Gwen & Merlin | Teen & Up | No Archive Warnings Apply | Word Count: 500
Post-Canon | Ghosts | Grief & Mourning | Immortal Merlin
For @merlinmicrofic with the dialogue prompt "almost" and the @tavernfest Merlin Horror Month 2024
An elderly Gwen summons Merlin to Camelot on Samhain. Their old friends walk the Earth again for a night.
☾ ☾ ☾
She was sitting by the fire in the chambers she had once shared with her husband. The flames sputtered in the grate, attacked by the late autumn winds. Upon the hearth there were food offerings; it was Samhain, the eve of the night the dead woke from their sleep and roamed the Earth once again.
“Merlin,” Gwen called to him softly, her eyes shining and a little cloudy in the light, evidence of the cataracts laying claim to them. She stretched out her hand and he hobbled over with his staff and took it. It was soft, wrinkled, but strong.
Gwen had received him earlier in the throne room but this, with the night blackening the windows, was when they could truly speak.
He sat down groaningly beside her. Immediately, she leaned towards him in her chair and poked his knee. “I heard a rumour.”
He leaned as well. “A rumour?” he croaked.
“I’m told that you're not as you appear to be. That you…” she seemed to search for the words. “They say nature has not taken hold of you as it has me.”
He opened his mouth but she stopped him.
“Let me see you as you really are... Please.”
He changed, letting go of the glamour he had assumed.
By the way she reached out, he knew she couldn’t help it. She cupped his unbearded face, swiped a thumb over his cheek like there was a tear there just as her own eyes filled.
“It’s like…” she trailed off in wonder.
“Seeing a ghost?” he guessed.
“No,” she shook her head, retracting her hand. “No. I should know… I called you here because-”
There was a knock at the door.
She cleared her throat, emotion leaving her voice. “Come in.”
A knight entered.
“Is it time?” she asked.
“Almost.”
“Help an old woman up, Merlin?”
They were on the ramparts of the outer walls, it had been a struggle to get up here, but Gwen, now bundled in Merlin’s cloak, had been singularly determined.
It was a full moon but the night was choked with mist.
Merlin’s magic prickled, beyond the walls something had stepped back onto the mortal plane.
He tried again to implore her to return to the palace. “Gwen, it's Samhain, we shouldn’t-”
“Just… Watch.”
He grimaced but did as his queen bid.
A horse whinnied faintly, like the tail end of an echo. From the mist, three caped figures on horseback were given form. Ceremonial Camelot banners, washed grey by the night, waved silently in a non-existent wind above them. Their shape, their faces, tilted up, serene, their eyes on the queen – Merlin startled. “It’s-!”
“Gwaine… Lancelot… and Elyan,” she finished, her voice breaking more with each name.
“But..? Gods, why-?”
“They came last year, and the year before that,” she said, breathing. She drew her borrowed cloak closer. “I know now. They're waiting for me.”
In Avalon his friends would be together again. Death had never been kinder, and fate more gruel.