Title: Albion Rising

Fandom: Merlin

Rating: T

Warnings: Slight violence, about what you would see in the show, and mild language.

Pairings: Arthur/Gwen No Slash

Spoilers: The whole damn series

Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own Merlin. Would be nice if I did. My car is making funny noises….

Summary: It's been centuries since Camelot stood tall. Now, magic stirs again. Key players awaken. The Round Table reconvenes. King and Queen are reunited. Friends and foes meet once more. This time, it's not just Albion that needs saving, it's Merlin.

Author's Note: I offer no excuse for how long it's been since my last post, save to say that real life is an absolute bitch and that there is nothing worse than trying to write when exhausted. The last several years have been an absolute rollercoaster. The learning curve for "adulting" has been steep. But I'm finally getting the hang of it. I've recently gotten a new job that does allow for some downtime. It is a more regular schedule. So far it has already been incredibly conducive to my ability to write. I cannot guarantee that updates are going to come with anything like the regularity I once managed, but progress is finally being made. I have not given up on any of my fics. I even still have plans to edit and rewrite my Smallville multi-chapters. Everything will eventually be finished. I cannot thank you all enough for sticking with me. Nothing has been more inspiring than to see people still following and reviewing my stories even after all this time. Every single one of you are the reason that people like me do this. You are truly amazing.

All right, enough blathering on. I've delayed you more than enough. On to the story.

Chapter 2

He remembered.

He remembered growing up in a succession of foster homes, none of them horrible, but none of them truly home, either. He remembered monotonous days of classes and homework. He remembered pick-up football games in the middle of the street with the other children. He remembered evenings spent watching TV, or rambling around town with his classmates. He remembered his first date and how awkward it had been. He remembered winning an award at the science fair. He remembered standing in line for the first Harry Potter movie and for all the ones after. He remembered graduating. He remembered learning how to drive. He remembered getting his first acceptance letter for university. He remembered packing up and moving into the dinky little flat his scholarship had provided. He remembered everything.

And he remembered a childhood spent amongst roving bands of druids. He remembered nights where he slept amongst the trees, days spent mastering his magic. He remembered years of hiding in fear, and yet years of peace. He remembered the day that he was cast out because of his destiny, despite his not understanding what they were talking about, not until many years later. He remembered wandering the woods until he fell in with the king he barely remembered and the legend he so desperately admired. He remembered feeling at home for the first time even as he struggled so hard for the acceptance of the person from whom it mattered most. He remembered failing, failing so badly that he could never repair the damage he had done. He remembered fire, and battle, and blood on his hands. He remembered death. He remembered everything.

The new-old wound in his gut throbbed. Mordred glanced down at himself. He gingerly fingered the weal of thick scar tissue. Nearly the length of his hand, it was narrow at the base and widened, twisting toward his navel where the blade had twisted. It felt odd beneath his fingers, like his mind couldn't quite process that it was there. He could still see and feel the unblemished skin that had been there until that very day. And he could still feel blood gushing from the wound over his fingers, hot and sticky. He could still feel pain spearing through him with every breath, slowly shattering him from the inside out.

His stomach heaved. Unable to fight it any longer, Mordred scrambled from the bed. He barely even noticed that the blankets had moved themselves aside. He nearly tripped over the trainers that he had kicked off the night before, but long-forgotten reflexes helped him keep his balance.

The light in the bathroom flicked on before he even crossed the threshold. He blinked at the sudden onslaught of brightness and threw himself on the cool tile before the toilet just in time.

Mordred knelt there, clutching at the porcelain like a lifeline. Magic crackled, barely restrained beneath his skin, heightening his senses until he almost couldn't bear it. Every seam in the tile pressed painfully into his knees and shins. The cloying, chemical sent of toilet bowl cleaner hung in his nostrils. The gentle whirring of the air conditioner clicking on was louder than a battle to his ears. His blood was afire with magic that had been denied and forgotten for too long. It was all he could do to control it. The memories of his final moments threatened to consume him. Smoke and ash and death nearly choked him. The clash of sword against sword, the clamor of men fighting and dying, of dragons attacking rang in his ears. His wound ached again. Fumbling slightly, Mordred released one hand't death grip on the toilet and pressed his fingers over the wound, as though to staunch it.

Time passed. His head spun. The world felt like it was tilting and shifting around him. Mordred knew that it wasn't, only his perception of it. Magic changed the way one saw things.

Slowly, so very slowly he was able to calm himself enough for old skills to reassert themselves and he regained the ability to temper the flow of his magic. His stomach settled as his control returned until, maybe minutes, maybe hours later, he was able to rise on shaky legs and stumble to the sink.

