Constantly Obsessed With The Concept Of A Man Forced To Be A Myth. What Do You Do When Every Step You

the secret to life is to always use more spinach and less rice than you think you’ll need

Day 1

Dear Hunith,

your son has safely reached Camelot, which I think is most unfortunate. I am plagued with questions over your reasoning for sending him here. He's betrayed his secret with me five seconds through the door of my apartments; had there been a patient there, I would be writing you for arrangements for his remains. He also seems, from bits of our conversation, unaware of his father's identity but that seems too odd to be true to me, considering you of all people should know very well what sleeps underneath the castle.

I shall try to keep his as safe as possible, but please, call him back home. My heart could hardly take much more of this,

Gaius

Day 2

Dear Hunith,

Your menace of a son is in jail.

affection that held us together

Not to Merlin-post in the year of our Lord 2024, but I love Gwen as a character. She goes through too much honestly. She deserves such a good life and so much love. I want to see a spin off show about Gwen's reign as queen because that would be awesome.

FULFILLING THE GREAT PROPHECY

I was always frustrated because I felt like the "Arthur is going to be this great king and unite Albion" thing never came to pass or only kind of did sparingly BUT maybe it's that thing with prophecies where they come to pass in unexpected ways.

So maybe the great prosperity and uniting of Albion happens because of Gwen's peaceful, fair, and progressive reign, which technically happens because Arthur made the choice to marry when she was a commoner. She wouldn't have been on the throne otherwise. I'm calling it. I believe she would be a freaking great queen. With her empathy and intelligence and bravery? Hell yeah!

It's very likely that she had the guts to finally lift the ban on magic during her reign (and all that entails) which Arthur was never able to do because he had trouble /didn't have the chance to work through the negative feeling about magic that had been instilled in him by his father. Merlin was never able to push him to do so because he became too entrenched in supporting the current power structures because he was blinded by his love for and devotion to Arthur. Maybe they could have gotten there in time (there are hints of that), but instead the revelation is made inadvertently and the end of the show happens before they cross that boundary. That's one of the great tragedies of the show. It painfully demonstrates how power corrupts and people can be forced to try to work within a system that is actively harming them, especially when they love and believe in the people entrenched in that system.

Maybe Morgana had a twisted sixth sense about this too because she's peculiarly focused on Gwen being queen for a lot of reasons (SHE EVEN HAS VISIONS ABOUT IT).

Anyway, I'm sure someone has said this before.

Thoughts?

I was today years old when I realised that Kanen, the main villain in Moment of Truth whose terrorising Merlin’s hometown Ealdor is Alexander Sidding aka Dr. Julian Bashir from Star Trek Deep Space 9.

Now I wonder if there are fanfics of Dr. Bashir and Chief O’Brien in a simulation of King Arthur and Wizard Merlin that’s basically the Episode of the Moment of Truth.

Or one of these Time Travel episodes where they accidentally end up in the past and change something they have to fix so Bashir has to pose as Kanen and at the end they are like ???THAT was Prince ARTHUR??? AND MERLIN WAS A HOT YOUNG REAL WIZARD???

touching grass isn't enough we should be staging small community productions of shakespeare

for the @merlinmicrofic prompts Home, Desperate measures and "You wouldn't."

Merlin & Arthur, Gen, 3 x 100 words, Major character death, AO3 link

for @mightybog

A heavy soul, a hopeful man

Their world is in crisis. It aches for its saviour.

“Emrys,” the Disir call.

He despises them. He comes anyway. There's kinship in being the last of the old ones.

“It's time." One steps forward, in her hand a coin.

“What,” he scoffs, “is it my turn to suffer your judgment?”

“We offer a chance. The time of the Once and Future King is nigh. You know it, you yourself have assembled his court.”

It's true. He's found them, souls reborn. The knights. Guinevere.

She flicks the coin into the air. “His rest in Avalon is over. Bring him home.”

The coin spins and spins, reaches its zenith, plummets down.

