Chapter Text
They found Morgana’s remains in the woods. She’s not the only one they found.
Leon seems to hesitate before delivering his report. Leon doesn’t usually hesitate, and his uncertainty sends a wave of unease through Arthur.
“It’s Merlin, Sire,” says Leon finally. His voice is halting in anticipation of Arthur’s reaction. Arthur’s stomach drops, because Leon wouldn’t sound like this if Merlin was well. “We found him.”
Arthur swallows tightly. “Alive?”
“We’re not sure,” Leon replies. “We thought perhaps it would be best for you to see for yourself.”
The ride is quiet and tense. Arthur trusts Leon and refuses to ask what it is that awaits them or why it makes his men so unsettled. It wouldn’t be long until he sees for himself, anyway. Patience is a virtue, isn’t that what they always say? Yet he can’t tell what he hates more; the fact that his men know something he doesn’t, or the sad looks they shoot his way when they think he isn’t looking. It bothers him like an itch on his back that he can’t quite scratch. He wants to snap at them to stop bloody staring, but doesn’t want to give them any reason to justify all the staring to begin with.
It’s difficult to describe what Arthur is feeling, because not even Arthur can begin to understand how he is feeling. Like a great walking chasm, perhaps, with equal amounts of dread and cautious hope around the crevices. Like a bowstring stretched taut, moments before the arrow is let loose. Like a ball of anxious energy, vibrating in place without an outlet. He doesn’t know. It doesn’t really matter.
When Leon calls finally for the party to a halt, Arthur is so anxious he feels sick to the stomach. He is almost scared to look, and to be fair, he doesn’t even know what to look for.
“That’s him, Sire,” Leon says, pointing at what appears to be a still figure in the distance, clad all in white, “that’s Merlin.”
Merlin stands motionless, smooth as if carved out of marble. One arm is protectively raised in front of his face, as if to stop an imminent danger. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which imminent danger he was facing. It’s this dynamic position of his arm that tells Arthur what happened.
Arthur’s feet move as if on their own accord. From up close, he can see every crease on Merlin’s skin, every strand of hair, preserved in perpetuity. But it’s the look on his face that causes Arthur’s lungs to seize. Merlin’s mouth is open, trapped in a silent scream, his eyes wide and unseeing.
Nothing could’ve stopped Arthur from reaching out then. In morbid curiosity, perhaps, or horrified disbelief. He touches Merlin’s skin; it is hard and unyielding. There’s no warmth there, no life. No spark to indicate that Merlin is there at all.
Arthur snatches his finger back as if burnt, but he couldn’t stop himself from calling out Merlin’s name. “It’s me,” Arthur says. Rather nonsensically, because what difference would his presence make to a man who has been entombed in stone? “It’s Arthur.”
Merlin, of course, doesn’t reply.
Arthur wants to run. He wants to go back to his castle and forget that he was ever here at all. He wants to continue to pretend that wherever Merlin is, he’s alive and well, doing stupid little magic shows to delight village children. Even if it means that he’s far away from Arthur.
The Merlin in Arthur’s head, at the very least, is happy.
Arthur doesn’t want to be there, standing in the woods, staring at the cold, hard truth. All those years that Arthur spent searching, begging for any news, and Merlin had been so close to Camelot. Gods, not even a full day’s ride away. Still fighting what ought to be Arthur’s battles, all on his own.
Morgana is defeated, and while that may be all well and good, Arthur feels as though he just lost everything all over again.
In all the years Leon has known Arthur, he has never seen Arthur look so shaken. He has always been a self-assured, confident leader, even in the face of colossal uncertainty. He didn’t hesitate when they faced an army whose size dwarfed their own. Not when they faced the dragon, not when they’re facing other impossible odds.
In all those times, Leon has never seen Arthur’s control slip once—certainly not like this. He can hear Arthur’s sharp inhale as he steps closer to Merlin, and can see the way the hesitant, quiet hope on Arthur’s face slowly morphs into despair.
Leon averts his eyes in an attempt to give his king some semblance of privacy. He hopes the other knights are doing the same.
“Merlin?” Arthur’s voice is so soft, so tremulous, full of old pain that never truly went away. Leon desperately wishes the wind hadn’t carried the sound to his ears. “It’s me. It’s Arthur.”
