
Then again, the world was usually making a big fuss over the bad. Rarely would a ray of sunlight peek out from the ubiquitous, thunderous clouds of dismal news, but when they came Merlin would smile, for there weren't too many reasons for it.
That had been until the early nineteen hundreds, just a few years prior to the horrors of World War I. On a perfectly normal (and rather dreary, for it was the beginning in a long chain of absolutely rotten years) day, as Merlin took his normal walk past Avalon. He would make it every so often, although some years the pain of his destiny was worse than others, and he traveled abroad to lessen the crushing weight on his shoulders. On that particular day, however, his burden was not as difficult to shoulder as it normally was.
Of course, then he saw a young man's achingly familiar features, sitting by the side of the lake, watching over it calmly as Merlin's entire world stopped rotating and tilted on its axis.
Hey, he had learned a few things throughout the years. He wasn't stupid, as much as Arthur desired him to be. He knew, for a fact, that the earth rotated around the Sun. Gods, that had taken a while for the rest of the world to figure out.
The old (at that point young, since he enjoyed not having to constantly brush debris out of his hair) warlock made his way over to the golden head of hair and sat down beside him. Just as Merlin was about to open his mouth, and admit that hey, dollophead, I missed you, Arthur turned to look at him oddly. A horrible feeling of defeat sank down into Merlin's bones, but for some reason hope continued to plague him.
"Do I know you?" He asked, and despite the deceptively bright words, the sorcerer's hope very quickly deflated into a small puddle of horror and pain.
"No, I guess not," Merlin shrugged, keeping a careful eye out over the waters that he had watched religiously for about two hundred years, before his hatred had grown too strong within him.
"Cute," Arthur grinned cheekily, and somehow Merlin just knew that the next thing out of his mouth wouldn't be quite as endearing, "So why are you sitting next to me, like we're some kind of... talking buddies?"
"Oh, no offense sir," Merlin easily fell into the pattern that he had been sure was lost for so long, and to his surprise a small smile rippled across his face, just as the waters of Avalon rippled in the whispering wind of the autumn afternoon, "I would never want to be talking buddies with someone who was such a prat."
"I'll have you know, I'm the heir to Pendragon Industries," Arthur spat, chuckling at the warlock's poor choice of banter, "I could probably have you thrown in jail just for looking at me the wrong way."
So maybe a few things were different, but at least Arthur was still Arthur at his core.
And there they hit it off, talking to each other like... talking buddies. And gods, did they need a better word for that or what? It just sounded... well, stupid. Very stupid.
By the time the evening had grown cold, and the skies dark, Arthur and Merlin had indeed become rather solid friends. Merlin thanked his magic for that, and also the fact that Arthur had barely looked at him while they conversed. Merlin didn't need to explain why his eyes were flashing gold, not that soon in their relationship.
They had exchanged numbers, and Merlin was sure that soon his suffering would end. Arthur was back, he'd help the King get his memories to return, they'd save the day from whatever horrid threat arose, and then Merlin could die like any other mortal man. At least, that was what Merlin hoped.
It had been so long that the sorcerer only wished for death, it seemed.
And yet, the universe was always more cruel than it would lead you to believe.
After a few days of radio silence (and yet, the hope blossoming in his chest refused to die), Merlin had whistled his way out of his tiny flat (whistled, for god's sake) to get his newspaper. Maybe that day the front page wouldn't be about some bombing incident or what-have-you.
As his eyes scanned the large, bolded letters of the front page, his insides froze colder than the waters of Avalon.
PENDRAGON HEIR DEAD, it read. Merlin could no longer see the rest of his paper, since either his eyes were blurred with tears or he was just too numb to purposefully remember how to read letters. Both were plausible options, to be honest.
After a few hours of complete nervous system shutdown, he found the strength to read the condemning article:
Arthur Pendragon, heir to famous publishing company Pendragon Industries, was found dead on Sunday afternoon. Details are still not for public consumption, but from what the autopsy report allowed journalists to see, the enigmatic young entrepreneur was stabbed...
Merlin couldn't read any more of the piece. It burned his heart too much. In fact, he would admit to using magic to send his paper up in flames, if he didn't have to pay the cost for all the damages that inferno had caused.
After those blackened days, Merlin had decided to travel the world once more.
By the time he came back, World War I had ended and the stirrings of a strong young dictator by the name of Adolf Hitler were just starting to give England and France (and America, but they had sworn not to fight this time around) cause for alarm.
As Merlin shambled along the dusty road that led to the lake, he was distracted by flaming gold hair in the dying sunlight of the late summer eve.
No, it wasn't possible. Too soon.
And yet, the all-too-familiar face turned to look at him, and then he was lost all over again. The conversation had been started up, a friendship had sparked up like a flame would spark against kindling, and Merlin thought that perhaps this time, Albion would be ready for its king. After all, times did seem worrisome.
This Arthur died in one of the overnight bombings of England. Merlin could not hide his pain as easily as last time. During his grief, he caused power outages for over half of London.
It never got any easier. Merlin would come across Arthur, always in the same place, and they would always have a fist conversation similar to that of their first ever, minus the complete ass-kicking Merlin had undertaken (well, that had happened one time, but it had been quickly overlooked seeing as that Arthur had been very, very flamboyant and that meeting had definitely taken a turn for the different rather quickly), and then anywhere between a few days later or a few months later, Arthur would die some tragic death. Usually it would be mourned about in the papers, but occasionally Arthur was just what he always wanted to be - a simple man, living a simple life.
Of course, they always ended up in the same place, no matter what Merlin ever did.
It was getting to the point that the sorcerer thought he might have been going crazy. It was impossible to be reincarnated that many times, and yet that stupid clotpole had somehow managed to do it... a countless myriad of times. It was getting ridiculous, but never any less painful.
So, by the time this Arthur, the current Arthur, died in his arms (a night out for a drink or two had turned sour when they were cornered in an alleyway, and damn it all to hell if maniacs with twitchy fingers could own guns in their goddamned country), Merlin was sure of one thing.
He was cursed. He didn't know what he had done, or who he had done it to, but someone in the world hated his guts so much that they had forced him to watch his closest friend (or was it more? Merlin couldn't be sure anymore, the twenty-first century was so confusing) die, over and over again. Forever.
And there was nothing he could ever do to stop it.