Hello everyone,

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hope you are all feeling well.

A new Merlin story! I didn't think I'd be writing any more Merlin stories after Until Forever Ends, that story was fun but it was a lot of work. However whilst listening to 'City of Angels' by 30 Seconds to Mars I had the idea of a single scene. As I thought about the scene a story sprang up around it and, well, here we are.

This story will emphasize and explore ethics and morals. Sometimes in the Merlin universe the line is blurry when the interests of Arthur and the persecuted magical community conflict; this story is about that line. It's also about choices and consequences (hence the working title, 'Gavel.') Destiny is the big excuse and safety net for both Merlin and Arthur, what happens when it's taken away?

This first chapter will involve a bit of thinking and philosophy because otherwise Merlin's actions in later Parts will not be believable. Trust me though, there will be angst and action in coming Parts! I just want the angst and action to mean something.

At the moment I anticipate it will be a three or four part story. I wasn't sure if I should upload the first part before or after I have those parts written, but it might take me a while so I thought I'd upload it an we'll see what happens.

This story is rated M for future violence.

Reviews will encourage me to write better and faster!

Enjoy.

The Man Who Could Never Go Home

Part I: The Execution.

Merlin watched as the woman's hands were bound to the pole above the pyre and felt his soul quake. The world was too bright and the sunlight made knights in silver armor flash and flicker like a school of fish. Arthur gripped the windowsill in front of him, knuckles as white as bone.

Merlin felt a tearing of spirit; he wanted to fly out of the Prince's chambers and down to the courtyard, run to the pyre and set the innocent free. On the other hand he was Emrys. It was his destiny to bring magic back to the land, to bring peace. He needed to protect Arthur with his own secret magic and help Arthur unite Albion. And to do so, he needed to live.

He hated, hated, hated that he knew this, but it was more important that he live then the witch.

Arthur's life was paramount, then Merlin's, because he kept Arthur alive.

It was for Albion, Merlin whispered in his head as he watched the knights' jump down from the pyre. The courtyard was crowded with dignitaries and citizens but the woman just seemed all the more alone for it. She had no allies for hundreds of miles.

"Please! I have a child! I have a son! He needs me," the woman cried, wrenching at her bonds furiously.

Merlin could barely watch; there was a crashing feeling in his chest. This woman had clearly massively misunderstood King Uther if she thought he were capable of mercy; she had just damned her son to a life of running.

"Burn her," the King called from out of sight. Merlin heard his deep command come through the window and shiver through the walls. He felt the King's voice in his tired bones. He heard a muffled shout; the lady Morgana locked in her chambers, likely yelling curses and insults at the King.

Merlin sucked in a shallow breath. Then another, and another, but there wasn't enough air in the world for the number of breaths it would take to steady him.

"No, please! Help me! Somebody, anybody!" The woman writhed against the irons that held her magic out, blood was smearing beneath them.

A knight stepped forwards, faceless behind his standard issue helmet. He held a burning torch aloft in one hand and his armour reflected the hungry fire's light. He was a man but looked far from human.

"No!"The woman screamed, voice rasping, as the knight plunged the torch into the stacks of kindling. Soaked in oil the hay and reeds exploded into fire with the noise of a breaking window. Despite his helmet the knight stepped back and shielded his face with one hand.

Arthur shifted his weight as the fire raced upward, eating and eating.

"Somebody help me, please!"

Breath ragged Merlin closed his eyes, then forced them back open again. He was culpable. He was allowing this. He would watch.

The fire reached the sorceress and suddenly she started screaming out names of family, of friends; names of people who would move mountains to get to her if they only knew she needed saving.

Merlin blinked and tears ran down his face.

Wiping his eyes he looked away.

"You had no choice, Merlin," Gaius said through the crack beneath Merlin's door the next day. He was kneeling down; Merlin could hear him shuffling and the effort of it in his creaking voice. "You couldn't have done anything, you said yourself how Arthur was acting."

