A being observes through the stars while stuck inside the tower. That's what he did for hundreds of years until one day... The Paradise he was locked in notices its resident is gone.

A/N: It's my first time writing about this character. Some time ago I watched Fate Grand Order anime and thought this character looked cool and well, cool again. I never played an FGO game or was that much interested but I like such characters. So I read a thing or two on his fandom wiki, I don't know him or Fate that well but I can write a thing or two. Maybe... Tell me what you think, please!


There is a place called the land of ever-distant utopia, a detached paradise into which only those without sin can enter. It is a place filled with blossoms and the most marvelous landscapes, where a lone tower rests in the heart of its garden.

Its appearance is said to be otherworldly, awakening dreams in the hearts of those who peered at it. One could certainly say that the place gives the impression of being divine.

A being, a man, a scholar is seen perching at its highest point and gazing at the distant stars.

"Stars are beautiful." The hooded man once said, to which the stars replied, "They are beautiful as long as someone sees."

The white-haired man laughed, explaining, "It's true. Beauty depends on perspective, however, this is not always the case." His amethyst eyes seemingly turned rosy-pink on exposure to their brilliance.

From afar they are as beautiful as the man said, but up close in their spring, they are more dangerous than anything else. Despite self-imploding in the future, these shining dots in the sky remain for thousands of years, outliving all who could ever look at them.

He thought back to the mankind he had observed for centuries and couldn't help but draw parallels between the two. Like a few, the white-haired individual also recognized the beauty of humanity as well as its threat.

He looked at them as such stars, he wanted them to never go out and always burn with the glow of life. However, the time in which he could assume the role of guide had passed. The opportunity to nurture by him ended with the closing of the garden gates. Amethyst eyes closed lazily, contemplating the future and looking at the present.

He had many monickers.

Advisor of the King.

Teacher.

Mythical magus of Arthurian times.

Womanizer.

But foremost, he was known as the Magus of Flowers.

Merlin.


It was so abrupt that the man shook, his clear vision twisted and Merlin stiffened, feeling a tug on his entire existence.

There was no person in the world interested in the myths of the Moonlit World who was not familiar with the person standing as an advisor to the legendary King of Knights. Some knew of his other nature, others not.

Overall, Merlin was known as a wise, judgmental, and foresighted magus along with his cool approach to finding solutions to crises.

Everything Merlin was not now. His consciousness drifts between slumber and rosy garden. The last image that leaves him is the fading stars he grew accustomed to in the sky.ㅤ

With the mind unfocused and in immense confusion, it was like someone was trying to reset his knowledge. An obscure factor in part of reality even for his foresight, which appeared too sudden to assess the possibility of evasion. Merlin choked in realization. There was no option to perceive external intervention.

Merlin felt a portion of himself taken from that place, only a suffocating echo left as a sign of his presence. But the Garden wouldn't let go, not that easily. For a moment, the wizard was in two places at once before his full consciousness formed in one, leaving a glass-like copy.

Seeing too many new images which ought not to be a problem for his inhuman nature to process and yet it turned out to be the opposite. His head hurt. This is what happened to him.

For the first time in his life, Merlin found himself unable to comprehend all the imposed information provided by his Clairvoyance. The pain he hadn't felt in a long time seemed to make his head scream like it was going to be split in half.

Why is there so much dark? Merlin pushed for the answer, searching in hopes of grasping something invisible.

The constellations were what he could observe forever and with a shattering thunder he realized that they were all wrong. Unfamiliar with the change, the constellations were stirring, forcing foreign impulses into his flesh.

In the vast world where night has already come in the countryside village, the wish for a new life of a newborn is answered. In the sky one star debuts for the first time and beams radiantly.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

A baby crying? He questioned. As Merlin navigated through the mess, all he could hear was incoherent crying and whining. The echo of buzzing mixed stimuli filled his ears.

The magus tried to open his eyes, noting with an inward grimace that the action seemed more difficult than it should have been.

It took a moment for the stinging light to encompass his vision. Merlin recoiled for a brief instant before any of this could be handled.