The faucet switched itself on when he reached it. Mordred arched an eyebrow. That was something he would have to work on. He doubted that this time was ready for something like magic anymore than Camelot had been. He would have to find some place remote to blow of steam and re-hone his skills. He might remember everything, but he knew that it would take practice to truly attain the control and skill that he had once had.

He slipped his hands beneath the stream of water and splashed his face. It felt good against his sweat-stained skin. He looked in the mirror.

The figure that looked back at him was familiar, not different from what he had seen the day before, but not exactly what he was expecting. It didn't quite match with his newly restored memories of Camelot. There was a bit more roundness at his jaw than he recalled. Thinking about it for a moment, Mordred realized that, not only had his life been quite a bit easier this time around, but that he was probably a year or two younger now than he had been when he had died. He couldn't quite be sure of the exact difference. Marking age had been less than exact in those days and he had never really cared to keep track. As a druid and a warlock, his status as boy and man had been determined by the maturity of his magic, not how many summers or winters he had seen.

His skin was as fair as ever. No amount of time out of doors had ever done anything more than turn him unpleasantly red. There were fewer lines around his eyes than he remembered. Less anxiety and fear in this lifetime, he guessed, and fewer days spent staring into the sun. His hair was still dark, thick and unruly, but it was a little bit shorter and actually cut in such a way that made the tousling look intentional. He took a step back to get a better view of himself. He was slimmer now, still fit but he could see that he had little of the whipcord strength he had garnered over years of hard living and months of battle training. This was a runner's build, not a warrior's. He looked down at his hands. They were no longer calloused from days spent wielding a sword and scraping living from the forest.

Mordred looked back up at himself. His more recent memories, Robert Moore's memories, didn't quite match either. He stood differently now, taller and more confident. There was grace in his stance that had not been there before, and strength. He was more comfortable in his own skn. His posture was straight, his weight cast forward slightly on the balls of his feet, ready to move at any time. He knew without doubt that he could walk through the world without sound if he wished it in the way that all druids could. And his eyes, they were heavy with memories of pain and experience and things long since lost.

Mordred slumped and dropped his head into his hands.

"By the goddess, what is happening?" he muttered.

He looked back up at his reflection. The scar on his abdomen stood out starkly from the rest of his pale skin. He suddenly felt cold. Fingers lifted to the pulse point at his throat without thinking. He heart beat thrummed rhythmically beneath his skin, a little fast, but there.

"How am I alive?"

He had never heard of anything like this happening. Rebirth was a topic that had been bandied about as philosophical debate amongst the elders. There had been some belief that a person's spirit did not die and that it instead reborn, but he'd never taken it seriously and he certainly hadn't expected it to happen like this. He distinctly remembered two different lives. The elders had always thought that, if rebirth was possible, that the spirit would not remember its past lives save in certain constant characteristics, but he remembered being Mordred in Camelot and he remembered growing up Robert Moore in England, but he didn't feel like two people. It was like he had always been himself, but the memories and magic of his past had lain dormant until...until what he had no idea.

The worst of it was, he had no idea where to start looking for answers. It wasn't as though there was a secret magical community in this age and, if by some miracle there actually was, he wouldn't know how to find it.

"And I doubt the internet will be much help," he said, thinking out loud as he paced back into his bedroom. "Ninety-nine percent of that will be utter nonsense. The public library won't help either. If they have histories that include anything about the Old Religion, it'll be entirely too broad and if they contain any magical theory then I'm a cockatrice. Blast it, this is going to be impossible! Where is Gaius when you need him? He always knew what to do. It's no wonder Emr-"

He stopped short.

"Emrys," he whispered. "He should still be alive. The legends always said that he was immortal. If anyone would be..."

It was the perfect answer. Merlin had always had a preternatural connection to magic. If anyone could guess at what had brought Mordred back, it would be him. There were just two problems.

Mordred ran a hand over his face. "Right, then I just need to find him. And hope that he doesn't kill me on sight."

So maybe it was a horrible plan, but it was the only one he had. Merlin hadn't trusted him before he'd gone AWOL and joined Morgana. It would be a miracle if the other warlock didn't smite him on sight. Mordred highly doubted that Merlin would care that he had been quite literally mad with grief and despair when he had left Camelot. By the time he had come out of his haze, he had already betrayed Emrys and his King. In his madness Mordred had given Morgana the secret she needed to strike a lingering blow against Camelot. There had been no going back after that. Not that he hadn't tried. But Merlin couldn't know how he had attempted to mitigate the damage Morgana had done. Merlin would not be aware of how much it had sickened Mordred to be party to her schemes, how he had only done it because he'd seen no other way to stop her. Merlin couldn't know how much Mordred had regretted what he had done. Mordred hadn't lived to tell him.