Letting his head thump back on the door he leaned against Merlin remembered what he'd said. He'd told Gaius about how he'd gone to Arthur and asked him to appeal to his father for the woman's sake. Arthur wouldn't, though he'd used the word 'couldn't.' He'd been wound tight, stressed and overwrought. Of course he didn't seem overwrought but Merlin had long since learned that there was a difference between what Arthur seemed and what Arthur was.

Arthur had said he couldn't face the execution alone and through a series of transparent actions had arranged for Merlin to be by his side the entire time. The result had been that Merlin couldn't sneak down to the dungeons to free her and the woman had had to die.

In the end the only two people who had faced the execution alone had been the woman and the King. But then, the King didn't so much face things as so much grab things by the jaw and make them face him.

"I should've done something," Merlin said to the crack beneath his door. An immediate scuffle told Merlin he'd surprised Gaius, who had not expected him to be so close.

"You couldn't, Merlin. I know this sounds terrible but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. You would sacrifice your life for Arthur and I know this is entirely different but…you know Albion is worth dying for, now you just have to come to terms that people other than you might be the ones who die for it."

Gaius' voice was muffled, loud enough to be heard through Merlin's door but not loud enough to travel through the main door and into the empty hallway, where anyone might be listening.

Merlin still felt badly ill but could understand the logic in what Gaius was saying; this logic from a man who had survived the Purge by staying quiet as the whole world burned.

"The harder the making the stronger the blade, you warlock. You did with courage what had to be done."

Courage?

Was that the name of cowardice these days?

"I'm supposed to be saving people with magic," Merlin said imploringly up to Kilgarrah.

He had left his room and headed for the caves, having entirely abandoned the notion of fulfilling his servant duties today. He was a mess; people would not like it if he roamed the castle in this state. His desperation and frayed nerves might seem funny at first, but on closer inspection were just alarming and sad.

So Merlin desperately sought justification for what he had done to sew closed the wound in his mind.

"I'm not supposed to be letting them get killed off one by one!"

Kilgarrah shifted on the rock, eyes fixed on Merlin like he was a deer or precious jewel. Stone groaned beneath him and shale peeled away, falling into the darkness. The chasm was so deep Merlin never heard it land.

"It was for the greater good," Kilgarrah said in a sliding, gravelly voice, sounding himself like unstable ground.

Merlin left the cave unsatisfied, dread gnawing a hole right through the middle of him.

"Why couldn't you have tried harder?"

At the sound of Merlin's demanding voice Arthur looked up. He was at his desk checking reports on the citadels stores and whilst he looked like he welcomed a distraction he didn't seemed thrilled that the distraction was an angry Merlin.

"Where have you been all day? I've had Gumby or whatever his name is serving me, and by serving me I mean smearing all of my food on my floor."

Merlin flung the door closed behind him and the bang made Arthur sharpen.

"Try harder to do what?" Arthur asked in a careful voice.

"Save the woman."

Arthur looked at Merlin then leaned back with an exhausted sigh, rubbing his eyes. He looked like a weary traveler and the question were a mountain somebody had just put in front of him.

"Merlin…"

"She was just a druid trader! The greatest magic she could cast was for door trinkets to keep bugs out! All she wanted to do was make a little money to take back to her family."

Merlin stepped forward then stopped, he didn't know if he wanted to cross the room and shake Arthur or press back into the wall and disappear.

"Magic is evil," Arthur said as though he hadn't listened to a word Merlin had said, "it is against the law."

"But what if it isn't evil? What if the law is-"

Arthur interrupted with a fierce bite to his voice.

"Be very careful, Merlin, you are coming close to treason."

Merlin was breathing hard. He felt hot and like he didn't fit his skin anymore. There was a horror rising within him that he was trying to deny but could see bleeding into the corner of his eyes. It was encroaching upon everything he could see.

Merlin pressed his fists to his skull and, seeming despite himself, concern mixed in with Arthur's Princely disapproval.

"Merlin?" He said.

"Couldn't she had been banished or something?" Merlin said, his voice undone, "She didn't hurt anyone, couldn't she have been sent away? Did she have to die?"

"Merlin," Arthur rose from his seat, losing the remainder of his sternness.

