A/N: Thank you Hodophile-Sandhiller, PadrePedro, emrysmorgan, GuestM, Buckhunter, SnidgetHex, 29Pieces, Guest, and pallysAramisRios for reviewing! Lancelot and Merlin dynamic duo indeed! The two of them have some bamf team-ups in this fic. XD Also for anyone curious, the Darkness is kind of a mashup of the Fold in Shadow and Bone and the Darkness from Supernatural, as is the whole breaking seals = end of the world.
"Could I generally assume Lancelot finds magic in the surroundings to do stuff and Merlin's magic works with the surroundings to do stuff?" I would actually say that Lancelot's elemental wielding isn't really "magic." I know they all call it that because they don't have another concept for it, but it's more like life energy reaching out to life energy. (I haven't watched ATLA but I recently saw a tumblr post about how there were two separate magic systems in that world and elemental bending wasn't considered "magic" even though it behaved like it.) If that helps or just makes it more convoluted, hehe.
Chapter 4
Lancelot stood on an uneven river rock, a sheet of waterfalls behind him. He tried to use the staff in his hands for balance, but he was also supposed to be using it to deflect the stones being hurled at him with magic. One struck his thigh and he jerked, then swung the staff up and managed to knock the second away. He leaped to the next rock over and parried the third stone, but then he slipped on the wet surface and went splashing into the shallow pool.
"Again," Evaine called.
Lancelot stayed where he was sitting. "Perhaps I'm not cut out for this."
"It is your destiny," she replied.
"Why?" He pointed to the row of other warriors on the bank awaiting their turn for the drill. They never got knocked in the water. "They're more powerful than I am; can't one of them be sent back to fight for Albion?"
"No. This task was appointed to you. Now, again."
Lancelot pushed himself to his feet resignedly and climbed back up onto the rock.
Lancelot and Merlin headed out under the cover of night, stopping halfway to where the wall of Darkness had last been seen in the light of day. From what they could tell, it was moving slowly across the land and shouldn't overtake them before dawn. They wanted to wait for daylight so they could see the living shadow clearly when they went to face it.
"We still don't have a plan," Merlin pointed out as they made camp in a small copse of trees.
"If the Darkness was released from its prison, then we should probably find where that location is," Lancelot said, gathering some kindling together.
"Which means going inside."
Lancelot nodded sagely. "If it's spreading out in every direction, then what we're looking for is likely in the center."
He leaned back and stretched his hand out toward the kindling just as Merlin did, and they both stopped and shared a look before cracking into smiles. Lancelot gestured for Merlin to go ahead. There was a flash of golden eyes in the dark, and the kindling burst into flames.
"This is crazy, you know," Merlin went on. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do if we do find this prison it was released from."
"You've certainly gone on less before," Lancelot replied. "You need to trust yourself, Merlin, trust your instincts. They've never steered you wrong in the past."
Merlin sighed and shook his head, but then smiled. "I'm really glad you're with me. After you…were gone, I didn't have anyone I could talk to openly about stuff. Magic stuff. I mean, there was Gaius of course, but that's not the same." Merlin quirked a mischievous smile. "Gaius doesn't ride out with me to face the monsters."
Lancelot returned the grin for a split second before sobering his expression. "One day you will be known for who you really are."
Merlin started to shake his head again.
"You will," Lancelot insisted. "I know why you have kept it a secret all this time, but the world is changing, and you will have to step forward if Albion is to endure." Lancelot threw a wry smile at him. "Don't worry, Arthur and everyone will be used to magic by then."
Merlin just rolled his eyes.
Since Lancelot didn't need sleep, he took the watch for the night while Merlin slept. When dawn broke, they rose and made the rest of the trek to the wall of Darkness, which was even more ominous up close—a sheer cliff face of simmering shadows so thick they couldn't see into it. Lancelot cautiously reached a hand out to brush against the miasma. It wasn't solid, and he didn't feel any pain or unnatural chill. He glanced at Merlin, who swallowed nervously and then held up his own palm and uttered a spell. A ball of blue light ignited in his hand. With one last shared look of trepidation, they plunged into the darkness.
Passing through the cloying brume abruptly reminded Lancelot of the Veil, and for a moment he feared they would choke on the thick atmosphere, but the Darkness was just that—darkness. Nothing tried to suffocate them. Merlin's light was barely illuminating the space in front of their faces, though, so he cast another incantation to strengthen it. The blue aura suffused through the shadows around them, enough to light the ground beneath them, and they set off.
It was an eerie landscape they traversed, like walking in an endless void of nothingness. Except when they almost walked into trees or branches that seemingly sprung up out of nowhere, the light barely giving them enough warning.
Lancelot focused his senses on the vibrations in the air. Most of the surrounding shadow was still and dormant, but something was propelling it forward to envelope the land, and it was those currents that Lancelot homed in on.
