A/N - I don't own Merlin.
Please let me know what you think.
Living Forever.
The first immortals he had encountered had been during his first year when he had left Ealdor for Camelot, when his powers became too much for his mother to cope with (he clamped down on those thoughts; to his horror, despite his best efforts, Merlin had been having trouble picturing his mother's face, although he had memories of her) so she'd sent him to Gaius, knowing he had knowledge of magic and hoped he would find his way in life.
The Great Dragon Kilgharrah had been the first; while the dragon had been manipulative, using him for his own ends, Merlin would never be the person he was now without the dragon's help even if the price eventually became too high; he could see, now he was so old, Kilgharrah's point of view, especially since he and Aithusa were now long since gone in a world increasingly exchanging magic for science and technology, and most especially being locked away underground thanks to Uther's cold-hearted pursuit for revenge but when he'd been younger, Merlin had simply seen the Great Dragon as a manipulative, cold-hearted monster who merely played a long game, seeing him as nothing more than a puppet although when he had become a DragonLord which had stunned Merlin as well as Kilgharrah, he had begun to see things more from the point of view of the Great Dragon.
Merlin would have preferred to have learnt about that side to himself a different way, one where he would not have wanted his father Balinor to have died for no reason.
Kilgharrah's entire race had been slaughtered by Uther's kingdom over a long period, and he had been chained up underneath the castle of Camelot, it was no wonder the first thing he had done after Merlin had set him free following that mess with the Knights after Morgause put that sleeping spell on Morgana was to launch attack after attack against Camelot until the city was nothing but charred ruins.
The second immortal had been Nimueh.
When Merlin had met her, and when he had discovered the truth of the Great Purge, how Uther had been so desperate for an heir since his wife had been barren he had made a deal with the High Priestess of the Old Religion to use magic, but while the ritual had worked it had seen the death of his wife.
Uther had gone into a genocidal rage. Sorcerers and sorceresses were hunted down and burnt. Druids were slaughtered, their camps raided while children were being led to the fires while Uther's people cheered them on while he preached that magic was evil to cover up his own foolish belief as a king, magic would not demand a price for a life. It was one of the rules of the Old Religion, for a life to be given life, a life had to be taken in turn.
It was unfair, but it was needed to keep balance.
Merlin had time to think over the centuries of how the Great Purge had gone, and he could certainly understand how Nimueh had gone insane as the entire Old Religion became a shadow of its former glory. Purges had taken place in the past by overzealous rulers, who'd attacked the Old Religion's strongest practitioners out of fear, malice, and even their own stupid greed but they usually died down when those rulers had lost their nerve.
But during the Great Purge, Uther had never lost that quality. He had given standing orders for every sorcerer, no matter how old to be killed. Every magical creature was to be slain regardless of the consequences (Merlin still believed, following that mess with the unicorn where Arthur had purposefully harmed the peace-loving creature, and even knowing the dangers of the following curse, Uther would have ordered them hunted down and killed).
But the Old Religion had taken its revenge. Sorcerers and magical creatures had perversely set up challenges, and while Merlin had done his job as protector of the Once and Future King, there had been moments where Merlin had felt like a traitor for everything he was doing. He could understand the fear, the anger going through the hearts and souls of every sorcerer he'd encountered, and it wasn't until that mess with Morgana which had resulted in so many needless deaths because of his own mistakes even though he had long since told himself he had not helped her because of his own fears regarding her destiny, the Old Religion was giving him a more dangerous enemy even though Morgana was obsessed with her own desire for power after being twisted by Morgause for a whole year.
Well, of all the magical immortals he had met, the only one he felt so much sympathy with was the Fisher King. Merlin had thought Nimueh and Kilgharrah had been bad enough, although in truth the Fisher King shared a great deal in common with the Great Dragon since both of them had been imprisoned even if the Fisher King had the power to leave any time he'd chosen.
Merlin hadn't known what he would find in the Fisher King's decayed kingdom, but a man covered in cobwebs, just sitting on a once-grand throne, waiting for Emrys was not what he'd had in mind. Merlin would have loved to have spent more time with the Fisher King, learning more about him, but because Arthur and Gwaine were not far away, Merlin hadn't had the chance, but when he had discovered for himself he was immortal following the unholy mess when his attempts to keep Arthur alive after Camlann went horribly wrong, he had often thought about the immortals he had encountered.
How many times had he been forced to watch the rise and the fall of so many kingdoms until he had become so bored and tired with needing to wait for a century or so before they collapsed because they were either destroyed by other kingdoms in those endless wars, or the people just didn't bother to change?
As an immortal, he had soon become apathetic towards wars, plagues, even though Merlin was prepared to use the Old Religion to prevent them from ever going out of hand, but why had he become so tired of seeing the pattern repeat itself over and over again, he'd decided to simply decide not to interfere and let everyone else deal with the problems for themselves?
As time had passed until now, the 21st century, Merlin had come to understand why immortals like the Fisher King and the Great Dragon had just given up. They had all seen the pattern of different kinds of people coming, building up kingdoms or their equivalent, and they had seen them die. Merlin sometimes wondered if the Great Dragon and the Fisher King had existed long before Roman times, but he had never had any knowledge of those times before the 20th century had come around.
Immortality was a curse, not a blessing.
He had no desire to tell anyone. They would not listen, they would need to experience it all for themselves, and then they would understand.