Mostly because dead people don't talk back

14: Double

The veil is frighteningly nothing.

Light surrounds him and so does darkness, but neither is bright nor dark. Cold and warmth aren't there either, and he just wants to curl up in the feeling of this nothingness.

It's worth noting that it is nothing, nothing at all.

.oOo.

The isle of the Blessed is quiet as the raven sits there waiting. He'd been doing a lot of that lately, and it seemed to work out in the past.

Dorocha no longer faint around and the wyverns seem to have shut their traps or left the forsaken place. It is still cold, however much that is, even when the dead spirits have gone.

He'll wait just like Gwaine had asked. There is nothing to do but wait.

.oOo.

Hours and minutes, seconds and days, months and years are all the same to him. Time is an earthly constraint, after all, made up by man to create something out of chaos. Irrelevant.

Floating. Shifting in weightless ribbon and strings that he suspects are why the "veil" is a veil. The strings and threads are definitely there but they are not, consequently naught in the nothingness.

Nevertheless, the floating sensation is mixed with the drowning of voices. They all speak in whispers. The mumbles speak from everywhere.

The deadman cannot see them, though he hears them, and he drifts along in their drones of nonsense.

It is all gibberish.

.oOo.

Many are, and many will be quite confused. It is a confusing situation! Who did what, what happened, and what happenings are true or false?

The morning of the veil's closing might reveal what was planned from the start:

The air is frigid on his face, but Lancelot barely notices as his heart weighs heavily in his chest.

Would today succeed?

He knows that it's planned out and quite simple, but it is a risk. Not like that is any surprise to him.

Additionally, if they do succeed, then everything in his life changes. He's done his goodbyes, but Lance will never be finished owing Merlin for what he has done.

The morning sun starts to shine when Merlin appears, crunching through gravelly dirt. He stops beside Lancelot and holds out a necklace with a crystal at the end.

The only word spoken is a question, and a weird one out of context: "Blood?"

Merlin nods, pricking his thumb and wiping it on the rock. Lance follows suit with his, and they swap.

The enchanted necklace weighs down on his chest, but he covers it in red fabric to hide it.

It's a miracle that Lancelot knows Merlin so well or else Arthur would have known something was off from the get-go.

Well, there you go! Makes sense? No?

Fine. The morning went well, but Merlin had explained this plan to him before. The previous day, in fact.

The plan is summed up in three points: The servant has two necklaces from a couple of knucklehead knights in a tourney that tried to kill Arthur (per usual), Lance and Merlin both are sacrificial idiots in two different ways, and... Gwaine would not do much, and that kinda sucked for him.

Enough about that, what actually happened the day of the plan?

Firstly, it's kinda strange to see Merlin, as Lancelot, perform magic.