It took all of Uther's courage to climb those terrible stairs.
When he rose to the top, he found Merlin laying on his back, fast asleep, but muttering to himself about what a great and clever joke he had pulled. For a moment, Uther stared in a bit of mild disgust at the boy, who he had always thought had a mental affliction of some sort before pressing to the half-jarred door of the balcony.
Arthur stood looking down on the street below him still. He was swathed in moonlight, bright as melting silver, and his shoulders were bowed straining like Atlas under the burden of the world.
For a long moment, Uther just stared, not ready for this moment.
"Why do you linger there? You are not a subject of mine..."Arthur said, without turning. Uther blinked, wondering for a moment how he could know.
Arthur turned, a smug smile on his face.
"I felt your echo through the house, the warmth of your life when you rose the stairs." Arthur studied his father. There in the moonlight, he was grim and gray still.
"So, why do you linger there? Are you afraid? Of my wrath or of my death?" Arthur smiled, soberly. At least, he would let him speak.
"Of neither..."Uther ground out at last.
"Then, what do you fear, lord Once-King..."
Silence fell.
"That is what they called you, you know...when they told me you were in a death-like sleep...you were dead, by the law, but you were not dead by the grave. And they, foolish lawkeepers, did not know death as I know it. Death and I are close kindred now..." Arthur crept closer, and leaned a bit forward, studying his father.
"I remember you...when I was a boy, you seemed wise, and old...but now, looking at you, and all your frailty...paper thin, you are. You are paper. Your kingdom was paper, broom straw on mud. You tore your own house down with your hands, and you called it mercy...The blood in my veins runs like ice, but under it all, I feel a great kindling. I want to forgive you for what you have done...but I feel a great rage brewing toward you..."Arthur sneered.
Uther nodded.
"Then, you know what I fear...and what I fear most of all. And perhaps this...is the punishment I will receive for the sins of my past life..."Uther swallowed hard. Arthur tilted his head, studying him,waiting with his cold eyes touched by shadow for him to speak.
"I fear that I will lose your love..."and with that Uther broke into tears, withering in front of him a bit.
Arthur studied him, face cold and without pity for a moment. Then, he scoffed, rolling his eyes like the teenage general he once had been when his father had suggested he stand down from an impossible battle. If it came to Camelot, he would not even obey his father's orders. King Uther had many meetings with the council about the risks the young Arthur took, to no avail.
"Please...I may hate you more, but I could never love you less..."He smiled.
Uther felt something thaw in the air between them then. He went to the man and embraced him, burying his face in his shoulder.
"You-you are quite cold..." Uther drew back a bit, startled.
Arthur frowned.
"I feel the shadow growing in me...soon I believe she will reveal her plan for me...her power is almost upon me..."
"Who?" Uther gasped. Arthur blinked.
"You know who..."
"It cannot be. I defeated her..."Uther scoffed. To which, Arthur suddenly drew up tall and lordly in a way that Uther had never seen him do to his face and which shut his jaw firmly.
"You defeated yourself...As for Nimueh, she made a pact with the Gatekeeper of the Spirit World...Never to rest, until she had succeeded in the one thing that could bring her reveling, and that was...to destroy you..."Arthur's face twitched suddenly, a tiny tick that looked like pain.
"Are you alright? You look unwell..."Uther reached a hand to his shoulder. He stepped back.
"I have been feeling strange ever since the moon rose this evening..."Arthur looked up at it. It seemed to grow brighter.
Uther felt suddenly his soul drop to his feet.
"Arthur..." he whispered, looking for some warning, but it was already too late. As the light of the moon got brighter, Arthur seemed to visibly change, reflected in it, and suddenly, his skin looked gray like ashes, and his eyes were blacked out hollow, rolling suddenly with smoke rising from him.
"M-Merlin! Merlin?!" Uther called over his shoulder, desperate for help.
Merlin jumped up like he had been electric shocked at the sound of Uther's voice. Arthur stood there, dizzy, transfixed by the Moon, smoke weeping eyes looking up in stupefied hypnosis at it. He raised a hand toward it as if he could bathe his hand in light, and his exposed skin appeared like bones.
Uther looked at Merlin in terror. Merlin's whole countenance froze, immediately signaling immense sorrow, rather than fear.
"My lord, it's your servant, Merlin. Can you hear me, sire?" Merlin pressed closer, a hand extended.
Arthur spoke and his voice came out a harsh, throaty scratch, like a metallic brake ground against pavements was being drug along his parched vocal cords.
"I hear all, and I see into the eye of the Void..and the eye of the Void looks back."
Merlin froze, hand extended still. He choked back tears and nodded.
"You are almost in her power now, aren't you, Arthur, my dear friend. Do you hear me, Arthur? What has she done to you? Do you understand her purpose now that you see your father?"
Arthur tilted his head, listening in Merlin's direction, despite his eyes weeping smoke in huge billows that wrapped around the Moon like lace. Away in the night, Storybrooke began to see them. Snow called the fire department and sent them to the library, where it appeared the smoke was coming from as it hung in wreathes along its walls.
"I have been in her power all along...Long ago, Nimueh and the Gatekeeper of the Spirit World made an everlasting covenant. Nimueh wished for the power of life over death, and death over life, but to trade for immortality, an immortal life must be taken, so another can be spared..."Arthur reached a shaking hand moonward.
"There was once a spirit who was assigned the post of Gatekeeper...but he had grown tired...so he chose to trade. A life for a life. But to make a bond with the last Gatekeeper, there must come another. There must always be another, for the post of Gatekeeper is everlasting and there must always be someone to fill it. For this, Nimueh needed a sacrificial heart, the Blood of Willing Heart...that is the key to her spell...Key for binding and loosing and stitching back together what should not ever come unbound."Arthur tilted his head, and reached a shaking hand for Merlin and took his hand, freezing a swath of ice around his arm and wrist, binding them together with ice.
"So that the past Gatekeeper may move on, he passed his mantle on to another. Nimueh possesses his life force, and therefore his mantel...which is wrapped around my soul...So Nimueh has possessed the power of the everlasting presence of the Gatekeeper, but not his post...That burden she disposed of to another person's shoulders..."Arthur's teeth chattered for a moment.
"Are you saying...you are being held captive by the Gatekeeper so Nimueh can use your blood and his power to keep herself alive?" Merlin knew before he asked that this was not the answer.
Arthur smiled, and all of a sudden, his clothes caught fire. For a moment, he was clothed in dark fire, and then, he stepped out of it, clothed in black armor, and a long black cloak that covered his whole body. In his hand, was a giant scythe.
"No, Emrys...I have become the Gatekeeper of the Spirit World..."