Merlin took a step back. He remembered Arthur suggesting to the King, with his 'might's' and maybes,' that the woman might be innocent, and then bowing his head immediately at a single look from his father. He remembered thinking, "Is that it? The great Arthur Pendragon? Once and Future King, champion of the people? Is that all he has to say?"

Merlin took another step away from Arthur, who was looking truly worried now, but it wasn't enough. Because it wasn't, in the end, Arthur he wanted to scape.

Merlin had done nothing. In all of his nightmares Merlin was burning on the pyre and a thousand eyes just watched without a shred of compassion or empathy. Not a soul reached out to save him, as though there were no kindness left in the world.

And then he had done the exact same thing.

Nothing.

"Merlin, are you alright?" Arthur asked, coming around the table.

"Sorry for having bothered you," Merlin gasped, "please excuse me."

He fled the room as Arthur called his name.

Merlin stood in the moonlit courtyard staring at the stones beneath him. Scraps of cloud kept passing over the moon, throwing Merlin into shadowed darkness then casting him in silver light. When he closed his eyes and really listened, above the noises of the castle at night and sleepy birds in the distance he could hear the rustle of the clouds flying.

The courtyard was deserted and Merlin knew subconsciously, without even thinking, that he would know if anybody was coming. His magic would warn him and he could make him scarce long before anybody turned a corner and found him standing where the witch had burned.

The pyre's remains had been swept away but when Merlin leant down and ran his fingers in the cracks he could feel the ash that had been left behind.

The cold wind slipped down his jacket and he felt himself get blown away.

Had he been right? Or should he have acted?

What gave her the right to live, more than him?

What gave him the right to live, more than her?

Was it the Greater Good? For he could serve the Greater Good more than anyone.

Or could he?

Was it really in the Greater Good to value people differently, letting one person die so that a more valuable person might live?

Merlin couldn't reconcile that reasoning with what he had seen. Uther had given sorcerers and sorceresses the value of dogs, and genocide had ensued.

That was an easy no.

The harder question, the one that ate him up inside, was whether it was right to sacrifice an individual for the masses. Was that for the Greater Good?

Sacrificing himself was one thing, he had power over that, it was his choice. It was noble. It meant something.

But sacrificing somebody else?

Could one person point at another and decree that they must die for the Greater Good?

Could that ever be right?

A few days later Arthur was out on a hunt, Merlin bumbling behind even more distracted than usual. Both were pretending the confusing and emotional exchange from the day before hadn't happened; it was easier and less awkward.

There were a few knights with them, treading heavily on the earth. Merlin could not look at them without thinking about fire and feeling very exposed.

Everybody had spread out and was moving slowly through the trees when Merlin felt his neck prickle. Looking around he saw a druid through the trees, standing in dappled light. She was very difficult to see and it seemed more that Merlin could sense her.

With a look in her eye and a tip of her head the druid stepped away and out of sight. Glancing around and ensuring nobody was watching the silly, clumsy servant, Merlin jogged away as quietly as he could. Rounding a copse of blackwood trees he came face to face with the woman. There were nettles in her hair; a bird slept on her shoulder. Her eyes were not happy eyes.

"Come, Emrys," she said and slid into the blackwood shade and vanished.

Breathing deeply, smelling earth and wood and magic, Merlin followed her.

It was a supernatural pathway grown right out of the ground; probably ineffectual for those without magic it could tap into. When Merlin emerged he found himself outside a druid camp, the druid woman waiting for him a few steps away from the pathway's exit. Seeing him appear she turned and walked away, leading him into camp.

The tents were humble and patched and seemed to consist more of repair work then of complete canvas. The ground was covered in green grass that hadn't lost its spring; druids never stayed in one place long enough to leave a mark.

"What's going on?" Merlin asked slightly warily. Instead of moving about camp talking and laughing like they did in all of the druid settlements Merlin had visited before, all of the families were tucked into their own tents. The children peered out at him with owlish eyes, the adults had guarded expressions.

