-this is going to be relatively long (10-15 chapters), so follow this if you want updates!-
"Take heart, for when Albion's need is greatest, Arthur will rise again."
...
Merlin was old. He had seen kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, new technologies come and new technologies go, wars fought and wars won, people born and people die. He was tired.
That Arthur would return, someday, was all that kept him going through the centuries. Kilgarrah had told him that when Albion's need was greatest — when all seemed lost — he would have his friend back. Merlin had thought that moment had come many times before, too many to count: when Camelot fell to ruin. When London was bombed. When the land had strayed so far from its roots.
But, apparently, it could have been worse, because Arthur was still not here. Merlin wondered, sometimes, if there was something he needed to do when the time came, that maybe he had missed his chance. But the dragon had told him, before it died, that Arthur would come on his own.
Something felt different, now. Merlin was too old and too exhausted to even think about trying to keep up with the news, but as he watched the people in the village he had lived in for god knows how long, something was… off. People didn't trust each other anymore. The world was peaceful, yet they always looked over their shoulders as they walked. And from the overheard conversations Merlin heard in the cafés and taverns, people just didn't believe anything anymore.
Of course, Arthur wasn't there, so Merlin had no idea if Albion's need was greatest right now. What Merlin did know, though, was that his need was greatest — that every time he saw two friends playfully shove each other down the street or roll their eyes in the pub, his chest felt more hollow than it ever had before.
...
Sunlight filtered through the window, illuminating floating dust motes in the Georgia apartment. Moira opened her brown eyes and groaned, slightly, with lack of sleep. It was one of those mornings where going to sleep and waking up were felt mere seconds apart. She had just wanted some more peace from the butterflies fluttering around her stomach, threatening to choke her. Moira had never been more nervous in all her twenty-three years.
But then a hand wrapped around her waist from behind, and a nose pressed up against her short auburn waves, and a toe rubbed, gently, on her calf, and Moira felt all the nerves wash away, as if washed away with a mug of hot chocolate at the perfect temperature, and all the tension left her body. She relaxed into the arms around her, turning in bed to face her girlfriend, Saoirse.
Moira intended to make her more than that today. As she ran a hand — or tried to — through Saoirse's tangled dyed gray hair, she was hyper-aware of the small black box hidden away in her coat pocket on the other side of the bedroom. The nerves came back, little by little, and soon Moira's hand was shaking on Saoirse's cheek with the even the remote possibility of being denied.
Moira, not wanting to wake Saoirse, carefully scooted away from her and flopped onto her back, trying to steady her breathing. Sweat laced her eyebrows as the panic attack took hold, a python around her chest. Her irises flashed — a cup of water on Saoirse's nightstand fell and shattered. Moira was really panicking, now: the flash felt familiar. It had felt like home.
…...
On the road to Driftwood Beach, as Spanish moss-ridden trees grew smaller and the ocean ever larger, Moira tried to remember the plan, but forgot everything she had ever thought when Saoirse leaned over and smiled, her green eyes glinting with joy.
"What's on your mind?" Saoirse tilted her head, furrowing her eyebrows. The way her top knot's stray strands fell to her neck and curled… Moira swallowed and turned back toward the road. She usually wasn't this distracted. How could she be? A Ph.D. and all.
"I just want this to be a perfect trip," Moira told her honestly. "We could really use a day to ourselves." Saoirse agreed.
And today's plans aside, it was true. Saoirse, an elementary school teacher, had been in constant parent meetings for the last two weeks. Moira, a religion and ritual scholar at the University of Georgia, had been bound to her computer for the last month working on her latest scholarly article. They hadn't had more than a dinner alone for far too long. Today was their chance.
When they arrived at the beach, Moira's chest hurt with adoration as she watched Saorise smile more widely than Moira could remember as they approached the gnarled, ancient driftwood trees that lined the shore.
Saorise sat down on a nearby log, patting the spot next to her. "Come on, sit down!"
Moira laughed, her voice cracking. Now or never. The box felt especially heavy in her pocket. She had grown up watching movie after movie with men proposing to their loves, hands shaking and voices wavering. Moira had always thought it was ridiculous, to doubt someone's love for you like that. But now — now she understood. Because if Saoirse were to say no, if there was the slightest hesitation or reluctance in her eyes, it would be Moira's undoing.
Moira nodded to herself, barely registering Saoirse's confusion. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. Slowly, she lowered herself to one knee and held Saoirse's hand as her green eyes widened in shock.
"Saoirse," Moira began, "Every moment I'm with you, I feel like the best version of myself. I don't feel like I'm home unless you're there. God, this isn't what I planned to say — but Saoirse, I don't think I can do this without you."
