Let Her Take You Home
A/N: The fic was inspired by Heather Dale's song "Three Queens", which I cannot hear without thinking of Merlin and the three women in his life – and their possible responses to him following Arthur's death. I rearranged the verses to make a little better sense with the progression of the story.
Second-person POV, begins in-canon, between the last period scene and the only modern scene of the final episode.
And no, I wouldn't tag this as 'main-character death'. You'll see why…
Sink into your sister's arms
The womb you need not know
Let her fire consume the frame of what you were before
Let her take you in her arms
Let her take you home (let her take you home… let her take you home)
Leave to her the mysteries of maiden, mother, crone
…..*…..
In sibbe gerest… In peace may you rest.
It is the last thing you give him, there beside the lake. The last wish of a broken heart, the last benediction of a lost soul.
You have given him everything else, and all that you had – your hopes, your dreams, your friendship. Your father, your youth, your years, your love. Your honor, your word. It is an undying pity that you could not give him life. Or health. And the truth feels too late.
In sibbe gerest… In peace, rest.
As the boat drifts further to the mist that surrounds the isle of Avalon, he takes it with him, all unknowing, like he'd always taken everything, and you don't begrudge him that. What would you do with peace or rest, anyway? You don't deserve it.
You are empty, and you deserve that. Nothing left to give.
The grass is soft and life smells green all around you, damp in the air, wafting like the waves that travel the shore – out and back. Out and back. No peace, no rest – no destination, no purpose, no change.
That's you, too.
You can't see the boat anymore, but you don't look away from the misty island and the mysterious tower, not even when your ears carry unwanted messages of an approaching horseman. Not even when the rider draws close enough to feel vibrations through the earth, to smell the sweat of man and beast.
What do you care? If it is an enemy, he is welcome to kill you. The last magic you will ever do has just floated your life away into the mist. Death would be welcome. There is no one left who needs your protection, no threat only you can face.
Failure.
Maybe the rider will deliver you from that…
You recognize him when he crouches beside you, leaning into the side of your steadfast vision. Percival says your name. He offers you food, but why? He lifts the waterskin to your lips and then your hand moves to brush it away, like an insect oblivious to your moods and concentration.
He takes your elbow and jogs your arm and speaks, but it means nothing.
Darkness falls like rain, obscuring the isle and the lake but you hear the waves like the whispering breath-pattern of a wild thing at rest.
You wait, and of course the sun rises in the morning, utterly careless that the light has gone from your world. It travels the sky and the curious breezes investigate your clothes and hair, daring to sting tears in your eyes. You blink them away; you don't deserve the relief.
This man is worth your tears. This man was worth so much more, you cannot offer such a paltry sacrifice. And nothing else means anything. You'd offer your blood to the last drop, your breath to the last gasp if it would mean something to him.
Again, the light surrenders the world to darkness.
And in another morning, when Albion most needs it – the light returns, as the sun rises again, but…
The lake remains empty. Just like you.
You're aware that others approach; blink, and briefly wonder where Percival went.
They are all men, in scarlet and silver, all good men, all his men. If they are empty failures, they don't seem to know it, or to feel it. They speak so loudly and insistently that your ears cringe, you avoid recognition and look past them at the lake, through them at the lake when they get in the way.
But when they touch you, everything resists. They exclaim as their fingers peel away from you, Percival says your name in a tone, but all the boots move away.
The waves wash in. The sunset washes out.
You wake with your nose in the grass and your shoulder bruised, and push yourself up to sitting. Sometimes it takes a minute for upright to define itself, but that doesn't matter. Sometimes it takes you a minute to achieve, but you persist.
Always persist. Even when you're wrong…
More hoofbeats. More footsteps. Clothing rustles subtly feminine, and then she is there. Beside you, not in the way, and steadfastly you avoid meeting her eyes.
You've failed her, too.
Keep him safe, she always says. And you always promise and maybe the words are lightly spoken, but they are deeply meant.
Merlin, she says, and the emptiness trembles.
Please, she begs, and it begins to feel like it might be possible that she needs you too, though you are an abject failure.
I can't lose you too, she says. Come home.
She touches you and her fingers are gentle and encouraging, and you submit to her embrace. You surrender the island to look at the grass – beneath your palms, beneath your soles. You let her move you, help you mount a horse, help you keep astride.
You let her take you home.
There in the courtyard, a crowd gathers for a pyre, and for a moment you think – you hope…
But it isn't for you. It's symbolic, to burn a cloak and a sword and the smoke stings everyone's eyes to tears and maybe the smoke wasn't doing that at all, because your eyes are dry.
It is not just his deeds we'll never forget.
Whatever else she is saying, as her fire burns the skeleton of a symbol that once meant everything, these are the words that you hear, all over again.
It's his courage. His compassion. He was the most noble knight we'll ever know. He gave his life for all of us.
