actions and consequences part three

by weepingelm

Can be read as stand alone but best read as part of series. Arthur has died of old age and Merlin has decided to fly with Aithusa to find the dragons of the east. He wants to escape mankind and relationships until Arthur returns. The first part will deal with the time before Arthurs return as this helps shape the changes in Merlin but Arthur does return later in the story.

7. Chapter 7

The next news that reached him from the outside was about a war affecting the entire world; this time surely Arthur would be needed. In the later months of 1914 Merlin set off once more for Camelot. He didn't want to get too involved, until he found Arthur, so taking care not to be seen, he moved using his magic and kept out of sight.

Reaching England he immediately headed for the lake. He had felt no call or pull and couldn't understand it. After a month waiting there he decided that perhaps this wasn't the time for Arthur's return and started to head back. He reached France in January of the next year and ended up in the trenches helping the wounded. Staying for a couple of years, he tried to help the injured as best he could. No one seemed to question why he was there as long as he was helping; he picked up new ideas from the medics to add to his healing knowledge. Talking to the men he heard many stories of how they had joined up thinking the war would be over quickly. He watched the brave lads go over the top to seemly pointless deaths.

He was badly injured a couple of times, but his magic healed him. One time he was out in no man's land when a shell hit him. He was there for several days before he was found by an enemy soldier. The man left him after giving him a drag on a thing called a cigarette. The man obviously thought he would die and left him there. It was another couple of days before he was well enough to crawl back to the British trenches.

The fighting went on and on with thousands on both sides dying. Yet as far as Merlin could see the leaders kept well back out of danger. He saw the generals sometimes strutting about behind the lines and felt how different Arthurs approach had been, he was always found at the front of the battle fighting with his men. The war sickened him as did the court marshals of the young men who could no longer face the death fields, and were called cowards and shot by their own side. He became so sick of the whole thing he left and moved on towards China, and home no longer able to cope with the vast amounts of death on both sides.

The troops on both sides were always hungry, wet and suffered from rotting feet. It was no wonder neither side seemed to be getting anywhere. As he travelled he helped were he could not caring which side the injured person had been fighting on. The destruction to the landscape and covered many hundreds of acres was immense; nothing good could come of such destruction. He didn't blame the soldiers that were fighting after all it was the leaders not the common soldiers who decided to fight such a bloody war.

After the war had finished he heard that ten million men had died and nearly as many horses it sickened him and he hoped never to see such a thing again. How would the balance of the land be restored? There were now miles without as much as a tree standing. Surely now people would stop fighting. What he had seen and been though changed him and it took him many years to get over the experience.