At least, he didn't think that he remembered speaking to Merlin before he had died. His last few moments were hazy. He was fairly certain the he would recall something as significant as using his dying breathes to plead his case to Emrys. The last thing he he could fully remember was approaching Arthur, keeping up the farce that he was Morgana's ally as long as possible, and—

Mordred fell to his knees at the foot of his bed. His hand once more found the smooth scar of the gut wound that had claimed his life.

A wound very similar to the one he had dealt Arthur.

He remembered the shocked look on Arthur's face when he had realized who he was facing. Mordred had nearly forsaken the whole charade then and there. It had torn him apart to see his friend and king so hurt by his actions. But he had held strong, knowing that Morgana would kill them both if she suspected anything. He remembered how surprised he had been when Arthur had not parried his blow, the way bile had risen his throat when his king had fallen to his knees. He remembered how the tables were turned and how he had welcomed it.

And he knew in the depths of his soul that his last hopes had been in vain. That Merlin had not made it in time. Even his power had not been enough to undo what Mordred had done. His hand and the dragon-blade had done their foul work. Arthur's blood was on his hands. He had murdered his king, his friend.

Crumpling in on himself, Mordred dropped his head into his hands and wept.

Outside, the wind howled and lightning split the sky in answer to a warlock's grief and anger.

The lake was still, the water as reflective as a polished mirror. It was always still. It never stormed there. Only the lightest of breezes stirred the mist, just enough to keep the air from feeling stagnant. It was always the perfect temperature at the lake. Neither too cold or too warm, but just right.

A young woman crouched at the edge of the lake. Her vibrant purple dress and blue wrap contrasted sharply against the green of the grassy bank. Freya passed a pale hand over her reflection in the water. The image twisted, folding in on itself, shifting and changing until the image of a dimly lit room was displayed. She frowned and titled her head.

The room was spartan, containing only three pieces of furniture: a bed, a small dressing table with a lamp on it, and a beat-up chest of drawers. Everything was clearly pre-owned. The walls of the room were a faded pale blue. It had probably been a lovely color once, but it had long since taken on the grey-yellow tinge of age. The previous inhabitant had probably been a smoker.

A man sat in a heap on the floor at the foot of the bed. He didn't look much older than the woman. In fact, he might have been a bit younger. His head had lolled back onto the edge of the mattress. He was fast asleep. Shaggy hair lay in tangles across his close eyes and tear-tracks still glistened on his face. One hand was cradled across his bare torso, covering something protectively. A small tattoo marked one side of his chest. A subtle aura of gold surrounded him. Mortal eyes wouldn't have seen it, but she did.

"So, he has returned," she murmured, waving a hand to dismiss the image and rising to her full height. "I would not have expected him."

Silently, she glided away from the lake's edge. A narrow, but well-trod gravel path wound its way between rolling hills, skirting a verdant forest. Freya took it.

Eventually, she could not say how many hours or minutes later for time had no meaning in this place, she reached a tower of stone. It rose high into the air, it's spire disappearing into the blue sky. A single door stood in the eastern face of the tower. A red pennant with rampant golden dragon flew above it. Freya lifted a hand. The door opened. She strode inside.

The tower was empty save for a set of stairs that ringed the tower to its full height. She began to climb.

Paintings and tapestries hung on the walls along the stairs. They told a story, one well loved, but long forgotten in its truth. It began with the birth of the world and ended in a time that had not come. Freya paused before a portrait near the top of the stairs. Her hand lifted to caress the familiar cheekbones. A sad smile crossed her ruby lips. She continued her journey.

The stairs ended on a platform at the very top of the tower. There was no door, just a whole in the floor for the stairs. It was empty, save for a bed. The bed was large. It had four posters and a canopy. Crimson curtains had been drawn to their posts and tied back with golden cords. A rich quilt of red satin lay over the finest white cotton sheets. Nearly a dozen pillows lay against the headboard. Two windows, one to the west, one to the east, kept the bed in constant ray of sunlight.

At the sight of the bed,she stopped short. Her hand flew to her heart and she gasped.

The covers had been thrown back. The bed was empty.

A tear slid down the Freya's cheek. "At last," she whispered. "Albion rises once more."