The woman didn't answer. She didn't have to. They had reached the camp's main fire and Merlin could now see that a gathering of druids sat around it. It would not be correct to call them Elders, druids did not grow to a very old age and even some of the gathered druids looked young by their standards, but they all had an air of authority. They all looked at Merlin with same hooded eyes that followed him from every door.

"Emrys," a druid man with plaited hair said. The druid Merlin had followed sat down on the man's far side.

"Yes," Merlin said, shifting his focus onto the man with plaited hair; his hair was black and his skin was dark.

"I am Felin, we are the council for the tribe," he said.

The druids murmured and then, like wind over a lake, whispered their names.

"Dura."

"Terrisa."

"Aesin."

"Golden-tree."

"Hissa."

"You were brought here because we have a question for you," said the woman who had led Merlin; he thought she was Golden-tree.

"Yes?" Conscious that he had not been invited to sit down Merlin put his hands behind his back and stood at the loose-attention stance servants did when waiting to be called on at royal feasts.

"Why did you let Ereesa die, Emrys?" Felin asked.

The druids whispered his question with him, some saying 'die' but others hissing 'be killed,' 'be murdered,' 'be executed.'

Merlin felt like he had been struck over the head with a frying pan. This was the sorceress's druid tribe!

"She was one of you?" He asked, "Her name was Ereesa?"

It seemed significant and very sad that he was learning her name only now.

The druids just watched him and Merlin remembered the question.

"I…" he said, thoughts tumbling over each other, "the risk was…" he swallowed, "too great."

The druids kept watching him. Their expressions were not of blame but they were very serious.

"The prince, Prince Arthur, the Once and Future King that is, he was watching me the whole time. I couldn't get away to help her," the explanation sounded too short, but he didn't want to overcompensate and babble.

Now, the druid Felin looked down.

"But…you could have saved her?" One of the other druids, Merlin didn't know which name was theirs, said.

"I could have," he said in a voice that was hard so as not to betray his trembling chin, "yes."

Exchanging looks, the druids started to look concerned.

"You could have saved her, but you did not?" One asked. Silencing the circle with a look an old druid looked up at Merlin. Firelight played in her eyes.

"It is not our place to say 'You,'" she pointed a gnarled finger at Merlin, "'Go and die for her.' But you have needed our aid in the past, you have accepted our sacrifices. If you did not intend to accept your destiny of saving magic, you should not have led us on so."

"I do want to save magic," Merlin protested.

"We offer all shelter, druids, commoners, injured knights. We would still have aided you when your need was dire, but we would not have done so with false hope."

"It's not false hope," Merlin said, stepping forward, "I did it for destiny; I did it to save magic."

The druids exchanged another look.

"Please explain," Golden-tree said.

"I could not save her without revealing myself," desperation tinged the edges of his voice, "and if I revealed myself I wouldn't be able to stay in Camelot. I'd either be killed or banished. Either way, I would have had to leave the Prince, and he can't become the Once and Future King and unite Albion without me."

Felin stood.

"And you think that letting innocent people die is the way to become the person who could do this?"

Merlin recoiled.

"By keeping your eyes fixed on the future you desire you do not realize that the road beneath your feet does not go there."

"I never asked for destiny," Merlin said angrily, "it was shoved upon me, now I am doing the best that I can."

The other druids stood. Suddenly Merlin felt like the whole world was watching him; the weight of it made his magic roil.

"Destinies are tricky magic, as troublesome as their interpretations are numerous. The future is not guaranteed, you know this. Even the mere action of scrying changes that which is being scyed," Felin said.

"Some beings of magic believe destiny is an iron clad prediction," Golden-tree said, the council shifting at the mention of iron. "But we believe it comes down to choice."

"Everything does, in the end," said a dark woman who Merlin thought had called herself Dura. She closed her eyes, "come down to choice."

"I'm trying to save people so they'll be alive to make choices!" Merlin said.

