Dark clouds
The smell of wet grass filled his nostrils. With great difficulty he turned on his back to relieve the pressure from his chest and noticed the black clouds. A soft drizzle touched his face and he remembered the nightmare from which he had escaped. His death. He felt dead too but for a completely different reason. His limbs ached, his eyes burned and he was still nauseous though far less than when his head was on the block. He had used the same spell Morgause had when she escaped with Morgana only slightly different. The warlock knew little of the spell in particular and it had not been kind to him. Rumours would start spreading from Camelot about the magical disposition of the King's manservant. It hurt Merlin to think that they were enemies now. Politically at the very least and that was exactly what Arthur did.
Merlin forced himself to stand up and took in his surroundings. He was in the Valley of the Fallen Kings, Morgana's territory. After losing so much he couldn't really care where he would land. The only place he couldn't go was home. Neither Ealdor nor Camelot, the two places where he felt at home, were safe. One was dangerous for obvious reasons and the other would be in danger because of him.
Destiny seemed to be thrown out the window and the question was risen once more. What was his destiny? Rather than philosophize on it, Merlin sought out a clearing and called for the dragon. The majestic beast of old soon arrived and it seemed that he was not the only one with questions.
"Warlock, what are you doing here?" Kilgharrah asked.
"Arthur nearly had me executed. I used magic to escape, he saw it, there was no other way." Merlin half-confessed and half-apologized.
"It's not the way it's meant to be." Kilgharrah replied in a way of 'I told you so'.
Merlin sighed at the dragon's obvious answer.
"Morgana will know my secret."
The dragon cocked it's head in confusion. Apparently there was a big misunderstanding between them.
"What should it have been?" Merlin asked critically.
The warlock could tell Kilgharrah didn't want to say. He wasn't going to ask again. The world was in too much shit for him to show respect towards the elderly dragon. It became a staring contest though the dragon quickly gave in. He was a dragonlord and could demand to know. Telling him out of free will might lessen his anger to some extent.
"You were supposed to die." He confessed.
Merlin's mind was raging even more than before. Kilgharrah's so called destiny for him was to become a martyr, nothing more. What kind of a future was that? No life, no freedom, no family, no legacy but to die as a traitor.
"Morgana is still out there!" Merlin argued that his destiny had not yet come to an end.
Arthur was to unite Albion and if she still lived then it would not come to pass for the simple reason that someone needed to stop her.
"I told you, warlock. I told you time and again to kill the witch." He said.
Merlin shook his head in denial even thought it was quite possibly true. He blamed Kilgharrah for all of it. The secrets and vague riddles were his fault. Rather than being straight forward with him, Kilgharrah always waited for the least conventient time to tell the truth as he had done with Mordred's destiny to kill Arthur.
"You should have chosen between Arthur and Morgana, you couldn't have both." The dragon scolded him.
With every word the dragon uttered, with every secret he revealed, Merlin became more and more angry. The dragon spoke of choosing whereas, in the past, he had always said Arthur was the future King and Morgana was his nemesis.
"You never said I had a choice in the matter. You took that choice from me!" Merlin shouted.
Kilgharrah was taken aback by the gold in the dragonlord's eyes. Too late he realised that the words revealed his carefully placed betrayal. If anyone with magic was close by, they would have felt the magic surging through the air. Anyone else would just have seen a man staring at the dragon in anger.
Merlin opened his mouth and spoke in the dragon tongue, "I hereby exile you from Albion for a year and you shall visit me the moment you enter its border so I may pass judgement once more."
This time it was Kilgharrah's turn to be surprise. His dragonlord was sending him into exile. Merlin didn't banish him for all eternity, that was foolish, but he needed him to be gone so he could clear his head. A year was plenty of time and a mere moment in a dragon's great lifespan.
"Merlin, please-"
"NO!" Merlin denied him any discussion. It was a dragon's last resort at refusing a dragonlord's command. End of discussion meant he had to obey.
Kilgharrah went into the air without another word or warning. He was speechless and the future was so very full of uncertainties that any vague warning would be in vain.
As the dragon faded from view Merlin noticed the clouds grew darker. The soft drizzle would soon turn to a heavy rain. He should find shelter. This was the Valley of the Fallen Kings, there should be plenty tiny caves where he could find shelter. One just had to know where they were and Merlin didn't.
Morgana roamed the forest as she usually did. She refused to rely on Agravaine for everything. Mushrooms were abundant in the Valley and there was plenty of wildlife to live on. Whenever her spy reported back to her it was not unusual for him to bring something such as food or wine. She would accept it in the most appauling fashion such as putting it on a shelf and letting it rot or, in the case of wine, smash the bottle whenever he would fail her.