“Heads or tails?” He remains silent. “That's right, there is no answer. It is both and neither, a mere matter of perspective.”

“Save your riddles.”

“Two sides of a coin, inseparable. One up, one down. It will take all your magic to bring him back, every last bit of you.”

A pause.

“I will die?”

A look of pity, unwanted. “We'll lend you strength. You have three months.”

Its days numbered, his heart beats faster, rebellious. Desperate times. There's no choice. He bends his knee and picks up the coin.

Arthur returned is his every joy. He teaches him about the new world, laughs at him trying to operate a microwave, watches him discover ice cream - looming catastrophe momentarily dismissed.

Blissful ignorance can't last; his magic's gone, he's fading. Confession - now or never.

“No, you wouldn't, please don't-”

“You will have the others. You know the way. You don't need me anymore.”

“I will always-”

“Don't. Please.”

The day dwindles. Miniscule waves disturb the third full moon's reflection on the inky black lake waters. Merlin sits by its shore, Arthur's arm around his shoulders, and, for the last time, waits.

We deserved more of just Merlin

The little head tilt, the sweet voice and the tiny smile, the moment he asked Arthur:

“Don’t you?”

To Merlin, magic had always been there for everyone to see, to feel.

He is magic, after all.

For all those years, Merlin had believed what he felt was obvious, and that everyone else felt the same way. It was strange to Merlin that Arthur couldn’t understand that the forest, the animals, even the smallest, living in it, were sacred. Because life is sacred. He couldn’t grasp the reason why the knights couldn’t feel that the old Druids’ camp was haunted, and therefore didn’t believe him. He had literally heard death, and cried because of it.

“As if everything is much more than itself.”

The phrase could refer to him too. Merlin is much more than… Him.

That’s what brought his doom. He had never had the chance to truly know himself. He was either a servant, or the sorcerer of a prophecy, or a Dragonlord.

Never just him.

And in this moment we see he had missed being one with nature, breathing in the animals’ lives. He was himself again.

He was vibrating, much like anything else there living with him.

They never went deep into Merlin’s powers, they were just there for Arthur. Merlin had lost sight of what he wanted to do with them, he even forgot he was so powerful he could have overthrown Arthur himself, if he really wished to.

Merlin was the only man alive able to see Avalon.

During the knights and the king’s quest to save Gwen, Merlin met the Queen of a Queendom no one had ever even seen.

He could have killed Morgana (and did try) multiple times, although she was an High Priestess, and simply decided not to, but he had more than just the power to do so.

The Catha, the Druids bowed to him, met him in the woods, called to him.

Merlin created a telepathic connection with Arthur the first days he was in Camelot.

He survived death multiple times.

His immortality forbid him to die.

Merlin hated hunting because he could feel the animals being scared, followed; he had recognised Gwen when Morgana transformed her into a deer; he could hear the magic around him, inside objects and inside people, like a whisper, as if it was nothing; he could call lightning from the sky.

He could stop the time, or at least slow it down.

Every magical being knew him by name only. But he was not a leader, he was just different.

“Is she like me?” “No one is like you, Merlin.”

After everything he had witnessed, even Gaius knew Merlin was special and did nothing to help him understand why he was.

Merlin was the reason Aithusa was born, why Kilgharrah was free, and we were robbed of him getting to really know his powers, both as a Dragonlord and as the most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the earth.

He literally deleted himself just to be at Arthur’ side, and it hurt him. We saw it constantly. He was sad not only because everyone and everything was against him, or because he couldn’t use magic for simple tricks, but because he couldn’t really know what he could do, both as a magical being and as just Merlin.

To study his powers meant treason and death, and Merlin forbid himself to go beyond what he already knew.

His incapacity to understand, his lack of will to know, and his indecision about who he was, literally helped the fall of the great destiny he was a part of.

Merlin’s decisions, whatever he wanted them to happen or not, helped Arthur die.

Merlin’s real enemy was himself.