"Bother," Merlin said as he wheeled around to face the other side of the road.
"What's happened?" Arthur asked, quickly.
"Nothing, my glove fell out of my pocket, I'll just go get it."
"I'll wait here, I still think those carriages move too fast for my liking."
"Cars, Arthur. They're called cars."
"You can't escape me to remember the names for all these things. I mean come on, between toalsters and relmdios."
"You mean toasters and radios."
"Those things."
Merlin rolled his eyes. He looked right and left quickly before walking into the middle of the road and picking up the glove. He straightened up and found himself facing a bus that was travelling very very fast.
Arthur watched as the massive carriage came hurtling towards Merlin. His mouth went dry, he wanted to call out, to tell Merlin but he couldn't. He was frozen, like a deer in the headlamps, no, like Merlin in the path of an oncoming bus.
Merlin's body refused to obey his commands to move and sheer terror rooted him to the spot. He barely even saw it before it slammed into him but it seemed to take forever. He saw it all, he saw Arthur's hair blowing in the wind, he heard the cyclist brake hard, he saw the pedestrian's shoes as she wheeled around. It was as though the world split in two, in one half nothing took any time, in the other, it took all the time in the world and Merlin was trapped somewhere in the middle.
There was a harsh squeal, a thud. A lifeless Merlin in the road. Arthur let out a single scream, wordless. He ran to his manservant, his friend, the only person he had ever really loved that way. With Gwen it was only really a friendship that they had mistaken for love. He pushed through the people to get to Merlin. There was too much blood; there shouldn't be this much. He was pushed aside by people in strange clothes with strange machines and strange hands, strange lights and strange carriages. No one looked at Arthur after that. He'd found his way into a strange building that was smelt strange and was too busy and loud. The strange machines and what they called medicine yet it looked nothing like Gaius' concoctions. The thing that was like a sleeping draught was hard and round and solid.
They had rushed Merlin away, the strange people in strange clothes. Arthur had been shoved around and no one told him where to go. When they found him they'd been kind. They'd put their strange hands on Arthur's shoulder, spoken sadly, as though they cared.
He wanted to say "No. No, you're not sad. You didn't know Merlin. Merlin was the worst servant I ever had and I want him back. No, no there isn't nothing you can do because I'll never hear Merlin laugh again. No, don't give me this paper, it's not a replacement for chasing after Merlin in a castle. No, he doesn't, didn't, have any family, they all died over a thousand years ago. So go, because you can't bring Merlin back." Merlin got buried, neighbours came to the funeral. Arthur had sat at the back and no one had noticed him because, as they said, they'd only seen him around those past few days, what business did he have to be sad for Merlin? It wasn't even as though they could have been proper friends after all.
After the funeral, he'd worn one of Merlin's suits. Merlin had several sets of clothes too big for him in case Arthur turned up, typical Merlin. Arthur hadn't cried. He couldn't cry. Arthur slept in Merlin's bed and ate toalst made in Merlin's toalster. Merlin. He'd never see Merlin's goofy grin again. He still remembered the salty taste of Merlin's lips.
At some point he'd seen something on what they called a teltevision. The strange people who lived in it had said something about a third world war. Arthur hadn't heard anything about the first two, Merlin hadn't been able to tell him enough about the world before the bus. That infernal carriage, more like a monster. Some distant relative of Kilgarrah, maybe. Merlin had told Arthur about the magic. Merlin had lost it as he watched all his kin die out.
Merlin didn't need magic in the conventional sense of the word, he had a magic that drew people to him. Arthur added this to the private eulogy for Merlin in his head. The ongoing funeral.
A week later Arthur signed up. They'd need whoever they could get in this stupid war and Arthur had nothing left to lose; Merlin was the only thing he had had left and Merlin had been taken from him.