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“Merlin?” Arthur asks but the man wouldn’t look at him. He hadn’t looked at Arthur after he’d called Merlin pure evil. How wrong he’d been. Merlin sacrificed everything for him.
Arthur reaches for him but his hand falls to his side, “I’m sorry,” Merlin still didn’t look at him, still staring numbly out the window. Gaius said he’d be better by now. Gaius said that he’d be able to talk. That he needed Arthur.
It was funny, after everything it just made him wonder how many tother times Gaius had lied to him to cover for Merlin. Daily? Weekly? Monthly? He gulps, “look, Merlin, you’re not evil. I just…” he takes a deep breath, “well magic killed my parents, didn’t it?” Merlin flinches, “I don’t know what I was meant to think! How could I know that you’re good when all I’ve ever seen is evil?” No reaction.
“Merlin…” he sits in the chair opposite Merlin’s bed, “I deserve this, I know. I’m a Pendragon, all I’ve done is persecuted your kind when all you’ve ever done is sought to protect mine, and my fathers,” a guess, a good one though. “I just, the witch looked like a maiden, I blinked, and she’d been thrown back into the wall. Your eyes were gold Merlin. Gold like the dragon’s. You remember the dragon, Merlin? How many he killed?” Still no answer. “I just, for a second I saw that creature in you. I should never have chained you, not with those…” the words die in his throat as he’s overcome with the memory.
Merlin’s look of betrayal after he’d called merlin a monster, evil. The maiden’s blood pooling on the floor. The blood Merlin had drawn. He’d believed Merlin could never hurt a fly; this was Merlin after all. Merlin who got upset when he went hunting. Merlin who always pushed Arthur to do good, to value everyone’s life. Merlin who stood over her corpse, looking just like the great dragon, the dragon who had fallen his men.
He'd been a fool to produce the chains like he did but he’d been scared. Truly scared. Agravaine had replaced them with the magic ones. Agravaine had convinced Arthur to place him in the cave the dragon had once resided in. It had been him who allowed it.
It’d been him who ignored the pleas from his knights to free Merlin. To let him talk. How could he? Merlin was as bad as Morgause, selling him a lie. That didn’t explain why Merlin had stopped him killing Uther…
It was thoughts like that which led him to free Merlin. After a month. After Gwaine had quit the knights. After they had all turned their back on him, even Leon no longer looked him in the eye. He knew it was too late when Merlin had refused to see him after being freed. It’d been too late for Gwaine too who’d died in a bar fight.
“I was scared.” He admits, Merlin says nothing.
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Arthur didn’t tell anyone he was leaving. Maybe that was selfish, but he suspected his kingdom wished him dead. Word of what he’d done had spread, those who hadn’t been appalled had laughed. Overjoyed at how weak he was, and he was. Weak. Weak to have allowed his predudice to win
He rode out until he reached the Impenetrable Forest, then he walked in. Remembering what Merlin had said when they saved Gwen. Gwen he missed her. At first she’d begged for him to release Merlin. He’d accused her of sorcery, threatening to throw her in the dungeon. He’d followed through. When she’d finally been released, she’d refused to talk to him, he hadn’t seen her since. She could have left for all he knew.
He knew how to get through, so he did, walked until he was in the centre of the forest before yelling, “spirits!” he yells.
“Welcome to my realm, our once and future king.”
Arthur spins around to find a tiny fairy sitting on a branch. He stares at her, shocked for a moment, he had questions, a lot of questions but for now he settles on, “who are you?”
“I am the spirit of this place.” She grins, a smile that reveals rows of pointed teeth, “and all the places that bring despair to men’s hearts.” She looked straight through Arthur, it was like she could see how heavy the despair laid in his.
His first instinct was to blame her but he knew it not to be true so he instead asks, “how do I fix it? How do I make it so none of this happened?”
She seemed to understand immediately, “oh little one. Are you sure you want to know? You’re already less than a half, and you’ll lose more to where you want.”
“Anything,” Arthur utters, anything to help Merlin.
“You do not understand, there is a price, one far greater than most men would pay.”
“Anything,” Arthur insists.
“You must become like the tower you once visited. You must sacrifice your half so your better may live, you’d be willing to become less than a coin?”
“What do I do?”
“Agree my king, agree to these terms set out before you and know there is no going forward, not in this forest.”
Arthur closes his eyes, “I agree."
The wind howls and where there was once a king and a queen there was only a cloak. Crimson and pooling on the ground as if some great beast had been vanquished.
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Merlin screamed; he could see the cloak in his minds eye but nothing more. The blonde haired maiden stood staring at him, knife in her hand. She’d been about to stab Arthur, Merlin had been ready to save him but now… Now there was no Arthur, “What did you do!” he demands, eyes glowing gold.
“Nothing, I swear, I-“but she never got to finish that sentence as she was flung against the wall. Her head snaps back, blood pools beneath her. Merlin runs off, he needed to find Arthur. For the first time since entering Camelot he couldn't even sense the King.