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Merlin Fic - Changes
And now for something a little bit different... I'm dipping my toes into a new fandom.
Title: Changes
Genre: Gen, Friendship, slight AU
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~ 2,350 words
Spoilers: To be safe, through “Le Morte d’Arthur” as it is set in the slight future from canon.
Synopsis: A single battle can change everything.
Author’s Notes: My attempt to link canon to popular mythology. Many thanks to the awesome beta powers of Anon and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
briar_pipe! All remaining errors are mine alone.
Disclaimer: I do not own this version of the myths, people with a lot of money do. I’m just borrowing it to play and making no profit from this.
~~~~~~~~~~
Arthur raced across the battlefield, pushing past soldiers frozen in shock and horror at the scene before them. Entire trees were uprooted, branches and leaves blowing in a tempest that seemed to have a single focal point. The two figures in the center of it all were bathed in swaths of light, the sky itself seemingly tearing to pieces above them as the ground beneath sizzled and smoked, barring anyone passage close enough to end this thing once and for all.
Nimueh was shrieking, lines of fire arcing from her long fingers, and Merlin was hollering in counterpoint, the glow of a mystical shield protecting him from the attack. Neither spoke a language known to man for centuries or more.
He watched, helpless, as the blue of the shield raced outwards, expanded, the searing heat of the flames reflected in all directions, including his own. “Merlin!” he screamed, voice hoarse from the long hours of order and battle.
Nimueh’s face split into a demented grin and for the first time in what felt like ages, she spoke words Arthur himself could understand. “I’ve found your weakness, wizard.”
Arthur watched Merlin’s eyes widened in realization even as he saw the sorceress turn towards him. He raised his shield a breath before the flames hit, his friend’s cries for him to get out of there still echoing in his ears. Merlin’s howls turned to those of rage and Arthur fell to the ground as that which he fought against suddenly ceased.
He blinked away the smoke, looked past the glowing red of his shield and the blistering heat of his armor to see a new color. A circle of green was forming around the two enemies, carved first into the hard-baked earth and then stretching upwards towards the sky.
“You cannot bind me!” Nimueh protested, shooting flames only to have them reflected back in at herself. “To bind me is to bind yourself!” she screamed.
“I will do what I must to see your power contained,” Merlin promised and Arthur swore his eyes were glowing golden through the green haze. “Your time of terror is over.”
“Time?” she spat. “You know nothing of Time or Power, child. The magic within me is older than Time itself and you shall feel its wrath.” She raised her arms high, her incantations forming a whirlwind of blues and grays before her, spinning forward towards her adversary.
“You have abused your power,” Merlin condemned her.
“And you have wasted yours protecting the boy who would be king,” she returned. “You cannot shield him and protect yourself at the same time.”
“I don’t have to,” Merlin replied, dropping his hands and stepping into the cyclone.
Arthur screamed in protest, eyes blinded from the rush of colors and light. Just before he closed them in protection, he swore he saw a hand reach out and grab the flailing witch, dragging her into the depths of Time itself.
When he opened them again, it was dark. Soldiers and knights lay scattered over the battlefield, the stench of death enveloping even the few that moved. The scalding metal of his shield had grown cold and a harsh wind was rolling in over the hills, blowing away the remnants of smoke and ash.
He forced himself to rise, staggered to his feet and stumbled over the blackened ground, hoping against hope for something he knew could no longer exist. What he saw took his breath away. There, in the center of the circle, lay two heaps of what looked to be no more than rags, but the scouring wind revealed the hint of flesh beneath.
“Merlin?” he tried, choking as the acrid air burned his lungs. He made his way forward, hesitant to cross the border, feeling a residual tingle of what he knew must be the accursed magic across his skin as he did so.
He spared a look at the woman to his right, finding no life in her shriveled form. Resisting the urge to drive her through with his blade anyway, he sunk to his knees beside the other huddle of singed cloth. The robe covered his friend’s face, but he owed it to him to see him through one last time, to meet his death head-on, to know what was sacrificed so Camelot could live.