"This way," he said.
Merlin kept close at his side lest they accidentally lose each other.
"Do you feel that?" he whispered after a while.
"Yes," Lancelot replied in a hushed voice. Something was pulsing, something ancient and primordial.
The blue haze eventually illuminated a set of old ruins, though its light wasn't as powerful. Lancelot could tell it was still burning as brightly as before; something else was pressing in around it more intensely, trying to snuff it out. Here the shadows moved.
"There," Lancelot whispered, gaze going to an intricately carved stone floor in the middle of four crumbling walls. And there was a giant crack down the center where thick black smoke was oozing out.
"How am I supposed to get all this darkness back into that?" Merlin asked under his breath.
Lancelot squinted at the crack, concentrating on the torpid beating beneath the surface. "Most of the entity itself is still down there," he said. "It's just leaking. If you seal the gap, the rest might die off. And if not…one problem at a time."
Merlin huffed but shifted the glowing orb to his left hand and held his right out toward the ground. He uttered something, and Lancelot felt his magic fill the space. Something deep beneath the earth shrieked and the ground shook violently, knocking them down. Merlin's glowing ball went tumbling out of his hand to float above the dirt, enough to reveal the surrounding shadows shifting and rising up. Lancelot leaped to his feet and drew his sword. In one deft move, he ignited the blade with fire and swung at black amorphous appendages that came swooping down on them.
"Keep trying!" he yelled at Merlin.
He brandished his blade back and forth, beating back the shadows with the light. But they were everywhere, even on the ground, and the blue orb abruptly winked out as it was swallowed whole. Now only the orange and red gleam of the fire pierced the Stygian miasma. Lancelot saw a flicker of darkness coming at Merlin from behind, and he drew out a chunk of fire from his sword into a ball and threw it. It crashed into the shadow at Merlin's back, eliciting a shriek.
Merlin jolted at the close call but quickly turned his attention back to his spell casting. It didn't seem to be working, though. The primal squealing grew louder and the ground rumbled again. Lancelot abandoned the offensive and ran toward Merlin, taking up position over him and dropping his sword. Using both hands, he wove the fire from the blade out into a shield of flame and pushed it up and over in a dome to cover them. Outside, the shadows let out ear-splitting shrieks as the light repelled them. For the moment.
"It's not working!" Merlin yelled.
"Use the light!" Sweat broke out across Lancelot's brow, and he tried to push the dome of fire higher so as not to roast themselves.
Merlin whipped a harried look around at their situation, then summoned forth the blue light again. With both hands, he shot the blazing luminescence into the crack. The entity beneath screamed and thrashed, and Lancelot struggled to keep his feet as he focused most of his might on keeping the protective flame dome around them.
Merlin brought forth another blue orb and launched it into the crack, filling it with blazing light and driving the Darkness deeper. Then with a guttural voice like a roar, he cast another spell and slammed his palms down on the crack. It lit up like lightning and fused back together, sealing the gap.
Merlin rocked back on his haunches, panting. Lancelot slowly bent the fire dome down into a sphere and held it at the ready. But the blackness around them was already beginning to dissipate like fog. Shards of light pierced through the thick canopy above, illuminating the forest around them. No nebulous shadows came lashing out at them.
"Did we actually do it?" Merlin asked.
Lancelot finally extinguished the fire. "I believe we did."
But then the ground gave a massive shake, like something rippling outward, and there was a resounding crack from deep within. Lancelot and Merlin froze, waiting. But the crack in the stone didn't reopen and nothing else happened.
"What was that?" Merlin asked, casting a wary look around.
"I don't know," Lancelot replied. "But the Darkness was only the first seal to be broken, and so it reasons that more will follow."
"I really don't like the sound of that."
Lancelot reached down to give him a hand up. "We won this first battle. That is something to be proud of."
The rest of the darkness finished vanishing into vapor and floated away, leaving the land restored, and so Lancelot and Merlin headed back to Camelot. Sneaking out was easier than sneaking back in, especially when everyone had noticed that the wall of darkness was suddenly gone and were outside staring at the clear horizon. Not to mention Merlin's absence had apparently been noted as well.
"Merlin!" Arthur shouted. "Where have you been?"
"With Lancelot," he casually replied.
Arthur gaped at him for a moment, then turned to Lancelot. "Am I correct that you're responsible for vanquishing the threat?"
Lancelot gave a stiff nod. He didn't like taking credit for Merlin's work, but he didn't have a choice in these circumstances.
Arthur rounded on his manservant. "Are you insane?"
Merlin shrugged blithely. "I wasn't worried. Besides, I was probably safer with Lancelot than anywhere else. And I wasn't about to let him go alone."
Arthur's mouth pursed tightly in visible exasperation.
"We both know Merlin's terrible at doing what he's told," Lancelot put in.