"There is more to goodness in society then having the greatest amount of people," Golden-tree stepped forward, next to Felin. "Camelot has a very large population, and we druids have very small, but that does not mean we should aim to emulate her. Genocide was committed in Camelot's name, friends and families are suspicious and divided. If you use the reasoning of the greater the people the better, then you would not think there is anything wrong with parents handing a babe born with magic to the king, reasoning that it is better for only one to die then all of them. With that sort of life, what are they living for?"

Striding back and forth across his room Merlin agonized all night.

He had a lot to think about, and what he decided could very well change his life. Merlin tried not to let the fear of what might happen, or the fear that he might've done the wrong thing, change his reasoning. He wanted to do what was right, not what felt right.

He thought about what the druids had said.

Camelot was a grand and beautiful place, but only the castle. The real Camelot, the people, were deceitful and suspicious, divided and selfish. Everybody was too busy fearing that they would be the one who died next to enjoy the wonder and glory that people were supposedly being killed for.

The druids, on the other hand, never left each other behind, never left each other for dead.

They were few in number but they were true to each other.

Merlin had heard Uther and, increasingly, Arthur talk about the Greater Good, justifying sacrificing one for the many. Their reasoning had made sense. Why would he save one person? Because he valued life. So didn't it make more sense to sacrifice the individual to save the masses? He would be saving more people, saving more life.

But what was life for? Was life lived for the sake of its on self-perpetuation, living longer and breeding? Was the meaning of life the mere functionings of biology?

That sat wrong with Merlin. That implied that somebody who would die young was worth less then somebody who would die old, or that somebody who did not have children was less valuable then somebody who did.

What else could life be for?

What did humans have other than their bodies?

Their souls, their minds, their autonomy.

"Choice," Merlin muttered, pausing in his pacing and remembering again the druids.

Could it be better for a society, to value the individual even at expense of the masses?

It seemed such valuing was necessary for a trust based community, based on the comparison between Camelot and the druids. Everybody in Camelot was so afraid of being next that any sense of community was a joke.

But then, what point was there in preserving a trusting society when everybody was too dead to enjoy it?

Merlin sat down on his bed. His head hurt.

Endless questions. It seemed each question spawned several more. Each with its own consequences, each with its own hook in his heart.

Merlin kept thinking about these questions over the next few days. He often found himself paused mid-task, staring off into the distance, thinking. Apparently his thinking face was a gormless expression because more than once his thoughts had been interrupted by Arthur telling him to stop with the dead-fish expression, as he put it.

Three days after his visit to the druids Merlin was sitting on Arthur's floor, polishing his boots, as Arthur sharpened his sword. As an expert swordsman Arthur cleaned and serviced his equipment himself; it kept him familiar with it. Merlin knew he also found it relaxing, though Arthur would deny this should it ever be suggested.

It was only when Arthur suddenly barked, "Really, Merlin, again?" that Merlin realized he had been sitting in the middle of the floor, mind a million miles away, for the sixth time that day.

"Huh-what?" He said, blinking and looking around. He looked down at what he was holding. Whose shoe was this? It certainly wasn't one of Arthur's. He looked up.

"What is the matter with you lately?" Arthur asked. He was leaning back in his chair with his sword balanced on his knees, scowling at Merlin.

"Nothing," Merlin said immediately.

"Yeah sure," Arthur said, entirely disbelieving. "Out with it."

"It's seriously nothing, Arthur, mere peasant triflings," Merlin tried a winning grin. It lost.

"Merlin, don't make me come over there," Arthur replied, though from his slouch he evidently had no intention of going anywhere.

Merlin sighed. He was so exhausted from his incessant thinking that he didn't even engage in his usual quota of banter before acquiescing.

"Do you think it's right if one person is sacrificed for the good of others?"

Arthur raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Pardon?" He said. The polite word used with a not so polite tone of disbelief, as though a servant had no business with philosophy.

Merlin sighed again. It was too late to turn back now.

These questions and their consequences all involved Arthur keenly. It felt dishonest not to ask Arthur's opinion even if Arthur didn't know the reasons or situation behind the asking.

"Do you think it can be right for one person to be killed for the good of others?"

"Yes," Arthur said immediately.

Merlin looked around.

Oddly, Arthur's certainty and immediacy made Merlin feel…small.