He rolled the body to him, letting the hood fall free, revealing a face far older than his years, far older than Time itself. Grizzled and gray and wrought with wrinkles, aged a thousand years in the time it took to blink away the damning tears. The robes were the same, as was the signet worn around his neck and the ears Arthur would have known anywhere. “Merlin...” he breathed.
He lowered his head to his friend’s chest, burying his sobs in ash. “Oh, Merlin, what have you done?” He shook the fragile body, demanding, “You daft, moronic, imbecilic... What have you done?”
The chest beneath him shifted and a voice no more than a whisper breathed across his ear, “Saved you.” There was a cough, followed by a harsh chuckle. “Again.”
Arthur shot back, barely catching himself from falling over. He dared to look over to rheumy eyes blinking open amidst a vast sea of wrinkles. “You’re alive?” he asked in disbelief.
“Barely,” came the confirmation. “Not sure if I was for a moment there, but I am now and for what looks to be a long, long time.” There was a grunt. “That is, if a certain armored ox can get off my chest long enough for me to breathe.”
Arthur pushed himself fully back, landing neatly on his royal posterior, but, really, who was going to comment on the fact given both his status and that his friend had apparently just come back from the dead. There were so many questions swimming in his head, but only one came to the forefront: “How?”
Merlin made as if to try to sit upright but after one attempt gave up and lay back in the dirt. “So, er, you know about the whole ‘wizard’ thing, right?” he asked.
Arthur could not help the near-hysterical chuckle that escaped him. “If I did not, I most certainly would after today’s display,” he commented, the sniff at the end further betraying his emotions.
“Oh, good, so it’s still today then,” Merlin muttered, more to himself than truly his friend, earning a strange look from said friend. Anything more was lost in a round of coughs that wracked his frail body, ending with the wizard shakily turning to his side and spitting something vile and black into the ash.
Arthur felt around for a skin of water, or wine, something liquid in any case, not wanting to take his eyes off of the heap of rags for fear they would disappear. His hands found something that felt right, but did not quite want to budge. Reluctantly, he traced his gaze from his hands to the skin to a gobsmacked Gwen crouched shakily beside him. “Sit down before you fall down,” he ordered, watching as she complied.
“And he should know,” Merlin added rather cheekily for someone who looked like death warmed over. Talking seemed to spur on another round of coughs, eased somewhat when Arthur and Gwen managed to manhandle him into a semi-upright position between the two of them, coaxing the precious liquid into his dry throat. “Thank you, my Queen,” he sighed, sinking a bit further into their joined embrace.
“Queen?” Gwen mouthed in disbelief. She turned to Arthur accusingly. “What have you done to him, sire? Is he delirious as well as infirm?”
Arthur thought infirm was a kind word for what he was, but wisely chose to stay quiet on the matter. Instead, he held up the hand not fully supporting his friend to indicate his innocence in this mess. “It wasn’t me,” he promised. “Merlin here was just about to explain it all.”
“Well, not all,” Merlin hedged, earning him two matching glares. “All would take far too much time. Time that I apparently have but which would cause you to grow old and gray, but no, I cannot go there, not yet.”
“Merlin,” Arthur growled.
“Yes, yes, another sip, love?” was the reply. After another careful drink from the skin, Merlin gave what was obviously the quickest, and least helpful, explanation he could. “It all involves time, really. Nimueh and I and a vortex and a great battle. You would have been proud, really, Arthur. Suffice it to say, she is out of the way for now and I am as I am until such time that I am not.”
“What?” Gwen asked, even as Arthur demanded, “What do you mean ‘for now’?” He looked to the shriveled body, and then to his sword, trying to figure out a way to bring one to the other without dropping his current burden.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Merlin promised, making a weak gesture towards the scraps. “She’s not in there anymore. Just a shell, spirit released to wreak havoc elsewhere once it discovers just where that elsewhere is.”