Leon hears Arthur take a deep steadying breath, and then another. He straightens his back. When he turns back to face his men, his features are schooled into an impassive mask. But Leon has known Arthur since they were children, when they were only young boys with wooden swords. He is privileged enough to call Arthur a friend. He knows Arthur well enough to see something fractured in Arthur’s eyes.
When he speaks, his voice is controlled. “How long?”
“We hadn’t patrolled this area recently,” Leon replies apologetically. They had been too preoccupied with reports of a white dragon in the east. “But judging by the state of Morgana, I would say no more than a couple of weeks.”
Arthur nods. His movements are jerky.
“Sire—” one of the other knights begins to say, but Arthur raises his hand. The knight falls silent.
“Bring him home,” Arthur orders. Without another word and nary a second glance, he mounts his horse and rides off.
The other knights look to Leon for guidance.
“You heard the King,” Leon tells them. “We bring him back to Camelot.”
Leon finds Arthur alone by the stream, away from the main camp. He rustles every leaf, snapping every twig he can find under his boot, giving Arthur plenty of warning.
Arthur turns to face him, a filled water skein in his hand. His face is deliberately blank, but Leon knows Arthur all too well. No amount of self-control can hide the haunted look in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Sire.”
Arthur looks grave, but he nods in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Leon.”
Five years ago, the response would’ve been something along the lines of a fake laugh and an insouciant whatever for?, but Arthur is not the same man he was five years ago. He has been forced to come into his own, break the perfect image of his father that he built in his own head. And he’s had to do it all without the man he loved by his side—the man who forced Arthur to confront the errors of his father’s ways to begin with.
“Can you believe it?” Arthur chuckles then, but there’s no humour there. “He still wears those ridiculous neckerchiefs.”
“Indeed,” Leon smiles. This, at least, is more familiar territory.
Arthur goes quiet again. “Any signs of Gwaine?”
“At present, we have no reason to believe that there was a third person at the tie of the battle.”
“He’d never abandon Merlin,” Arthur comments, if bitterly. His tone speaks of years of regret, laced with more than a little amount of envy. “He’d follow Merlin everywhere. I can’t imagine he’d leave Merlin in his time of need.”
Leon doesn’t comment. Gwaine is a fiercely loyal man, but there’s no doubt as to where his loyalties lie. “We’ll continue to scour the forest.”
“See to it that you do,” Arthur nods with approval. After a beat, he speaks again. “Is it—he—a heavy weight to carry?”
“Nothing we’re unhappy to shoulder, Sire.”
“No,” Arthur agrees. “I suppose he never was.”
When they arrived in Camelot, they were faced with another problem: they don’t know where to place Merlin. It would be beyond grotesque to put him alongside other sculptures lining Camelot’s hallways—actual statues that were never, at any point, alive. Arthur had half the mind to place him in the catacombs that snake under Camelot, along with other effigies of the old kings and queens of Camelot. The only thing keeping him from doing so is the fact that he can’t bear thinking of Merlin, cold and alone in the dark.
In the end, they put the statue of Merlin in his old room. Arthur would give everything to forget the look on Gaius’ face when he truly sees what fate had befallen his son.
“Morgana did this?” Gaius asks faintly.
“We found her body in front of him.” It’s neither a confirmation nor a denial, but it’s the best that Arthur could offer. “Is he—“ Arthur swallows. “Gaius, is he dead?”
“It’s too soon to say,” replies Gaius. “Was there anyone else with them?”
“We only found Morgana.”
“It would be difficult to determine without knowing what truly happened.”
“My men will be scouring the forest,” Arthur assures him. “If there is something to find, they will find it.”
Gaius nods. He looks very old suddenly, and very frail.
Arthur stands, wanting to give Gaius space to mourn. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Thank you, Sire.” He doesn’t look at Arthur. And then, in very faintly, he adds, “you’ve brought my boy home.”
It doesn’t sink in.
Everything feels, curiously, the same. Merlin has been gone for so long that him being gone for longer will not theoretically change a thing. The Court Sorcerer position has been filled. Magic has been allowed to return. Camelot’s greatest enemy has been vanquished, and Arthur’s destiny has been fulfilled. Merlin wasn’t there for any of it.
