It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn

by Rosabella98

Two thousand years on, Merlin breaks. His much prophesized destiny never realized and he's lost hope. But there is a secret that even the immortal warlock does not know, one that might provide answers to why his destiny is so broken. As he heads in search of answers, he faces the biggest question of his long life: Can you do it all over again?

2. Alone

Chapter One- Alone

At the same time, in the wilds of England…

Merlin had had enough. Sure, at first being the Immortal one, Emrys, had sounded like a great adventure, like he was the special one for once, but now, Merlin just wanted to be done. To rest, like Arthur and the others, and to finally reunite with those whom he had loved and lost. If one counted the years, which Merlin had long given up on, Merlin had been waiting for over 1,500 years. Yet, he remembered everything of those years, of the Golden Age of Albion, with the crystal clarity of yesterday while still feeling all of the years that had passed on his wearied spirit. Still, he waited, because of a promise that had been made by his trusted friend, the Great Dragon Kilgharrah. The promise spoke of the return of the Once and Future king, Arthur Pendragon, and his court when Albion needed them again. It had been many years since that promise, or any contact with the Old Religion, that Merlin was starting to doubt that day would come. He had seen unimaginable horrors, wars, murders, fires, and plagues, and yet each day went by and the lake's water remained smooth, withholding its secrets from Merlin. He thought for sure that the First World War would be what brought Arthur back to him, but the war ended and still he sat by the lake. When the Second World War broke, Merlin was so sure that Arthur and his knights would come back that he reverted to his true age, the face he had worn in his time in Camelot, and bought clothing for each of them. He laid it out on the shore by the lake, and waited for a week without sleeping or eating. But none of them showed up. He decided that he could not stand by and watch another atrocity such as the first one happen, so he enlisted in the British army and spent the next five years flying airplanes, fighting off the Germans and rescuing war prisoners behind enemy lines. Those five years made Merlin feel like he once again had a purpose, like he was finally doing good in the world again, but every time he pulled off some brave rescue or escaped with his life in the nick of time, he felt something missing. There was a sense of emptiness where his heart had once been, because he felt wrong doing things that were so similar to his old life without his friends, that it quickly took out the joy of having a purpose again. That was the same reason why, whenever some of the other officers invited him to join them for a drink or company, he always turned them down. He would feel like he was betraying his friends and at the same time, like he was giving up on them, like he was admitting that they were never coming back and he was alone in the world. He searched for them in every face, trying to find Arthur's courage and leadership in the cocky young colonel, Gwaine's exuberance and good spirits in the happy-go-lucky captain, Elyan's loyalty and Percival's strength in the two lieutenants in his squadron, Lancelot's nobility in the major's selflessness with the children they met in their missions, and Leon's wisdom and good counsel in the taciturn lieutenant-colonel's (the same rank as Merlin himself) occasional comments. But the truth was, none of the men in Merlin squadron could ever compare to the friends he had lost, and every time they failed to measure up was like a blow to Merlin's gut. That was why he avoided them as much as possible, and why he returned to his old man's disguise and his tiny cottage by the lake as soon as the war ended, isolating himself from the world once again.

Today, he had had enough however. For the first time in the long time, he called to the skies using the ancient dragon tongue once again, but no answer came. He should have expected it, of course, as he knew that Kilgharrah was long gone and Aithusa the last of her species, but the complete silence from the skies just drove his loneliness home. With tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes, despite his best efforts to keep them in check, he decided to go one place where he had not been in a long time: the Isle of the Blessed, where the Old Religion still had one of its last anchors to this world. There he could find the answers that he sought out, or at least a way to cure himself of his unwanted immortality. However, he could not go out as the doddery old man he wore day to day, because that would draw unneeded concern to why one as old as him would find himself in the middle of the woods during the night. Of course, what the people wouldn't know is that the young man they would see walk in was older than the woods themselves, since he had magically grown them to protect the location of the Isle of the Blessed from the prying eyes of the world. More wards were placed around the island, so if a normal human were to accidentally stumble on it, they would not see it and simply go around it. He had done a similar thing to the Lake of Avalon, but there a person would just see a small, plain lake and then suddenly remember that they had some other pressing business to attend and leave. He had also saved two other places dear to his heart beside those two: Camelot and the palace of the olden Kings of Camelot, where the original Round Table was founded. The enchantment he had placed on those two places was different, because it completely hid them from the world, and the only way to pass through it would be if Merlin himself was there to guide you through. They were preserved in the exact condition that they had been when the last true Queen, Guinevere, had died. At first, it had been difficult to explain their disappearance, but eventually people just forgot of the kingdom of Camelot and its king. That is, of course, until the legends started. Merlin smiled as thought back to the first time he had heard Geoffrey of Monmouth's first account of Arthur's story; how fitting that the namesake of the old librarian at Camelot would be the first to bring Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table out of obscurity. Over the years, Merlin had collected every single volume that mentioned Arthur, his Knights, or Merlin himself, and had saved them all in a small room in his cottage. He had laughed at some of the more absurd ones, such as the ones that said the Arthur and Morgana were Mordred's parents, or that the Lady of the Lake, his beloved Freya, had been Lancelot's mother. What had saddened him was that Guinevere had gone down in history as the betrayer, the queen which had brought down all of Camelot with her affair with Lancelot. That was far from the wise Queen that Merlin had known, the strong woman who had held Camelot together with sheer will power after Arthur's death. Every time he heard the legend, always slightly tweaked, a sharp pang of nostalgia hit him, because they never got it right and because it just brought back to him how removed he was from his friends.

Night was falling as a young Merlin paid the taxi driver and started walking towards the woods. As soon as he was out of sight, he spoke in the ancient language of magic, summoning a small wind current to carry him all the way to the shores of the lake that held the Isle of the Blessed. The region which he found himself in was now called Scotland, but Merlin did not bother with names, having traveled the land far and wide long before those names had ever been in place. He paid the gold coin to the rower, and waited as they slowly approached the island. The last time he had been here had been the terrible day when Lancelot had sacrificed himself in order to close the Veil between the worlds, and Merlin had never been able to bring himself to step on the island again. Some things were better just left alone. Now, he could almost feel Lancelot's presence on the island, as well as that of the other knights and Arthur's, although less than Lancelot. They seemed to be approving of Merlin finally doing something, after over 60 years of what Gaius would have called sulking. As he stood in the center of the island, where he had fought Nimueh and killed her, he called out, using both modern English and the ancient tongue of magic:

"I, Merlin Emrys, summon the Triple Goddess of the Old Religion!" he called; as thunder roared and flashes of lighting appeared from clouds that had not been there a moment before. He waited, panting slightly from the effort of using such magic to call a goddess who had not been worshipped on the Earth for more than a thousand years. It had been too long since he had used his magic on such a grand scale. He waited a couple heartbeats for the goddess, but she did not appear. He started looking around, but could not find her anywhere. Where was she? He silently wondered, and then froze as a thought entered his mind: what if the Triple Goddess, like most of the Old Religion and even the dragons, was no more? That would make him, Merlin, the last creature of magic, and oh, so very alone.

"We assume that you were calling for us, Great Emrys" said a voice behind Merlin. A voice that he recognized, having heard it before, a long time ago.