Magic, the queen says to you, the queen who is your sister. Merlin, I need to know. I need you to tell me, to teach me.
You intend to do your best. To strip the mystery from the religion. To expose the goddesses and the prophecy. To share all that resides in your head and memory, until you are empty again.
But then her attention is taken from you. You watch her wander the castle halls with a hand absently covering a slim belly. She seems as empty as you feel, and you can offer no solution, no resolution, no magic – nothing but reminders that do her no good.
You finish writing down as much as you ever knew about magic and the goddesses and all of it, and then withdraw.
It isn't your home. Not anymore.
Sink into your mother's arms
The womb that gave you birth
Let her take your secrets back and lay them in the earth
Let her take you in her arms
Let her take you home (let her take you home… let her take you home)
Leave to her the gifts she gave of flesh and breath and bone
…..*…..
The grass is sere, by the edge of the lake, the edge that retreats even as you sit and watch. More stones, lying somnolent in the mud that returns to the dust from whence it came. The ripples shiver in and out, weakening and unconcerned.
You think of how his weakness felt when you tended him, carried him, held him.
When you laid him in the boat – not dust to dust, you promised, but in sibbe gerest. When he passed from your sight…
Did he reach the isle? There's never any sign of life, even when you look.
Maybe his boat tipped and sank. Maybe the ripples shiver the edges of his cloak and his hair, maybe he lies somnolent in the mud, turning to dust.
The sun rises, and the lake edge cedes more inches. Moisture trickles down your spine and the sides of your face, trying to return to the ground. To the lake.
Even your sweat fails in its task to cool you, as your tears failed to honor him properly. As your efforts failed to save, and your magic just failed.
A hand reaches into your vision and offers you bread. You regard it dispassionately; it means nothing, but the hand coaxes, reaching farther back than your memory, encouraging you to eat.
When you were sick. When you were scared. When you thought there was not enough to share, this hand invited you, insisting that you perform the actions necessary to live one more day.
One more day, she says, seated there at your side. Wrinkles without, and serene pain within, fathomless depths. She puts her arms around you, and you let yourself go for one moment, let the sky fill your eyes like the blue of his, so bright that tears trickle involuntarily downward.
She holds you, and understands. Just as your sister the queen understood… and yet, it wasn't your mother's responsibility to protect the one she lost, so many years ago. Another one you lost, more recently.
Another failure.
No one to call father; no one to call friend.
Come? she says. Let me take you home. She gave you life; your earliest obedience is owed to her alone.
Offered voluntarily – occasionally – to another. When not obedience, though, there was always loyalty. Always service, if hidden.
So you obey. You eat the bread and walk the trail and return to the unquestioning ease of childhood.
The days pass overhead, the sun rising alone and always setting on you alone. The rain falls and gathers to the lake, the selfish lake that always takes what you give but gives nothing back.
Every day, you obey. Trying to give her what she asks, trying to return what was given to you, trying to use bone and flesh and breath if that's what she needs, if that's what they all need.
You turn the ground – dust to dust – and scatter the seed-
thinking about the death that is necessary before life can begin, and wonder if maybe you shouldn't dig yourself a grave where your mother can place you; maybe your body would do more good there, returning to the earth what it gave, the magic that was secret but isn't any longer, only meaningless-
and tend the green, and reap the gold and grind it down and… turn it back into bread and life. Its purpose, its promise-
When Albion's need is greatest, Arthur will rise again.
What about the gold of that promise? Perhaps you should have planted him after all, and not trusted him to the water.
Sink into your lover's arms
The womb that made you whole
Let her waters slake the thirst you carry in your soul
Let her take you in her arms
Let her take you home (let her take you home… let her take you home)
Leave to her the dreams you made of honor, steel, and stone
…..*…..
The water is the same, flat gray lined with long distant ripples. Constant movement and absolutely meaningless.
Any grass is hidden beneath a hoar of frost that you don't feel. Arms wrap legs and you shiver and that is meaningless, too. Your body's betrayal.
The world dies, all around you. Skeletal trees slumber, fur and feather burrow and slumber, and rain falls soft and silent, disguised.
Real rough, tough, save-the-world kind of man…
No. You're not. You're really not, anymore.
How long has it been since you had no choice but to make the last sacrifice of your life – along with all meaning. How long will death reign instead of the golden sunrise? Soft gray shifts silently subtle overhead, and scatters more rain in disguise, and the lake laps the shore tentatively, unwilling to find itself frozen in place.
You wait til your tears freeze and your eyes won't close and you sit like the mountain with eternal patience and distant pain.
And finally someone comes.
Through the rippling gray water, the rain in disguise, dark hair and flowing garment in royal purple. Dark eyes luminous, and you watch her smile at you and she's not trying to pretend to understand, she simply knows something you don't.
She says your name, and your response is involuntary.