"Why?"

"If it's for the Greater Good, it can be justified," Arthur said. He was frowning at Merlin.

"Since when do you think about big questions like that? I thought you'd be busy…I don't know…counting sheep or whatever."

It was half a joke, half Arthur's blustering way of saying 'I don't understand you,' but it riled Merlin up.

"Many people think people like Gwen and I are worth less than 'real people' because we are peasants," he snapped. He'd used the word 'peasant' before in passing but now he threw it down at Arthur's feet to see if the Prince would step on it.

"What?" Arthur said, taken aback.

Merlin looked away from him.

"Don't belittle me," Merlin said, "when you belittle me you sound just like the sort of people who think people in lower classes are less important than they are. They wouldn't even think about sacrificing a peasant if it meant saving a bunch of aristocrats, even if there was another way that was just difficult."

Arthur stiffened.

"If you are going to take what I said personally I won't have this discussion," Arthur said.

Merlin made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat.

"In saying that, I wouldn't just off you for a bunch of dignitaries," Arthur said in an incredibly grudging tone.

"Arthur, please, control your emotions you're embarrassing yourself," Merlin said sarcastically and both of them fell silent. Merlin took up scrubbing the boot again.

After a few moments silence Arthur spoke in a thoughtful voice.

"I do think killing one for the many is right if it is absolutely certain to work-"

Merlin looked up.

"But nothing in life is absolutely certain," he said.

"Exactly," Arthur mused. He was now staring out his window with the vacant expression Merlin had been wearing earlier.

"And if it's one person or, you know, a kingdom of thousands, then it is justified. But that's hardly a realistic scenario."

"What if that did happen? Your kingdom or an innocent person?" Merlin asked. "Not a knight or someone whose chosen to be in that sort of 'my life for my kingdom' scenario. Someone else. A baker. A child. Could you kill a little child for Camelot?"

Arthur rubbed his hand over his mouth.

"A sorcerer's child?" Merlin said, suddenly finding himself daring.

"Yes," Arthur said softly. Merlin felt a small disaster happen in his heart. He took the pain and put it to something useful.

Questions.

"Really? A small child who has never done any harm? You would have Camelot built on their murder?"

"Lawful execution isn't murder," Arthur said automatically, but Merlin could see he was still thinking.

He himself had a lot to think about, he could feel the answers clarifying within him. They weren't entirely the ones he had wished to find. Though Arthur argued against magic what he had said had started Merlin on the slippery slope of favoring the innocent woman, Ereesa.

Or what she represented, that is. With a sour feeling Merlin acknowledged it was too late to do right by her.

As Arthur stared out the window Merlin had a small heart to heart with himself.

From what the druids had said about destiny and choice and Arthur's continued inaction, his 'destiny' of returning magic to the land was far from a sure thing. Not that Merlin would give up on it but, here he closed his eyes, he needed to be realistic. Sacrifices made in the name of Albion weren't being made in the name of Albion; they were being made on the chance of Albion.

Merlin himself was willing to take risks for just the chance of Albion, but he wasn't willing to kill for it. He could not reconcile sacrificing innocent people on the hope of a chance with his sense of justice and what was right. He wanted to help Arthur unite Albion, but not if it was built on bones.

Merlin glanced up at Arthur, who was now staring at his sword with that same glazed expression, then glanced guiltily away.

This conclusion lead him into a serious problem because its reasoning dictated that his priority should not be Arthur. Arthur may never choose to accept magic; it made little sense to keep waiting for something that may never happen.

Instead, his priority should be the persecuted people. The druids, the sorcerers, the sorceresses, not just those with magic, it's sympathizers as well. Anybody whose neck was caught beneath the boot of Uther Pendragon.

And his son.

Merlin scrambled to his feet. Blinking in surprise at the sudden movement Arthur looked up and focused his eyes on his servant's face.

"I need to go," Merlin said.

"You're not finished," Arthur said and looked down to the half polished boots Merlin had discarded.

"I'll do it later, I promise, but I…there's something I need to do," Merlin said, turning his back on Arthur.

