So, I wished to write something for our dearest Pasty Irish Boy's day of birth, but! Alas nothing came to me until I was about to sleep, and well here I am now, writing this...uh...on the spot. Bare that in mind. So! I give you the product of new year's sadness + Merthur on the brain. Happiest of birth of days Mr. Colin Morgan!
Dearest Arthur,
Dearest Arthur...sounds funny, doesn't it? All the names I called you before, including Clotpole, and I start this with the words 'Dearest Arthur,' my, my. Although, the names started long before everything, didn't they? Long before I even got to know you. Before destiny called, I guess.
It pains me how I will never be able to truly explain how far we have come, how things have changed, and why. It pains me I can only be a second hand to you, however close I may be by your side, always there. Your triumphs came first toward mine, you claimed my triumphs, and you still do, and I cannot explain.
But now I become a new second to you, a third, even. Guinevere, your second, now. However, her triumphs will not come second to you, they will add to yours, you will acknowledge them and you will rejoice in them and forever hold her for them. Because you can, you can understand them, you will accept them, unlike mine.
However, I still have one up on her. You may love her, my dearest Arthur, or say you do. But she will not have such a friendship I had with you, if you tried to recreate it, I sincerely doubt you ever could. There was always something between us – although you never knew what it was. But I did. I always did. I will never go away, if I have anything to do with it.
But there was more, from me. There was always more between our relationship, something you could never find, almost blinded by Gwen. I hate to say that, Gwen is dear to me as she is to you, but it's true, It never faltered. Except, maybe Lady Vivian. But she were...one of the trickiest stories of the bunch, I tell you that much.
It's a wonder I persevered so long, what with everything I had to do for you, what I was told to do for you and what I simply could not get out of doing for you at all. Your stubborn nature and general ignorance didn't help one bit – and it still bloody doesn't ! What must have gone through my mind, you will never know, but! Yet again – I will. I'll know the pain I went through for you, when I watched you grow closer to Gwen with nothing to stop it, constantly reminded of destiny, fate, and whatever else I had no real power over.
If only it were outlined different, if only your father were not the man he made himself to be. If he had not raised you to be his ultimate copy until I reassured you, that you were not to be this. It was always me. If only magic were not seen upon as evil, would it have been different between us? Would we ever have been more than friends as I so long it to be? As I so longed it to be from the moment I became your manservant?
Neither of us will never know. That's what hurts the most. I will never be even given a chance to show my true affections toward you, never a chance for you to just see if it could have lain out different. If we really could have been what I long for.
Despite Guinevere, my feelings have not changed, neither have my longings. However much I adore her, and respect her, Gwen indirectly stopped all chances of mine, stuffed my hopes down to the last little speck until I be hanging off the edge of a cliff with one small thread of hope to keep me from falling and loosing it forever.
I promise never to mean it harmfully toward her, she is Guinevere, Queen of all of Camelot, as you pronounced her. Even before, she were the most glowing of us servants, undoubtedly, no one could ever mean anything harmful toward her – it would be almost a sin.
Alas, you will never know any of this, never cease it to compute in your golden mind, the golden mind of Arthur would be too preoccupied to even notice such a thing like this, in any way. However, although it will still pain me, possibly even deeper than it does already, I must continue by your side, I must continue to hang on to this small thread of hope I cling to so dearly. You must continue to call me an idiot, and I, call you a prat, as if nothing had changed. Well, nothing will change for you, will it? I'll still be your manservant, I'll still be there, only third, this time. That is the only change for you.
I hope, for my own sake, one day I can show my true colours, in more ways than one, Arthur Pendragon.
Always your idiot manservant,
Merlin.