“Not reassuring,” Arthur pointed out, to which his friend simply shrugged.
“What do you mean you are as you are until...?” Gwen prompted, trailing off as if saying the words would make it true. Arthur couldn’t blame her. Merlin looked like he had fought Time itself, and had lost the battle in the most horrific way possible.
“If things go as they should, which they so rarely do but I digress, I should return to my former self eventually,” he explained.
“So you’ll be you, be young again?” Gwen verified.
Merlin made the waving motion with his hand that was very rapidly becoming annoying. “Not in your lifetime, no, but eventually.”
“Once again with the lack of assurance,” Arthur told him.
“It has to do with lives and living and backwards and reversing what was done and incredible knowledge that will, unfortunately disappear with each passing breath, though that would have to do with that whole backwards thing and unlearning what has happened but knowing what has yet to pass,” he said as if that explained everything.
“Is that all?” Arthur scoffed.
Merlin seemed to contemplate that for a moment before nodding, wild hair and sizable beard flying everywhere with the motion. “Yes, I believe that’s it,” he confirmed. “Well, that, and unconsciousness.”
Gwen looked worriedly at Arthur, resting a hand upon Merlin’s weathered brow as she asked, “Unconsciousness?”
“Yes, unconsciousness, as in now, as in me,” Merlin confirmed. He must have noticed the expressions they wore, or some higher knowledge played a role, as he forced his drifting eyes open and smiled, “I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“But – but I have so many questions,” Arthur tried, not caring that he was showing a rare moment of weakness. These two people knew him too well to hide that; they deserved honesty after everything they had been through together.
Merlin’s eyes slowly opened once more, and now he could see the rheumy white was replaced with a golden glow. “Don’t worry, my boy, we have time.”
Arthur felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and looked over to Gwen, the picture of serenity surrounded by the fields of devastation. “Let him rest, sire,” she bade.
He nodded, understanding the need, if not the desire to allow it at this time. He glanced down, expecting to see his friend in what would hopefully only be slumber, but instead found those eerie eyes staring right back at him.
“On the off chance I am wrong and this is, indeed, the end, I wish you both to know you rule wisely and history will know you well. Also, Gwen, he really didn’t mean to hurt you any more than you meant to hurt him. Oh, and Arthur, do be careful just who you sleep with at the Festival of the Hunt in the Fall,” he rattled off. “That would save a world of trouble.” Apparently satisfied that he had passed on the most important of whatever knowledge was currently taking up residence in his skull, he finally closed his eyes and appeared to drift off for good.
Arthur blinked, trying to make sense of things he really and truly did not believe could have sense made of them. When he found his words again, he looked to Gwen, seeing his own blank expression reflected back at him. “What was all that about then?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Maybe Morgana knows?” he guessed, hoping his surrogate sister would have some knowledge of this whole mess. Then again, he had barely seen one carefully coifed hair of hers since the last Festival of the Hunt, so there was a chance she would know nothing of the sort.
“If I see her, I shall ask,” Gwen promised, reminding him that he was not the only one Morgana currently hid from.
Arthur gazed out at the fields around them, watching as men began to stir and moan. Reluctantly, his eyes drifted back to the charred being that had caused so much devastation and which currently lay across from him. “I do believe I would still like to run her through a few times, just to be on the safe side,” he commented. “Any objections?”
Gwen hefted the sword that lay by her side, even as she shifted Merlin’s frail body fully onto her lap. “By all means, sire, please feel free.”
He could not help the hint of a smile that broke across his face as he rose and accepted the blade. In time, his remaining knights formed a circle around him, their border marked by the scorching of the earth beneath their feet. He heard their whispered questions: Who was the old man? What had happened to the manservant Merlin? Why was Arthur decimating a pile of rags?
Someday he hoped to give them an acceptable answer. Some day he hoped to have an acceptable answer for himself.