"Why do you keep randomly leaving?" Arthur shouted indignantly to the closing door.

Gaius was in the deserted library, researching a minor illness from the lower town in the large, dusty tombs that lined the shelves. After double and triple checking the library was deserted Merlin closed the doors and locked them. He then made his way back to Gaius' desk. Gaius had obviously heard the locking of the door as he was looking up warily. He relaxed when he saw who it was.

"Hello Merlin," he said, returning to his book and turning a stiff page.

Merlin couldn't settle, couldn't relax. With all of this twitchy energy sitting down seemed like a bizarre concept. Gaius seemed to notice because he looked up again.

"What's wrong?" He asked concernedly.

"Have you ever realized something, but what you've realized is so scary you wished you never thought of it?" Merlin asked desperately, wringing his hands.

"No, I can't say I have," Gaius said, eyebrows coming together in worry. "Merlin…"

"Because…well, I've learnt something recently," Merlin started to pace, "and it's…it's not good…well, it's good…right, I suppose…but I don't like it, I don't want to do it."

"Merlin, what are you talking about?" Gaius stood and moved around the table.

"I don't think Arthur is my destiny," Merlin said, swaying on his feet, torn between allowing Gaius to approach and comfort him and avoiding human contact out of sheer confusion.

"What? What do you mean?"

"That sorceress, who got executed a few days ago? I talked to the druids, and they were saying stuff about choice, and now I think I need to…to…lead a revolution or something!" Merlin resisted the urge to grab his hair.

"What? Merlin, slow down," Gaius looked alarmed now. "Whatever it is we can find the answer to it. Go from the start."

"The other day, because of Ar…well, I let Ereesa, the sorceress, burn. Because of destiny and saving myself so I could help Arthur unite Albion and, well you know…" Merlin looked down, shamefaced.

Gaius nodded as he evidently remembered their conversation just a few hours after the execution.

"You know I was…worried, I guess, that I'd made the wrong choice. Well, I talked to you and Kilgarrah and…three days ago I was out on a hunt with Arthur when a druid came and took me to her camp. It was the camp Ereesa had come from, and they asked why I hadn't saved her. I said the thing about needing to be around Arthur for Albion, but they made some…"

Merlin stared into the yellow lamp light without seeing it.

"…interesting points," he concluded.

"I can see from you're expression you think you were wrong not to interfere with the execution," Gaius said. "Merlin, you don't have to die for everyone."

"I am the only one who can set things right, I'm the only one who can stop Uther's injustice," Merlin whispered, as though the knowledge crouched in the room with them, listening. "If I don't, then what am I? How can I fix the world later by letting it get broken worse now? It doesn't make sense."

"Your destiny is to unite Albion with Arthur, when Arthur is ready!" Gaius said urgently.

Merlin didn't respond. The room was very quiet.

"Merlin, uniting Albion with Arthur is your destiny, not…not revolution."

"Why?" Merlin asked, staring at the grain of the wooden floor beneath his feet.

"What do you mean, why?"

"What evidence is there that Arthur is going to suddenly start caring that magic isn't evil? He's seen it used for good before but nothing has changed. Why should I think this is going to magically change in the future?"

"The prophecy of Emrys," Gaius said desperately.

"Prophecy is just something a stranger once said about people they didn't know. The druids think prophecy is about what we choose; you and Kilgarrah think it's literal. I don't know what to think about destiny. But I do know one thing. I can't let the killing go on any more," Merlin closed his eyes, "by my sanity I cannot abide this."

"Merlin, think very carefully about this," Gaius advised with one hand lifted in placation, or perhaps warning.

"I have been thinking about it, Gaius. And no matter if prophecies and destiny is real or not real or just up to us, I can't let people die for me anymore," Merlin's voice cracked. "I just can't."

The old man was silent for a long, long moment, looking at his ward. Finally he stepped forward and took Merlin's hands in his own calloused fingers.

"Okay Merlin, it will be okay. We'll figure it out."

Merlin inhaled a shaky breath, looked Gaius in the eyes and nodded.