A/N:
Welcome! Glad you've decided to give this a read! :) I love this story I'm about to tell you, and I hope that it will bring you even a fraction of the joy that I've found in writing it.
Summary: Uther hears that Arthur is the Once-and-Future-King of prophecy, destined to join Emrys in returning magic to Camelot. Uther declares Arthur a traitor, forcing him to flee Camelot with Merlin. The catch? Arthur has no idea who Emrys is, let alone any desire to fulfill the prophecy. Merlin is pretty sure this destiny business just got a whole lot more complicated...
AU starting from 2x07. Eventual reveal!fic; (very) slow-burn Mergana & Arwen. There's a fair amount of angst along the way, but there's a happy ending, I promise.
Rating/Warnings: This fic is rated T for action sequences/injuries/serious angst/some character deaths. There is no slash, no smut, and no profanity (caveat: there's a handful of instances of "bloody" as a British slang adjective and 1 instance of "I'll be damned if...").
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything plot-wise that you might recognize within this entire fic. I write it purely for fun and to get the plot bunny to leave me in peace!
Acknowledgments: Cover art by the incredibly talented AlexandarCho, used with permission. Check out the original, entitled "So you wanna play with magic?", along with the rest of AlexandarCho's work on deviantART!
Prologue
Northern England | early 21st century
Amidst the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey on the northwest edge of Leeds, there stands an ancient oak tree whose origin is shrouded in myth and legend. The mighty, massive tree—rumored to be nearly a thousand years old—has been called many names over the centuries, but the schoolchildren of Leeds insist it has only one name that matters.
They call it the Dragon Oak.
The children also say there's a little old man with a short, bushy white beard and a tweed flat cap who is the reclusive caretaker of the great Dragon Oak. No one quite seems to know where the little old man came from or even how long he's been there—but somehow no grownups ever look too closely or ask too many questions.
The children call him the Fisher King.
Chapter 1: The Witchfinder
Kingdom of Camelot | dawn of the 12th century
"Can you smell it?" Aredian growled as he strode the length of the great hall and approached the king. "Can you smell it?" he shouted, letting the words echo off the high ceilings and stone walls of the throne room.
Merlin, standing to the side of Arthur's throne, flinched slightly at the venom dripping in the man's voice. Gaius had warned him about Aredian. The man had been in the room for less than five minutes and already Merlin could see Gaius' warnings had not been exaggerated.
"Smell what?" Uther asked in concern as he rose from his throne to greet the witchfinder he had summoned.
"The stench of sorcery. Even now," Aredian surveyed the gathered courtiers with piercing, cold eyes, "it pervades your kingdom—even corrupting those closest to you."
"What do you mean?" asked Uther, his voice stern.
"I was already on my way here when I received your summons. I have come to root out the traitor and expose the sorcery so close to your throne."
Merlin swallowed thickly, glancing at Morgana out of the corner of his eye. She had visibly paled at that statement.
We both think he's talking about us…and maybe he is.
"Then you must begin your investigations immediately. My men are at your service for whatever assistance you may require."
"My investigations are already complete," Aredian replied with a chilling smile, then raised his voice again for the benefit of the assembled crowd. "All that remains is to call the guilty party to account."
"Then name the sorcerer!" Uther demanded.
"Oh, I do not have just one name." The evil smile widened. "I shall name both the sorcerer and his accomplice."
The room fell completely silent.
Confident he had everyone's undivided attention, Aredian announced smugly, "The sorcerer who threatens everything you've built is called Emrys…and his accomplice is Arthur Pendragon!"
A/N (updated 9/14/21):
Seven-plus years ago, I started this fic...and I naively thought it'd end up being ~25k words in total. Apparently, I have an addiction to ensemble casts and subplots because it'll be a full order of magnitude longer than that by the time it's finished. ;)
I'd originally set out to update daily with extremely concise scenes, then settled into ~1200 words per chapter through Ch 77. Since I resumed posting after the Great Hiatus between Ch 77 and Ch 78 (more about that on my FFN profile page), chapters are averaging closer to 4k words apiece.
I'm going through and cleaning up some formatting issues and typos in already-posted chapters here on FFN, but I've chosen not to edit/update the style and content of earlier chapters here even when I identify things I could write much better now than I did at the time. I feel this piece chronicles my growth as a writer and I value the reminder of how much I've learned and how much I still have yet to learn about the craft of storytelling. :)
As of late summer 2021, however, I am making some revisions (no noteworthy plot changes, just stylistic improvements) to earlier chapters for cross-posting an "archival" version to AO3 while preserving the original version here. I've recently started working with a beta reader (shoutout to MagicLia16), so she's working with me through those revisions before continuing on with new, not-yet-posted chapters. Once I start posting new chapters again—hopefully quite soon!—I'll post new chapters simultaneously to FFN and AO3, so no one needs to switch platforms, regardless of which one they started reading this fic on. (Please note that the chapter numbering on AO3 won't match the numbering here because I'm grouping some short chapters together during the archival-revision process.)
The only noteworthy change is the addition of a prologue, which I've inserted here as well for sake of continuity. :)
Thanks for your patience during the cross-posting process! If you have any questions, feel free to PM me here on FFN or on tumblr (also VikingSong).
I've also posted a separate fic, The Prophecy: Appendices, containing all the things related to The Prophecy that one might hope to find in the appendix of a typical fantasy novel.
It includes (as of 9/14/21):
Appendix A - how this fic's geography fits with both the series' maps of Camelot/Albion and with modern maps of the United Kingdom (as some of these correlations are relevant to the plot)
Appendix B - my methodology resources used in spell creation as well as some color commentary on the linguistic anachronisms in canon and how I'm choosing to handle linguistic aspects of this fic
Appendix C - Deleted Scene: "Marrock and Ylva" (fits with Ch 83-84)
Appendix D - Prophecies and Lore (in-world artifact; contains all prophecies, poems, and lore that appear in this fic, consolidated for easy reference)
Thanks again for taking the time to read this humble creative endeavor and (I hope) to offer a bit of feedback along the way! :)