Work Text:
Merlin watched the sun set, red and glowing, from his window in Gaius’ tower. It was a hot, sticky summer day, the kind that didn’t come very often, and when it did, hung around like a cloud of locusts, buzzing into people’s ears until they couldn’t think or remember what comfort felt like. Sweat tickled down the back of his knees like something dirty, like a fly or a tongue or a premonition.
Gaius walked around the main chamber, tidying up, washing dishes, sorting jars and such. Like his ward, he caught himself watching the sun as it sank behind the trees, red as the knight’s capes, red as the clay soil of a battleground. His knees hurt. Space clean, he settled down with a cup of calming tea and his medical journal, keeping track of all the medical cases he had seen that day.
Merlin watched all this. Merlin, from his bed, with his door shut, where he couldn’t see or hear Gaius.
Merlin’s bones didn’t feel like they fit.
***
It wasn’t long after sunset that Merlin found himself wandering into the woods surrounding Camelot, at times walking, at times running, running desperately, running like it would give his lungs meaning. His eyes darted frantically, like the world was too full of things to see, too full. The trees loomed, talking overhead as he looked, desperate, for whatever he felt he was supposed to find.
Too full.
(His bones didn’t fit)
The foliage underfoot crunched louder than he’d ever heard it, the breathing of the birds in their sleep, the screaming of the foxes nipping at his heels. There were foxes running beside him, their white teeth chattering as they guided him.
He didn’t think he could ever stop moving. He thought, if he just kept going, he’d walk around the earth and end up right back in Camelot, new, clean. Different.
His magic slipped out in increments. The foxes following him grew, their legs stretching unnaturally, voices deepening to a cave-call. Their eyes, slowly, took on the same gold as his.
Around him, the whispering of the trees shifted into true conversation—not one anyone could understand the meaning of, but it had cadence, it had consistency. The trees Knew, and they wouldn’t share with anyone.
Flowers bloomed, dripping honey. Some twisted around the trees and tightening their hold until conversation fell into pained screaming. The foxes—wolf-foxes, dear-foxes, demon-foxes, what were they now?—grabbed those vines and ripped them, golden ichor dripping from their teeth like blood. These trees weren’t meant to be harmed.
Merlin, eventually, tripped and fell, flowers and ivy spraying around him as his magic bled out. He curled there, sobbing, waiting for it to end.
Why didn’t his bones fit?
***
The next day came slowly as Merlin, exhausted and empty and heavy, made his stumbling walk back to Camelot.
The nights were coming more frequently, now, and it worried him.
He’d felt it in Ealdor, too, those years before he came to Camelot—a tamer version, one he wouldn’t have recognized for what it was now if he hadn’t felt it growing in him the last couple years. Then, he thought he just didn’t fit in the small farming village, he thought it was the Magic, the superficial ties with the townspeople he just couldn’t seem to deepen. He thought it was the secret-keeping, his mother’s worry, the terrifying week between when Will had found out and when he came back, grinning and full of new prank ideas, the father he had never met.
It might still be the Magic.
Camelot has calmed him, for a while. He slept the nights through calmly, remembering nothing when we woke. His magic didn’t spill out of him, his skin ended at his fingertips, and day to day textures and colors were no more remarkable than they should be.
Everything was still a secret, but he met a dragon in a cave and was told there was a reason for it all, and he felt settled for once in his life.
It had been changing, though, growing, returning. His magic was barely contained, leaking out in his sleep. He found himself waking up in the woods when he’d gone to bed in Camelot. He went through entire days without noticing, or maybe forgetting afterwards. Sometimes he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten, or slept—it must have been in the past few days. He was studying under Gaius, he knew the body couldn’t go long without.
“Merlin, are you quite sure you’re alright?”
“Sire?” Merlin said, unfreezing from where he’d been staring at Arthur’s clothes.
“You’ve been more incompetent than usual.”
Merlin ran the backs of his nails down his forearm, marveling at the sensation. “Just, uh, worried about Morgana is all.”
Merlin felt Arthur purse his lips, frowning. He forgot to remember that he had no business knowing what Arthur’s face was doing, seeing as Merlin was currently staring at the wood of the table.
Arthur didn’t like talking about Morgana. Understandable.
Merlin couldn’t sleep that night, either.
It wasn’t as bad as the night before.
He called Kilgharrah, this time.
“I’m breaking, Kilgharrah, what’s happening to me?”