Twigs snapped and Morgana looked around to see where it came from. There, in the middle of her forest, walked Merlin. She had felt some grief when she heard he would be executed but ultimately she found that he got what he deserved. Morgana noticed he wasn't even looking where he was going. He was at the ground with his hands in his pockets.
"Merlin!" She shouted in both surprise and anger.
Part of her was curious how he had escaped from his own execution. He looked at her and found it strange not to see her as an enemy. That didn't make her any less dangerous though.
"I should have known Arthur would never follow through with it." She smiled weakly as a way of taunting him but he didn't retort.
The young man put his back against a nearby tree and sighed.
"What do you want, Morgana?" He asked.
Finally he looked her in the eye and, to her, something didn't feel right. It wasn't the upbeat manservant he was before. Something had changed. The joy had faded from his eyes and was replaced by a hard stare. Could it be Arthur did not help him escape and left him to die?
"What happened?" It sounded like there was concern in her voice but Merlin didn't let it get to him.
"Nothing." He answered reluctantly ,"He said he'd help me and he did nothing."
Her lips parted. Arthur was going to let him be executed? They were thick as thieves, nothing could tear them apart.
"How did you escape?" She wondered out loud.
The question rang the warning bells inside his head. Kilgharrah and Gaius told him to keep it secret but both of them were merely old men. They had great knowledge but their wisdom did not save him from execution and neither did it ease the suffering brought onto him by destiny. They didn't have an answer for the dreaded world that now existed. All they did was make the choices for him, choices he should have made for himself. Gaius had left sorcery behind him and Kilgharrah did not interact with the world itself. Relics of the past or so the saying goes.
"Magic." Merlin confessed. If it wasn't for the serious look on his face Morgana would have thought he was joking.
"Gaius." Morgana concluded with something of approval in her voice but Merlin shook his head.
He took yet another deep breath.
"Mine. I have magic." He confessed.
There was no point in hiding it anymore. His secrets only hurt those closest to him. Agravaine would probably be heading for her hovel already. She would know, either from him or someone that witnessed the act.
Morgana's mind needed a moment to process this new information. The first word that came to mind was kin, rather than traitor. She wondered how powerful he was. Powerful enough to escape from Camelot which implied some sort of proficiency. He wasn't almighty. He couldn't vanquish the hellhound on his own for example. Just how long had he gone unnoticed? One thing seemed certain. He practised the arcane arts against her.
"Your betrayal runs much deeper than I thought."
Morgana's words had less of an impact than she had hoped for. No doubt his execution had left him feeling a bit numb.
"Join me." She said, "Help me conquer Camelot and I'll forgive you."
Merlin caught himself considering her proposal. Destiny had forsaken him but Arthur's destiny, although uncertain, might still be fulfilled. A glimmer of hope.
"No." He said.
He would not let his emotions get the best of him as had happened with Morgana. Arthur wasn't to be damned. There was a chance he would still grow to become the one and future King. Morgana frowned at him and Merlin knew she only saw friends and foes and nothing in between. He knew what came next.
"Hleap on baec!"
"Shieldan!" Merlin countered and her spell seemed to fly over the invisible shield like the sun would blind glass. "Feall!"
Morgana heard the treebranch break above her and moved out of the way just in time. She chuckled at the pathetic piece of wood.
"Is that all you've..." She trailed off. He had disappeared, it had merely been a distraction. "Coward!" She shouted in the hope that he would betray his position.
"I've fought sorcerers before." His telepathy took her aback.
Her only combat experience was that one duel with Emrys and she didn't win. He had the upper hand and it made her incredibly uncomfortable.
"This is MY forest, dammit." She cursed in her mind.
Somewhere she hoped he had left but such was not the case.
"Forb fleoghe."
A sudden force blew her to the ground. She looked in the direction the blow had come from and saw the bright light of fire. Morgana rolled out of the way barely in time as the fire scorched the earth her body laid seconds ago. She quickly scrambled to her feet and her eyes sought his lanky figure amongst the trees.
"He's controls fire. HE'S THROWING BLOODY FIRE AT ME!" Panic and fear ruled her mind.
This fight could not be won. The High Priestess refused to believe he was more powerful than her but he was more experienced and had a strategy to go with it. With great caution she backed away from him, or where she thought he was.
Merlin could hear her leave and let her go. He didn't intend to kill her. She just needed to know she shouldn't try to mess with him. The sky was still filled with rainy clouds but finding shelter didn't seem all that important anymore. He had to move on. There was one last place he could go to. It was further away from Camelot than Morgana's hovel and neither of them would look for him there.
AN:
I promised you an evil Merlin and he will come but it takes time. Being evil is simply not in his nature.
*There are some issues with the site at the moment. The 10th chapter isn't accessible for some reason.
Should this issue not be resolved soon, I will (also) continue the story elsewhere.
