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1715. The Wrecks of Nassau, New Providence Island.
Given the manner of their first meeting, twelve centuries prior, it was perhaps not unexpected that the reunion of King Arthur and his mighty court wizard slash manservant was not the most auspicious.
“Where the fuck is it?” the red haired captain spat at the frightened man he had pinned to a very large rock.
As usual, Merlin’s natural insouciance under threat of violence rose to the fore. “Well, given that I couldn’t be sure I would escape both of the madmen… I took drastic measures. For the sake of my survival. Your schedule… is up here.”
He tapped the side of his head. For he had seen the value of the information, and knew that the value of it far outstripped the murderous intent the pirates felt towards him.
The captain glared, furious, into the eyes of his new ship’s cook.
No sign of recognition passed between the two men.
After all, one of them had twelve hundred years of memories fighting for space in his still very human mind, which was currently preoccupied with “not being dismembered by either of the pirate crews currently after his blood”.
And the other… well, he had never met this audacious youth before. Not in this life.
In a land of myth and a time of magic, long long ago, this captain had been a king. Despite being born into a less salubrious position this time round, his heart had never let him forget that fact. He would be a king once more.
For the men who ruled Albion now would be the ruin of the world. Their greed, their yearning to control the entire world and force it to obey them, to break those who would not bend. They left nothing but misery and destruction and pain in their wake.
Avalon knew what was needed. The wheel turns, and souls of those the world needs most are always born again.
The Once And Future King had slumbered, the souls of his knights joining him beneath the earth, and they had waited until this time to rise again.
First was the king, then one by one they had been born again into the world, as the fates knew the king would need them in the fight for his throne. Slowly they found their way back together, this time on a small island in the middle of the Caribbean.
In the days of Camelot, these two men had been of an age.
Now the captain who would be king was twenty years the senior of the two, beaten and battered by a world that had no space for him.
He needed his Merlin by his side, if he was to have any chance of success. He needed the quick wit and the careless charm and the good heart to keep him from being the monster the world feared that he was.
And Merlin? (or John Silver, as he now believed his name to be) He needed someone to serve. Someone to inspire him to be more than the nobody he believed himself to be. He needed his king.
Two sides of a coin. Two halves of a whole.
And as before, it was going to take more than a little persuading for each to recognise the qualities of the other.
After all, what friendship doesn’t start with attempted murder?