"Do what without me?"
"This — anything."
For reasons still unknown to Moira, as she sifted through her pocket for that box, the question on her lips, there was something behind Saoirse. By the time she had processed the man, his knife, and the wild glint in his eye as he yelled an insult, it was too late — almost. As Saoirse's love-struck eyes widened in fear, Moira's eyes flashed. No one was taking this away from her. Not from Saoirse. She meant too much. No.
Moira's eyes flashed, and the stranger's neck twisted on itself and the sheer energy from her threw Saoirse back against a nearby rock and the stranger wasn't breathing — and neither was Saorise.
Moira didn't know if what she felt was pain from whatever she had just done or shock at the sudden, excruciating loss. She wasn't even aware she was crying until she wiped a hand across her face.
It had to be a dream, right? It had to be some kind of nightmare. In all of her worst case scenarios, she could never have thought up something so awful as this. Moira's head pounded with extra blood and adrenaline as she opened Saorise's eyes and saw none of their usual light.
Why?
...
Pain shot through Merlin's gnarled fingers as he wrapped his hands around the fence's equally gnarled railing. He was used to it, though, and just being able to watch these horses graze was worth it. Horses, it seemed, were few and far between, what with the hulking metal things people use to get around now. This was the only place Merlin could watch these creatures be themselves while staying near Avalon.
He smiled to himself, remembering how long it took for Arthur's horses to grow used to him as he mucked out their stables. How he would bicker with Arthur about the right horse for jousting tournaments.
The memories trailed off. Merlin tried to picture his friends again — did Gwen have brown eyes? Or green? How did Arthur's hair fall across his forehead? His palms grew sweaty on the fence as he tried and failed to conjure up more images of that life: the runes on Excalibur, the book of magic gifted to him by Gaius, the clasps on the knights' capes. He couldn't remember. He was supposed to be helping Arthur when he returned — whenever that was — and yet, Merlin could hardly remember large parts of their time together all those years ago. What help would he be to Arthur then?
When all seems lost...
Merlin's eyes watered as the horses stalked back into their stables. He was tired, he thought, and maybe, just maybe, the memories would come back in his dreams.
...
Merlin slept, painfully. His joints creaked and his bones ached with old age. It had been like this for decades, perhaps centuries. He didn't know. He had stayed around the lake for hundreds of years. Thousands? He had considered traveling, anything to not see the lake where Arthur had not (yet) risen, but even the sheer prospect of not being there for the return was too painful to bear. The wait for Arthur had grown almost too painful, almost too hopeless.
When all seems lost...
His eyelids fluttered open, just for a second, his irises flashing gold. Merlin mumbled Arthur's name in his sleep. His ears were ringing — or was it the room? Slowly, slowly, Merlin's long, white hair receded into his skull, his papery skin thickened and smoothed, his hands righted themselves from their gnarled state, his bones strengthened where they lay. He was young, again.
And Merlin slept, peacefully.
…...
Moira hunched over the copy of ancient parchment, her back and shoulders aching, her head resting on the heel of her hand. She had been at the office for hours longer than she needed to, trying to decipher the ancient text. It had come from what was now the U.K. or Ireland, about a thousand years ago. She had beene lucky to get it with her connections to the British Embassy, what with her dual citizenship.
Something told her it could help her figure out just what had happened that had made Saoirse's water up shatter, that had killed Saoirse herself. So far, she had picked up on Druid words for "sorcerer" and "king" — interesting they appeared together, she thought. Her colleagues had tried their hands at the text already, but Moira was the expert in the language; most other religion scholars at the university focused on learning ancient Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic.
It was nearly three in the morning, but Moira didn't want to go home. This had become routine for her, to leave the house before dawn and not return until she was too tired to perceive anything except sleep. It was too painful. Moira didn't have the heart to take Saoirse's things out, not yet.
Moira's head slipped from her palm, heavy with sleep. Something niggled at the back of her mind — a story from her childhood… the sword in the stone… the once and future king… a powerful sorcerer…
Oh!
Moira's neurons finally connected as she snapped awake. She looked down at the paper with renewed energy.
"Arthur, the once and future king, will need Emrys to help… they are two sides of the same coin… together, they will unite Albion…"
Moira rolled her eyes. A children's story, indeed. All this work for a fairy tale. She consulted the parchment's accompanying papers, looking for a possible carbon dating result or presumed year of creation. Can't be, she thought. That's hundreds of years before the first reference to Arthur we have!
It was three in the morning, but as Moira felt the pieces in her head connecting, she feverishly began work. Druids weren't exactly known for their works of fiction, she thought, and this was hundreds of years before the stories…
What if it was real?