The dragon, for once, wasn’t forthcoming with one of its non-answers. Something about its eyes was sadder than usual. Merlin was suddenly very aware that this was the last of its kind, that Kilgharrah had seen its entire species murdered, and been forced into captivity by a mad king and someone who should have protected it.
It seemed a little cruel, suddenly, to have denied it it’s rage.
“I’m afraid you are close to waking, young Emrys.”
Merlin didn’t like the sound of that.
***
He had two weeks of reprieve, after that, and managed to fool himself that all was well. He’d talked to Gaius, finally, who had given him a few calming potions. Compared to how he usually felt, Merlin was pleasantly numb, now.
Arthur started nagging him again, and the corner of Gwen’s mouth stopped twisting in worry whenever they had dinner together. He’d even managed to take care of yet another threat on Arthur’s life with no complications.
Until he dreamed of Nimueh.
She sat, back against the tree at the center of the Isle of the Blessed, lightning scars crossing her entire body. Her dress, unlike the tatters she wore when he’d killed her, was whole, new, comfortable. Not nearly as intricate as the remains of the one she once wore, but softer, more fitting for someone who might just be at peace.
Merlin crackled, feeling like he had in that instance between when he had called lighting down and when it had struck. His chest, under the fireball scar, ached something awful, like an open-mouthed cave.
“It’s inevitable, Merlin.”
He shook his head.
“Did you really think you were human? All that you have inside you, and you never thought you were something else?”
“I won’t listen to you. Stop.”
“You, untrained, young. You, who barely knew any spells, and killed me with lighting. How have you fooled yourself so long?”
“Stop!”
“A dragonlord, a warlock. Emrys. How many wounds have you miraculously survived?”
“Stop! I have a mother! A father! I was born!”
“And why would that mean anything? It’s time to awaken, Emrys.”
And he did, startled and gasping, out in the woods.
His bones didn’t fit.
They ached, screamed, so he started running again. His foxes, already grown, soon ran beside him.
His magic streamed out of him and it still wasn’t enough so he screamed, cried as he ran, running golden rivulets down his face.
His foxes screamed with him, childlike and brutal.
A deer crossed in front of him and froze.
The foxes snapped at it and took it down, their footprints turning red, and they cleaned their teeth on its bones.
Merlin screamed again because he felt it die.
And he ran, and he ran, and the moon trembled in the sky, casting a silver floating glow over the world. The sun would rise red in the morning but it wasn’t morning yet, and he wasn’t tired, and maybe if he ran far enough the world would feel real again.
He ran and the trees were gone, and the moonlight burned his skin, and he dropped to his knees and screamed again, and his foxes, dirty mouthed and loyal, they screamed with him.
He was fine, he was hole, but his bones—his bones that didn’t fit—they snapped into place and the world flashed golden.
The field he had run into, miles across, fluttered with flowers in the breeze.
His foxes rolled and play-wrestled in the meadow.
He settled.
***
“You knew what I was,” Merlin said, when Kilgharrah joined him.
“I did, Emrys.”
“And yet you tried to fool me?”
The dragon’s face shifted, suddenly uncomfortable.
“You knew what I was. You, being what you are, had a better chance of understanding it than most. And yet you tried to fool me? To manipulate me on your vengeful plan? Take my still-human discomfort and twist it, give me something to care about and walk it all to its death?”
The wind blew across them both, playing with Merlin and drifting, lifeless, past Kilgharrah.
“I was angry.”
“And now you’re not?”
“I still am.”
***
Morgana, alone in her hut, awoke to singing.
When she opened her eyes, she saw wildflowers crowning the roof, twisting down the support beams. The ragged furs of her bed were softer than she’d ever felt them. She ate some of the berries that had shown up on her table, unafraid, and walked out.
Merlin sat in the grass—it wasn’t really grass anymore, though, was it? Covered in clovers and flowers and faeries—a trio of not-quite-foxes making themselves comfortable around him. She could see the long legs of more darting through the trees. Merlin sat still, eyes closed but gold leaking out from beneath them.
The singing was coming from the trees.
She didn’t know what the words were, but she understood.
He opened his eyes. “Morgana.”
And she knew that this was Emrys. “Merlin.” Because he deserved that much, in kindness.
His soft smile seemed to agree. “Come,” he said, holding out his hand, “it is time for Uther’s reckoning.”
***
Uther was in the throne room when they arrived. Emrys, hand in hand with Morgana, the last high priestess of the old religion, bastard, and estranged daughter of Uther Pendragon. A white dragon around her shoulders, and hungry foxes stalking by his shins.
Something that ran deeper than his anger understood. He paled.