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.
Title: Changes
Genre: Gen, Friendship, slight AU
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~ 2,350 words
Spoilers: To be safe, through “Le Morte d’Arthur” as it is set in the slight future from canon.
Synopsis: A single battle can change everything.
Author’s Notes: My attempt to link canon to popular mythology. Many thanks to the awesome beta powers of Anon and
briar_pipe! All remaining errors are mine alone.Disclaimer: I do not own this version of the myths, people with a lot of money do. I’m just borrowing it to play and making no profit from this.
~~~~~~~~~~
Arthur raced across the battlefield, pushing past soldiers frozen in shock and horror at the scene before them. Entire trees were uprooted, branches and leaves blowing in a tempest that seemed to have a single focal point. The two figures in the center of it all were bathed in swaths of light, the sky itself seemingly tearing to pieces above them as the ground beneath sizzled and smoked, barring anyone passage close enough to end this thing once and for all.
Nimueh was shrieking, lines of fire arcing from her long fingers, and Merlin was hollering in counterpoint, the glow of a mystical shield protecting him from the attack. Neither spoke a language known to man for centuries or more.
He watched, helpless, as the blue of the shield raced outwards, expanded, the searing heat of the flames reflected in all directions, including his own. “Merlin!” he screamed, voice hoarse from the long hours of order and battle.
Nimueh’s face split into a demented grin and for the first time in what felt like ages, she spoke words Arthur himself could understand. “I’ve found your weakness, wizard.”
Arthur watched Merlin’s eyes widened in realization even as he saw the sorceress turn towards him. He raised his shield a breath before the flames hit, his friend’s cries for him to get out of there still echoing in his ears. Merlin’s howls turned to those of rage and Arthur fell to the ground as that which he fought against suddenly ceased.
He blinked away the smoke, looked past the glowing red of his shield and the blistering heat of his armor to see a new color. A circle of green was forming around the two enemies, carved first into the hard-baked earth and then stretching upwards towards the sky.
“You cannot bind me!” Nimueh protested, shooting flames only to have them reflected back in at herself. “To bind me is to bind yourself!” she screamed.
“I will do what I must to see your power contained,” Merlin promised and Arthur swore his eyes were glowing golden through the green haze. “Your time of terror is over.”
“Time?” she spat. “You know nothing of Time or Power, child. The magic within me is older than Time itself and you shall feel its wrath.” She raised her arms high, her incantations forming a whirlwind of blues and grays before her, spinning forward towards her adversary.
“You have abused your power,” Merlin condemned her.
“And you have wasted yours protecting the boy who would be king,” she returned. “You cannot shield him and protect yourself at the same time.”
“I don’t have to,” Merlin replied, dropping his hands and stepping into the cyclone.
Arthur screamed in protest, eyes blinded from the rush of colors and light. Just before he closed them in protection, he swore he saw a hand reach out and grab the flailing witch, dragging her into the depths of Time itself.
When he opened them again, it was dark. Soldiers and knights lay scattered over the battlefield, the stench of death enveloping even the few that moved. The scalding metal of his shield had grown cold and a harsh wind was rolling in over the hills, blowing away the remnants of smoke and ash.
He forced himself to rise, staggered to his feet and stumbled over the blackened ground, hoping against hope for something he knew could no longer exist. What he saw took his breath away. There, in the center of the circle, lay two heaps of what looked to be no more than rags, but the scouring wind revealed the hint of flesh beneath.
“Merlin?” he tried, choking as the acrid air burned his lungs. He made his way forward, hesitant to cross the border, feeling a residual tingle of what he knew must be the accursed magic across his skin as he did so.
He spared a look at the woman to his right, finding no life in her shriveled form. Resisting the urge to drive her through with his blade anyway, he sunk to his knees beside the other huddle of singed cloth. The robe covered his friend’s face, but he owed it to him to see him through one last time, to meet his death head-on, to know what was sacrificed so Camelot could live.