It was then that he saw a blond-haired woman holding him, not unlike the many beautiful women he had laid in his life. She appeared flushed, sweat trickling down the corridors of her cheeks and neck, as though she had just finished a very strenuous exercise.

The woman was smiling at him with care that Merlin couldn't identify.

Was he injured? Where was he? How did he get out of that place? Why does his brain hurt when trying to use Clairvoyance?

These should be natural questions at this time, yet things have taken a turn in a completely different direction.

What is this feeling inside my chest? He wondered, feeling a foreign boiling heat in his chest. His face was red from this sensation. It was not unpleasant, on the contrary, it made him want to experience it more. However, it was motivated by a much different kind of lust than that craving for absorbing knowledge.

It was at this point that Merlin felt a great fear of this unknown phenomenon. Freezing his awareness, he doesn't want to be crushed by it.

It's too human. Far too humane than he could imagine himself feeling.

Rather than focusing on this, he concentrated on the woman currently embracing him. She was memorable in the way she provided him with warmth, Merlin found himself under a spell.

Gears turned in his head as the climax of this circumstance struck true.

He was the one crying.

Standing next to her was a tall visibly muscular man with an awkward and somehow shaky smile directed in his direction. He looked forced while standing by her side, his eyes wandering from him to the woman. There was someone else besides him, a red-haired woman standing behind Merlin although he couldn't see her features fully. Turning his eyes gave him too much discomfort.

"Heset bheraautifhol Paulu." The woman said something Merlin couldn't understand. Another language perhaps? It was none of the known dialects he spoke.

"Yukaor rigde." The man looked at the newborn Merlin again, his face contorting slightly before losing some of that tension, "Yahne nahme?"

"Yhues childhe nahme Rudeusuu."

During all this absurdity, Merlin noticed that he was the infant held in her arms. Gurgled sounds were escaping from his throat. His eyes seemed to fade in and out as he struggled to see.

Merlin saw the man leaning. To try and pick him up? Perhaps in the hope of raising him in the air, the man grasped at Merlin, not noticing that the newborn was in pain from the rough holding. The beautiful woman scolded the man lightly, presumably too tired to do more before she brought Merlin to her chest, causing another foreign sensation to bobble. She hugged the newborn gently as if to show how to do it and tried to give the man another chance before noticing the newborn refused to move an inch.

Here I am,

Warm in your arms,

Within this precious embrace.

At that moment, Merlin identified the feeling that had been building in him since he saw the woman. A natural instinct seemed to possess him, making his tiny weak palms tighten on her welcoming shoulders.

It was love.


Reincarnation.

The concept of returning after death while bearing a different form. Depending on the religion, this was attributed to the position of being reborn after death as a different person, no longer having one's previous memories or experiences.

In one case, the soul may have been born again with another body, either animal or human. The person itself was no longer connected to the past and the thread remained broken to be reconnected anew.

For a magus, nevertheless, it was useless knowledge, what was the point of rebirth when you couldn't take your knowledge with you to your next life? A worthless piece of information that did not help in any way to allow entry to the source of Akashic Records.

As someone who has transcended death, for Merlin it was much the same, the theory of reincarnation was nothing more than a curiosity. Something he didn't care about in a higher state of affairs when it gave him no benefit to his interests.

Immortality was something much more desirable, a way to stay in the world of the living without losing anything and defy the will of the World itself. One of the crucial keys to getting to the Root of Existence.

However.

Without death, there can be no true life.

Merlin learned this while being sealed. Forever living was not truly living. How long could he be when the only thing is to observe? How long before his true self is gone?

If one can only observe then how is this different from an object. Where the concept of time doesn't exist anymore his memories are nothing more than the past far gone.

Merlin was someone who sought to get out of his prison after all.

As a result of his unforeseen reincarnation, Merlin transcended death once again and became human. To think that he had become part of the kind he was so fond of observing was both terrifying and fascinating.

