Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Every breath hurts.

Arthur blinks back tears as Merlin carefully lifts him from the boat. What use are tears to his predicament? He’s been so foolish. He’s trusted the wrong person. It has been his downfall, and the downfall of Camelot. The once shining towers are broken and lie in ruins, not unlike himself.

Merlin places him down slowly on the sandy shore of Avalon and Arthur feels the magic wrap around him immediately. It is like the best warm blanket.

His pain eases.

Merlin’s face shimmers, the illusion of an elderly wizard melting away to reveal the Elvish ears, deep green eyes, and youthful visage of Merlin’s true mother’s lineage. He kneels, his dark red braid swinging over his shoulder.

Arthur reaches for his friend, because Merlin is his friend regardless of the form he wears. They clasp hands tightly.

A flutter of wings heralds Mab’s arrival.

The Queen of the Fae appears as a slim young woman with silver wings, very pointed ears, and a kind smile. Arthur knows better.

“Merlin,” Mab crouches beside her son, kissing his freckled brow. Her hair shimmies and darkens to the same red as Merlin. Her hand briefly clasps his cheek as her eyes search his intently. “What you ask is not easy.”

“But it can be done?” asks Merlin, a hint of desperation colours his words.

Arthur knows Merlin is begging for Mab to save him.

“Not in the way you wish,” Mab replies. “He cannot live in the Now, only at the End. He will be suspended in Time until then.”

“Vivian calls him the Once and Future King,” Merlin murmurs.

Vivian. Lady of the Lake. Merlin’s sister who gifted Arthur with Excalibur.

“And so he shall be,” Mab says. She turns to look at Arthur. “Is this the bargain you wish to make?”

“What is the price?” Arthur asks, because there is always a price with the Fae, even Merlin.

“The End comes because magic fades from the world with your death, Arthur Pendragon,” Mab says. “Dragons die. Unicorns fade into the rainbows of the forests. My Fae cannot walk in a world of iron. In saving you, you will save us in turn. This is our price.”

Arthur nods.

Mab smiles. It is the smile of a cat who has a trapped bird under her paw.

But there is no other way to save the ones he loves, to save himself, to save the dream of Camelot.

Mab rests her hand on his brow. Arthur stares up at the night sky. The moon is waning, a faint sliver in the darkness.

His eyes close.

o-O-o

His eyes snap open.

There is a stink of hay and horses all around Arthur and a hard dirt floor under his back. The smell is familiar and comforting and yet jarring in its difference from the clean scent of lake water and magic.

Arthur’s breath catches as he registers his young body. A boy still rather than the sturdy man he’ll become. He wears the tunic and leggings of a squire, a royal ward hidden in the protective custody of Ector, Uther’s cousin. He rises, pulling on the heavy outer cloak which he’d been using for a blanket, and slips out of the darkened stable.

He feels like he’s dreaming as he stumbles through the narrow cobbled streets of the city. He pauses at the end of an alleyway searching for a guard, but there is nobody.

The sword is exactly where Arthur expects it to be. It stands ready, embedded in the white stone that sits in the centre of the square. The visible blade catches the moonlight. The stone does not look as huge as it had loomed in Arthur’s memory, but then his memories swim in his head in a confusing soup.

Had this place and time always been unguarded, Arthur wonders. He steps forward, walking with more confidence as his eyes alight on the very object which had prompted his nightly walk.

Tomorrow will be the day the clans meet. Each warrior will step up to pull the sword from the stone.

This is where it begins.

Yet, Arthur muses, there has already been an ending.

“Time is not linear,” Mab steps out of the moonlight. Her guise as an old woman with a shawl and stick flickers for a moment showing Arthur the true Fae under the illusion.

“I lived a whole life, saw the history of the world unfold while I was suspended, and now I’m back to the beginning,” Arthur says quietly. There had been so much suffering, so much war. At times he had wondered if humanity had deserved to survive. In the end they had not. It is a future he wishes to change.

“A second chance,” Mab says. She smiles crookedly, her gaze flickering behind him. “Do not forget your promise, Arthur Pendragon. I will be watching you.” She steps back into the shadows and disappears.

Arthur shivers.

“Arthur,” Merlin is suddenly beside him, “come to try your luck before the others?”

Arthur turns to greet him.

Merlin wears a very familiar human face; an old man with a scraggly white beard wrapped in a blue cloak, a staff of rowan in one hand.

“I have missed you, old friend,” Arthur says warmly.

Merlin stills and his green eyes narrow. “Arthur.”

“I am returned,” Arthur’s gaze shifts back to the sword. In truth it was always his favourite. Excalibur was magic, but Brittanica was made by human hands. It had always felt like his in a way that Excalibur did not.

“Returned,” Merlin turns the word over in his mouth as though feeling for the meaning of it.

“Once and Future,” Arthur reminds him, “your mother says time is not linear.”

Merlin breathes in sharply and puffs out white steam into the cold air. “My mother is a witch.”

Arthur reaches for Merlin and his friend reaches back, transforming into his true self as their hands meet.

“What will we do, Your Grace?” asks Merlin, worry written all over his elfin features.

“We will wait,” Arthur replies, his eyes still on the sword. “I will be the last to try just as I was before, and we will begin again.”

He thinks of the shining white of Camelot’s towers and smiles.

They can start anew. He knows the mistakes he made once before, and perhaps he will make all new mistakes now, but they can rebuild what was lost and make it even better.

They have a chance now, a second chance to create a future.  

fin.

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