“Uther Pendragon,” Merlin said, eyes glowing gold.
Arthur looked confused between his sister, best friend, and father. He took in Merlin’s eyes and part of his heart broke.
“You knew of magic. You were told the terms of the creation of a life. And yet you ran, angry, selfish, and arrogant, and thought you could make us forget.
“You killed, and you killed, and you killed. You are mad, Uther Pendragon, but you are no fool. You know what you did. It is time you reap what you sow.”
Morgana stepped forward. Aithusa stretched its wings, framing her like a queen, like a goddess, beautiful and frightening. Its tail whipped behind them. She sat, calm, on the cold stone floors and started chanting. Shadows poured out of Uther’s mouth, endless. Human-shaped shadows, some adult, many not. They screamed in a way that made Arthur’s teeth rattle, though he couldn’t hear them. The throne room filled with the specters of everyone Uther had killed, suffocating.
Morgana’s eyes dulled back to green. “You tried to bury you sins in death and wipe this land of magic. Be glad that you failed.”
The shadows started piling on top of each other, limbs askew, mouths gaping. They piled on top of and into each other, coagulating like dry blood, like river mud after a flood, sticky and toxic. They piled and the pile grew, reforming itself, until they became a fox, or a dragon. Long-necked and long-legged, with a fox’s head and a dragon’s wings and tail, teeth sharper than anything had a right to be, eyes glowing golden. It growled like children cry and rocks fall, stooped to fit inside the throne room, and snapped Uther in its jaws.
Uther didn’t even have time to scream.
The creature folded its legs and settled its head, one big eye fixed on Arthur. “Do not follow in the sins of your father, Arthur Pendragon,” its mouth did not move, but the ground shook with the depth of its voice, “for your judgement has begun.”
And it closed its eye and dissolved like smoke, wildflowers pushing through the stone in its wake. Soon, a meadow in the shape of a many-pointed star sat in the center of the throne room.
Freed from his role as arbiter, Merlin left Arthur to grieve. Arthur didn’t know if he was grieving his friend or his father and let himself sink to the floor.
A gentle hand rested itself on his shoulder. “Arthur?” Morgana asked.
He didn’t shake her hand off, but he didn’t look at her, either. “You wanted this.”
“I did.”
“He was my father. Yours, too.”
“Gorlois was my father. But he was yours, yes.”
Arthur didn’t say anything.
“You are allowed to grieve him, you know.”
“Uther, or Merlin?”
“Merlin isn’t dead.”
“No, but he killed my father. You did, too.”
“We did. But he’s killed thousands of people. A genocide, Arthur.”
They were both silent for a while.
“He was my father.”
“And you are allowed to grieve your father.”
And he did, and he let himself take comfort that his sister was there for him.
***
Time seemed to pass slowly, air dragging over skin, each sunset lingering like it wasn’t ready to go. Arthur would wake, and by the time George helped undress him for bed, he would have forgotten that yes, the council meeting had been that morning, not three days ago.
It was only a week later when Merlin visited Arthur in his chambers, eyes flickering between blue and gold.
Arthur looked up from the book Morgana had given him and didn’t say anything.
“I’m still Merlin,” Merlin said, “but I’m also Emrys now.”
Arthur nodded. “Morgana explained it to me. What she could, at least.”
“I’d wager that’s as much as I can.”
There was a pause in conversation.
“What now, then?” Arthur asked.
Merlin shrugged. “I learn what it means to be Emrys. The land is so torn up, Arthur. It’s been screaming for years, and I can only hear it now.”
“I’ve been learning,” Arthur said, slowly. “You know I was already uncomfortable with what my… with what Uther was doing.” He paused. “Geoffrey kept records, you know, of the purge. As much as he could.”
Merlin sat, quietly.
“I don’t know if I can call him my father anymore, but he’s already dead.”
Merlin nodded. A few minutes passed in silence, until Merlin picked up a boot and started polishing.
***
Merlin tried to sleep in his old cot, that night. He was still learning how much of him was the Merlin he always was, how much of him was Emrys, and what it meant to be both. The cot was too small, though. The trees were too far away. He could feel the trickles of magic in Camelot, all the people Uther had failed to find and kill, the people who had a home in Camelot and refused to leave, damnit. He took comfort in that, in knowing that all the killing hadn’t been enough, and people had endured, as they always do. He cradled the magic in his hands and let wildflowers sprout through the stones, the ceiling beams growing alive again. His foxes curled around him, laughing softly.
His bones were settled, and the heart of the land would be, too, eventually.