Apparently, the times in which he was reborn resembled those of the Middle Ages, much to his satisfaction because he navigated best in such due to the similarity.

His newborn years were probably the worst that Merlin could have gone through. The little human's body was disappointingly weak and because of this, he couldn't even speak or stand on his feet. Adding to that, he lacked the ability to speak the native tongue like his parents.

It wasn't long after he started speaking, of course, Merlin still remained a genius when it came to absorbing information.

Learning languages was nothing novel to him, studying ancient runes, any knowledge pertaining to magecraft. It was something he did daily while he was still treading the earth.

Still, it was awkward when he had to deal with the physiological needs. His mother and the maid also watched over him more since he tripped over his own feet.

Which brings us to this point.

Now three-year-old Merlin had his eyes drawn to his mother, watching as the woman worked outside on the plants. With a carefully sculpted smile, Merlin made his presence known by foot-steeping loudly.

His mother's ears perked at the sound.

Her name was Zenith Greyrat, dressed in housekeeping clothes. This gorgeous woman was the wife of Paul Greyrat who was Merlin's father in this world.

"Rudy you came to keep me company? Your father seems to be training in the yard right now, why don't you go join him?"

"Mother seemed tired from all the work so I wanted to help!"

"Oh! You're so cute, Rudy! Mama loves you so much but can't hug you because of dirty hands."

"Does Mother love gardening so much?" Merlin smiled warmly at that, eyeing the way she carefully took care of every lovely plant.

"That's right. Flowers are beautiful, aren't they?"

He nodded, "Mother loves them so they must be truly precious."

"Rudy is using pretty words again, I'm so proud." Zenith took off her gloves and gestured to the flowers of various colors, "They smell nice and look nice in place. You can put them almost everywhere as long as you care for them well."

"Then why?" What's the point of nurturing them?

"I love them but I love Rudy much more you see." His mother crouched by his side and enveloped him in a hug, looking at an image that even his Clairvoyance couldn't see, "Flowers make the family home nicer, don't they? The garden also makes everything better."

She kissed his cheek, "I want this house together with Rudy and Paul to be beautiful and well-kept. I want you to be happy too. Does this answer satisfy you?"

"Is that so?" The wonder of nature was not lost on him.

"Rudy~ To have you help me around is the best thing~! You will grow into such a gentleman!"

As an incubus in a previous life, Merlin could only imitate emotions by drawing feelings from the dreams of others. Experiencing the real thing, it was no wonder why humans often did even the nastiest things to protect something so priceless.

If so, was he also willing to make sacrifices for someone? Could he go against his way of thinking to do something off the charts? Merlin could only speculate.

Even after becoming Rudeus Greyrat, he was still Merlin the Incubus. But by the same token, he was not. He was both human and possessed the identity of the Incubus.

The body, mind, and soul are deeply interconnected. Whether it's reincarnation or divine power or whatever, it's not enough to overwrite the identity of what one once was.

He was both the human boy named Rudeus Greyrat and Merlin the Magus of Flowers.

"I see that now. That's just Mother who is beautiful after all. She is the one who is making the flowers special." She began stroking his head, making Merlin feel that pleasant warm feeling again.

"My son is smart and precious so I don't know if what I say makes sense to you." She whispered in his ear, sending genuine motherly love through her body warmth, "The garden seems much brighter."

T-This is. Merlin delighted in the sensation, happy to get such results. He tried his best with flowery words and it seems the outcome was the most satisfactory. It's worth acting cute.

"Then when the time comes I will give Mother the prettiest flower in the world." He would definitely do it, the reincarnated magus thought.

"I will take you on that Rudy!" His mother - Zenith - grinned widely at him before laughing aloud. An almost magical sound to the ears of Merlin, who also began to laugh back.

It's a promise then.

It was much different than when he enjoyed hearing the sweet noises women made during his travels. The aura that Zenith exuded on him was entirely distinct.

With his mother refocusing on work, specifically the wilting flowers. Merlin subsequently watched as Zenith's hands began to produce light on some dying plants, using a long incantation.