Is it really you?
She leans forward, reaching. Your face leans into the touch of her hand, distantly felt through the cold.
Let me take you home? she suggests.
Home feels different, sounds different from the lips of your lover. Home to her is…
She drops her caressing hand, but doesn't pull it back, and waits.
Hope betrays. So what is it that reaches for her grasp? Necessity? Desperation?
Faith, which is said to be blind. And maybe is a different sort of winged thing than the other. Hardier. Enduring.
You rise and she smiles a little more, curling into an embrace you didn't know you possessed anymore; your arms have been so empty since you released your king – your friend – your purpose – to the depths.
But your entire being clings to her – let me take you home. You offered it once, and failed her, it would be exactly what you deserve if…
The trees around the lake leap up from their places, boughs dancing madly – silently – across the sky. The water of the lake slides somewhere new, beyond its bounds, past its shore. Rising up into your ears, pressing your chest to breathe deliberately and attentively, and you cling to her. The water fills your mouth like a trickle of rain, and you swallow without thinking that you shouldn't.
She wraps herself – or something – around you like a shroud, like a shower of funeral blossoms that smell like fresh-cut evergreen.
It's only gradually that the sensation of water-weight drains from you and it seems you are standing – still gazing blankly across the expanse of the lake, but the island has expanded to an entire shore. Odd enough that you look about and realize – you are on the island.
A surge of heat fires through you, and you look – really look – at her.
Come, she tells you – asks you – and turns in a swirl of royal purple. You follow, stumbling.
But the stone is the quietly abandoned ruin of a castle, not a single echo of joy or mirth – or hope – or battle strife, or victory.
This isn't… you say, your voice as rusty as unused hinges.
Isn't home, like she promised. Isn't Avalon, like you thought it might be.
She glances back, but doesn't halt her slow wander about the ruinous courtyard. No, it isn't, she agrees with you, and evidently she doesn't need your verbal clarification. I can bring you here, but you have to let me.
Your feet stop moving, stop trying to follow. She pauses then, watching you like she expects comprehension to arrive at any moment.
Home isn't Camelot. Isn't Ealdor.
I didn't fit in anymore. I wanted to find somewhere that I did.
Had any luck?
Eyes on you, she begins to move again, and she doesn't trip or stutter over the broken stone – broken dreams – on the ground. You follow because there is nothing else, but it's… not… meaningless.
You come out into another open courtyard, and there is a stone in the center. Not an altar, where sacrifices must be made and bargains struck – but instead it offers-
The golden hilt of a well-beloved blade, waiting with the patience of granite.
You feel like it has been sheathed in your chest, and your breath stutters, shredded. Your heart keeps beating, keeps tearing itself open on that shard, even as it struggles to live.
To hope.
No one here blames you, she says, coming close so you can clearly see the sincerity shine in her dark eyes. She doesn't blame you for what happened to her that you didn't stop.
For what happened to him, that you didn't stop.
What happened to all of it. All of them. That you didn't stop.
You blame yourself, she adds slowly. It is the power of your guilt and your regret that… keeps you from coming home.
In that case, you never will. Because you deserve the punishment, the eternal exile…
No one here blames you.
Everything you've done… I know now – for me, for Camelot, for the kingdom you helped me build. I want to say something I've never said to you before… Thank you.
Your heart tears itself a little more on those words, and tears choke in your throat. Last words, and you didn't want to hear them.
Maybe you never really heard them.
If you could forgive yourself, she says, and it sounds a little like pleading. She takes your hand where it hangs heavy and useless at your side. I miss you. They miss you. He misses you, Merlin.
Truth bleeds and bleeds inside you.
Won't you let me take you home?
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I wanted… but I made so many mistakes.
Atonement. Acceptance. Fallibility, humanity. Punishment and reward, she says, watching you closely, isn't about what we think we deserve, you know.
You breathe, and breathe, and the ache begins to ease as… the sword waits… unneeded.
Rest.
In peace.
The sun breaks the horizon, chasing shadows, rising fierce and warm.
"There you are," he says.
Warmth floods your soul; she grips your hand and turns with you, and Avalon is… breathtaking. A gorgeous ache easing in beauty, comfort, humor, companionship… love.
He saunters out of the morning – no chainmail, just forget-me-not blue and leather – and reaches behind your head to cup your neck, strength and purpose in his grip. You can't look away from his eyes, but you recognize others waiting behind him, just through an archway that leads to… light and life, and the stone is just a shell curving, covering the glorious reality, and the door is open.
Failure doesn't look like this, so maybe…
"Come on,"he adds, giving you a little shake before dropping his hand, and his voice is exactly his own. "Haven't got all day – let her bring you in."
Beside you, she smiles and tugs - and you are privileged to obey, and follow him home.
A/N: Cuz, y'know, who doesn't need yet another fix for the series end?