The prospect that Merlin will never return to Arthur shouldn’t bother him; in a way, Arthur has been grieving for Merlin for years.
Yet Arthur cannot mourn, properly mourn, until he knows for sure that Merlin is gone. He still doesn’t have that closure.
A part of him is convinced that Merlin is still in there, frozen and trapped but alive. Perhaps it’s nothing but delusion, a way to seek solace because he never had the chance to say goodbye. He tells himself that something in him would know if Merlin died. He would feel it, somehow. He refuses to believe that they had grown so far apart—that Arthur had pushed Merlin away so irrevocably—that Arthur didn’t even notice that Merlin had died and found out this way.
All those years of friendship, and all it took was one grave misstep. He has spent all the years since trying to rectify his mistake, but in the end, it wasn’t enough.
He’s done everything he’s supposed to do—restore the balance and all that. He refuses to believe that destiny could be so cruel.
When the night falls and the moon hangs high in the sky, Arthur sneaks into Gaius’ room.
“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” He peers closely at Merlin. “You’d tell me if you’re truly gone.”
Arthur has always loved Merlin in this light. He looks ethereal bathed in the moonlight. Otherworldly. Perhaps he is, like the god some of the druids believe him to be.
Now, the expression on Merlin’s face leaves him with an ache somewhere deep in his bones. Arthur turns away. He always hated to see Merlin in pain.
When they return to the copse where they found Merlin and Morgana, the forest seems unnaturally still. The wind itself seems to stop before they reach the trees in the copse, and the leaves on the trees don’t flutter like they are wont to do. There was no bird merrily chirping along. The clops of their horses’ hooves sound unnervingly loud among all the silence. It’s as though the earth knows that something was wrong.
They didn’t find anything new.
They find Gwaine, naturally, in a tavern.
“Well, well,” he drawls, not bothering to look up from his tankard. “Who do we have here?”
“Well met, Gwaine,” Arthur stretches out a hand, and Gwaine, after a moment of consideration, takes it.
“What brings the King of Camelot round these parts then?”
“You know exactly what.”
“No, I want to hear you say it.”
“Merlin,” Arthur grits out. “Of course it’s Merlin.”
Gwaine grins. “Came to your senses, did you?” Gwaine sneaks a glance Arthur’s way and scoffs at something that he sees on Arthur’s face. “Took you some time,” he takes a swig of his ale. “But hey, you got there eventually.”
“You heard, then.”
“Bit hard to miss, mate.”
“Then what on earth kept you for so long?”
“Don’t blame me,” Gwaine sneers, “Merlin was the one who wanted to stay away.”
Arthur feels his heart shatter in his chest. He reckons everyone can hear it echo for miles.
Arthur goes to a druid settlement, where Mordred is their leader. The druids part for him, but Arthur wishes they hadn’t. They part from him, and judging by the looks on their faces, they know exactly why he’s there.
“We grieve with you,” Mordred says, handing Arthur a goblet as he pours his own.
Arthur tilts his head in thanks. “How did you know?”
“Emrys’ downfall is one that has been foreseen for centuries.”
“So you knew,” Arthur snaps. He puts his goblet down, if slightly too hard, and takes his hand off the table so Mordred doesn’t see it shake. “You knew all along that this was going to happen, and you fail to warn me.”
“None can know for sure, though it is right that his death has been foretold,” Mordred replies. “There are many paths to the future, each leading to a different outcome. This is merely one of the many outcomes that have been prophesied.”
Wouldn’t need magic to understand that, Arthur thinks, but he doesn’t voice it out loud. What good is a prophecy, then, if it doesn’t tell you anything real?
“Did you know where he was?” Arthur presses. Did you lie when I asked you if you knew?
Mordred shoots Arthur a pitying look, his demeanour cool and unflappable. “You chose to banish him,” Mordred points out blithely. Not that Arthur ever needed reminding. “He chose to stay away. I chose to respect his decision.”
Do not blame me for the consequences of your own actions.
“Tell me this, then,” Arthur retorts. “Is he alive?”
“He is frozen in time,” Mordred replies. “But how to restore him to life, I cannot tell you.”