"I call upon the power of the gods. Grant me your aid and bestow the strength to rise again upon those who have suffered."

It was, without a doubt, accumulating magical energy in the hands that emanated concentrated mana, focused on a specific intention. Yet the chanting seemed unnecessarily overcomplicated, making the flow of mana more difficult to control.

"Healing."

No matter how many times Merlin saw it, the fact that the end result occurred immediately without any complications was amazing. The first time his mother used this spell was when Merlin tried to stand on his own two feet at the age of less than a year, resulting in him falling on his right shoulder. Zenith then healed the bruise by using this spell.

Merlin's magic-sensitive instincts kicked in, he couldn't help but be fascinated despite the crude-looking method of incanting such a spell.

Back to Zenith. Afterward, they spent the rest of the time in the garden before the maid - Lilia - notified them of the prepared dinner.

While his mother wasn't looking Merlin reached out his hand and touched the tree that Zenith cared most about. Slowly trailing his childlike fingers along the bark, as if analyzing the fragile object with utmost care. Trees were living beings like every other and were to be tended with respect.

As his hand gave off an almost invisible gentle glow the tree's leaves bloomed an outstanding green and the place where it was planted became now covered with various blossoms.

The tree straightened up in all its massive glory even though it was only autumn.


"Were Mother and Father knights once?" This was a question posed at one of the dinners.

Paul who sat across from Merlin, shirtless and having finished training his sword arts hit the table with enthusiasm, a wide smile on his face.

"Knights aren't that far off Rudy! Along with Zenith, we were Adventurers!" His voice made it seem like he had been waiting a lifetime for this inquiry, "Is it possible that my son wants to learn swordplay with his father!?" He laughed while loudly proclaiming his intent.

Not everyone agreed with this, "Lord Paul..." Disappointment was apparent.

"We talked about this."

"But you promised if it was a boy then I would train him the way of the sword!"

"Honey! Rudy is barely a four-year-old now and you want to take him for sword training!?" Zenith then began to list reason after reason why this was irresponsible, with each minute Paul's face grew more defeated when all his heat was silenced brutally.

Instead of arguing with his wife, Paul seemed to find another scapegoat to bolster his argument, "Oi Rudy! What do you say, wanna train swords with your awesome dad? I would make you into a man, come on, you spent your entire time with your mother in the garden!" He sulked.

Merlin laughed in his head, this man couldn't go any lower when digging in, "Swordmanship sounds cool!" - Was his response though insincere. While he was well aware of the perks of possessing close combat skills, Merlin himself, despite what is proclaimed, wields a sword masterfully enough.

After all, who taught Artoria all her tricks to begin with? None other than him. Magecraft was not the only thing he sought to be proficient in.

After quick persuasion using common sense, Paul was crushed in his argument. The vision of learning the sword seemed distant.

For now.

Or at least if the maid hadn't added her coin saying, "Maybe you should let Master Rudeus train swordsmanship as Lord Paul suggests? That way it'll come to a compromise between the two sides. Wooden swords shouldn't be a problem. The risks of them injuring Master Rudeus is far lower than with an actual bladed end."

The red-haired woman certainly seemed eager to help him, but Merlin knew there was something else behind it, "Is that right Lord Paul?"

As if awakened from his bewilderment that someone was trying to agree with him, Paul stammered, "Y-yeah, we have some wooden swords hidden around here. If not then I'm gonna make them tomorrow myself. Is that okay Z-Zenith?"

Merlin saw his mother hesitate, unsure tension filling the room.

"Mother has nothing to worry about." Merlin decided it was time to step in, "It will just be wooden swords, right? And if not then with Mother's healing I feel safer than ever!"

"Rudy..." Witnessing that her son himself was willing, Zenith let it go and sighed, "Fine. I will watch closely though so be warned if Rudy is harmed..." She closed on Paul and leaned forward, whispering in his ear.

Whatever was said, Merlin had never seen a man's face becoming so pale.


A/N: Yeah, Zenith is a bit too concerned with her first child