He rolled the body to him, letting the hood fall free, revealing a face far older than his years, far older than Time itself. Grizzled and gray and wrought with wrinkles, aged a thousand years in the time it took to blink away the damning tears. The robes were the same, as was the signet worn around his neck and the ears Arthur would have known anywhere. “Merlin...” he breathed.
He lowered his head to his friend’s chest, burying his sobs in ash. “Oh, Merlin, what have you done?” He shook the fragile body, demanding, “You daft, moronic, imbecilic... What have you done?”
The chest beneath him shifted and a voice no more than a whisper breathed across his ear, “Saved you.” There was a cough, followed by a harsh chuckle. “Again.”
Arthur shot back, barely catching himself from falling over. He dared to look over to rheumy eyes blinking open amidst a vast sea of wrinkles. “You’re alive?” he asked in disbelief.
“Barely,” came the confirmation. “Not sure if I was for a moment there, but I am now and for what looks to be a long, long time.” There was a grunt. “That is, if a certain armored ox can get off my chest long enough for me to breathe.”
Arthur pushed himself fully back, landing neatly on his royal posterior, but, really, who was going to comment on the fact given both his status and that his friend had apparently just come back from the dead. There were so many questions swimming in his head, but only one came to the forefront: “How?”
Merlin made as if to try to sit upright but after one attempt gave up and lay back in the dirt. “So, er, you know about the whole ‘wizard’ thing, right?” he asked.
Arthur could not help the near-hysterical chuckle that escaped him. “If I did not, I most certainly would after today’s display,” he commented, the sniff at the end further betraying his emotions.
“Oh, good, so it’s still today then,” Merlin muttered, more to himself than truly his friend, earning a strange look from said friend. Anything more was lost in a round of coughs that wracked his frail body, ending with the wizard shakily turning to his side and spitting something vile and black into the ash.
Arthur felt around for a skin of water, or wine, something liquid in any case, not wanting to take his eyes off of the heap of rags for fear they would disappear. His hands found something that felt right, but did not quite want to budge. Reluctantly, he traced his gaze from his hands to the skin to a gobsmacked Gwen crouched shakily beside him. “Sit down before you fall down,” he ordered, watching as she complied.
“And he should know,” Merlin added rather cheekily for someone who looked like death warmed over. Talking seemed to spur on another round of coughs, eased somewhat when Arthur and Gwen managed to manhandle him into a semi-upright position between the two of them, coaxing the precious liquid into his dry throat. “Thank you, my Queen,” he sighed, sinking a bit further into their joined embrace.
“Queen?” Gwen mouthed in disbelief. She turned to Arthur accusingly. “What have you done to him, sire? Is he delirious as well as infirm?”
Arthur thought infirm was a kind word for what he was, but wisely chose to stay quiet on the matter. Instead, he held up the hand not fully supporting his friend to indicate his innocence in this mess. “It wasn’t me,” he promised. “Merlin here was just about to explain it all.”
“Well, not all,” Merlin hedged, earning him two matching glares. “All would take far too much time. Time that I apparently have but which would cause you to grow old and gray, but no, I cannot go there, not yet.”
“Merlin,” Arthur growled.
“Yes, yes, another sip, love?” was the reply. After another careful drink from the skin, Merlin gave what was obviously the quickest, and least helpful, explanation he could. “It all involves time, really. Nimueh and I and a vortex and a great battle. You would have been proud, really, Arthur. Suffice it to say, she is out of the way for now and I am as I am until such time that I am not.”
“What?” Gwen asked, even as Arthur demanded, “What do you mean ‘for now’?” He looked to the shriveled body, and then to his sword, trying to figure out a way to bring one to the other without dropping his current burden.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Merlin promised, making a weak gesture towards the scraps. “She’s not in there anymore. Just a shell, spirit released to wreak havoc elsewhere once it discovers just where that elsewhere is.”