Arthur glanced at him again, then shook his head. "Well, thank you for saving Camelot yet again."
Lancelot bowed his head. "I hope there is no longer any doubt of my loyalty, even though I use magic."
Arthur nodded contemplatively. "You have proven yourself long before now, and magic should not have changed that."
Lancelot bowed again, throwing a covert look at Merlin, who rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort. Of course Lancelot wasn't going to reveal his secret, but he was certainly going to lay as much groundwork as he could for when the warlock's magic did eventually come out.
With the crisis averted, Lancelot and Merlin headed back to Gaius's chambers.
"I'm sorry for taking the credit," Lancelot apologized the moment they were behind closed doors.
Merlin quirked a bewildered look at him. "It's fine. I'm used to someone else getting the credit for me saving Camelot."
"That doesn't make it right. But part of my role here as your shield is to provide you the cover you need so you may fully fight with your magic. Because if the Darkness was only the first phase, we're going to need it."
"What happened to I needed to reveal myself?" Merlin said cheekily.
"That day is coming," Lancelot replied in all seriousness. He smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder. "But not yet."
Merlin gave him a weak smile in return that looked tentatively wary yet also a tad hopeful.
Over the next two days, Merlin noticed Lancelot didn't return to the training field. In fact, he hadn't been around any of the places where the knights had congregated.
"Have you seen Lancelot?" he asked the others.
They all looked abruptly embarrassed as they responded that they hadn't.
"I tried to invite him out to the tavern," Percival said. "But he politely declined. He's avoiding us."
"Aren't we doing the same to him?" Elyan put in with blatant honesty. "That training session was kind of a disaster."
"That wasn't Lancelot's fault," Merlin argued, surprised that these four knights of all people would have fallen into the trap of fear and mistrust. "He spent the last hundred years with spirit warriors in the afterlife; we can't expect him to remember how to have some friendly sparring with mere mortals."
"That's just it, though," Gwaine said. "His abilities are beyond us. After what we've seen he's capable of, does Arthur even need his knights?"
Merlin rounded on him with a glare. "You can't possibly be feeling threatened."
Gwaine raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, I have no desire to go up against insurmountable magical forces."
"We don't even know if Lancelot is interested in associating with us anymore," Leon interjected. "He's keeping his distance too, after all."
Merlin didn't believe that was the case at all and he resolved to track down the wayward knight.
He found him in the woods by the same stream as before. Instead of playing with the elements, he had his sword out and was going through a series of slow, methodical movements.
"Hey," Merlin greeted.
Lancelot finished his current sequence before shifting into a relaxed stance and looking over.
"Have you thought about trying to train with the knights again?" Merlin asked without preamble.
Lancelot stiffened slightly and shook his head. "I don't want to hurt anyone."
"You could just focus on slowing down, holding back your strength. Might be a new challenge. It's probably been a while since you've been challenged, am I right?"
A muscle in Lancelot's jaw ticked and he didn't say anything.
Merlin pursed his mouth. "Would you like some armor?" he asked next. "A knight's uniform to change into? Help you fit in more."
Lancelot shook his head again. "No. I'm no longer a knight of Camelot."
"Uh, you pledged your service to Arthur in battle. That's the definition of a knight."
Lancelot didn't look at him, his gaze cast out into an unseeable distance. "That was a past life and it isn't mine anymore. I shouldn't let myself get distracted. All that matters now is my destiny."
Merlin frowned. "I thought destiny had been unraveled."
"Not mine. The moment I stepped through the Veil, I forfeited my life and my fate no longer belongs to me." He finally turned to meet Merlin's eye. "I understand now, why you were willing to sacrifice yourself for Arthur in the Veil, for destiny."
Merlin's frown deepened. Yes, that was what he'd told Kilgharrah—in front of Lancelot—but he was Emrys. It was different. He didn't like hearing this almost fatalistic attitude from his friend.
"That was my path, not yours," he said. "I never wanted this for you."
"It was out of our hands," Lancelot replied. "No doubt it was my destiny all along, to go through the Veil, to become this."
"I don't believe that," Merlin said staunchly. "If anything, the fact that the Seals of Fate have been broken should show us that nothing is set in stone. We make our own destinies. Isn't that why you're here? To give us a fighting chance against it all?"
Lancelot nodded solemnly. "I hope so."
Merlin moved closer. "You said your friends were the reason you're doing all this," he reminded him. "So pushing them away goes against that."
Lancelot looked at him sadly. "I'm too different now."
"No, you're not. Yes, you've changed, but you're still the same at heart. Let them see that. I do."
Lancelot shifted uncertainly, but after a moment he nodded his acquiescence.
Merlin gave him an encouraging smile. For all of Lancelot's words about Merlin being accepted one day, he sure did need to extend the same sentiment to himself.