“Not reassuring,” Arthur pointed out, to which his friend simply shrugged.
“What do you mean you are as you are until...?” Gwen prompted, trailing off as if saying the words would make it true. Arthur couldn’t blame her. Merlin looked like he had fought Time itself, and had lost the battle in the most horrific way possible.
“If things go as they should, which they so rarely do but I digress, I should return to my former self eventually,” he explained.
“So you’ll be you, be young again?” Gwen verified.
Merlin made the waving motion with his hand that was very rapidly becoming annoying. “Not in your lifetime, no, but eventually.”
“Once again with the lack of assurance,” Arthur told him.
“It has to do with lives and living and backwards and reversing what was done and incredible knowledge that will, unfortunately disappear with each passing breath, though that would have to do with that whole backwards thing and unlearning what has happened but knowing what has yet to pass,” he said as if that explained everything.
“Is that all?” Arthur scoffed.
Merlin seemed to contemplate that for a moment before nodding, wild hair and sizable beard flying everywhere with the motion. “Yes, I believe that’s it,” he confirmed. “Well, that, and unconsciousness.”
Gwen looked worriedly at Arthur, resting a hand upon Merlin’s weathered brow as she asked, “Unconsciousness?”
“Yes, unconsciousness, as in now, as in me,” Merlin confirmed. He must have noticed the expressions they wore, or some higher knowledge played a role, as he forced his drifting eyes open and smiled, “I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“But – but I have so many questions,” Arthur tried, not caring that he was showing a rare moment of weakness. These two people knew him too well to hide that; they deserved honesty after everything they had been through together.
Merlin’s eyes slowly opened once more, and now he could see the rheumy white was replaced with a golden glow. “Don’t worry, my boy, we have time.”
Arthur felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and looked over to Gwen, the picture of serenity surrounded by the fields of devastation. “Let him rest, sire,” she bade.
He nodded, understanding the need, if not the desire to allow it at this time. He glanced down, expecting to see his friend in what would hopefully only be slumber, but instead found those eerie eyes staring right back at him.
“On the off chance I am wrong and this is, indeed, the end, I wish you both to know you rule wisely and history will know you well. Also, Gwen, he really didn’t mean to hurt you any more than you meant to hurt him. Oh, and Arthur, do be careful just who you sleep with at the Festival of the Hunt in the Fall,” he rattled off. “That would save a world of trouble.” Apparently satisfied that he had passed on the most important of whatever knowledge was currently taking up residence in his skull, he finally closed his eyes and appeared to drift off for good.
Arthur blinked, trying to make sense of things he really and truly did not believe could have sense made of them. When he found his words again, he looked to Gwen, seeing his own blank expression reflected back at him. “What was all that about then?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Maybe Morgana knows?” he guessed, hoping his surrogate sister would have some knowledge of this whole mess. Then again, he had barely seen one carefully coifed hair of hers since the last Festival of the Hunt, so there was a chance she would know nothing of the sort.
“If I see her, I shall ask,” Gwen promised, reminding him that he was not the only one Morgana currently hid from.
Arthur gazed out at the fields around them, watching as men began to stir and moan. Reluctantly, his eyes drifted back to the charred being that had caused so much devastation and which currently lay across from him. “I do believe I would still like to run her through a few times, just to be on the safe side,” he commented. “Any objections?”
Gwen hefted the sword that lay by her side, even as she shifted Merlin’s frail body fully onto her lap. “By all means, sire, please feel free.”
He could not help the hint of a smile that broke across his face as he rose and accepted the blade. In time, his remaining knights formed a circle around him, their border marked by the scorching of the earth beneath their feet. He heard their whispered questions: Who was the old man? What had happened to the manservant Merlin? Why was Arthur decimating a pile of rags?
Someday he hoped to give them an acceptable answer. Some day he hoped to have an acceptable answer for himself.
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.