The Thousandth Year || Merlin fanfic

Merlin- The returned

Me and Alaric talk for hours, laughing and joking over a shared blueberry muffin and three or four mugs of coffee. I sort out the pack business easily enough, but then glance at the lengthening shadows, and sigh regretfully. I stand, mumbling a few words under my breath as I do. I close my eyes as my irises glow gold for a brief second, then reach into my pocket and drop a few ten pound notes as a tip.

"I'd better be off." I say, not without sorrow. His face contorts with what looks like anger, but then it passes, and he very deliberately relaxes his jaw.

"Alright." His face is tight with hurt.

"Alaric.." I plead, "I have too." He swallows.

"Why?" He asks quietly.

I try to find words, and throw my hands up in frustration. "I just... do."

"Very helpful." Alaric says dryly, the apprehension fading from his eyes, and a forced calm taking its place.

"Im sorry, my friend." I say. "But I am bound to that place, and being away for so long has made me nervous."

"Won't you tell me why?" He leans closer, but I am already shaking my head mournfully. "I can't." He gives in- I can see it in the stoop of his shoulders, and the defeated curve of his mouth. We both sigh, a little, then he nods and gets to his feet. We clasp hands, not in one of those modern handshakes, but hand to elbow to hand, hand to elbow. It is an ancient mark of respect.

"When will I be seeing you again, Emrys?"

"Soon, my friend. Soon." We share a comrades smile, and head our separate ways. I glance back, feeling worry bite at me as I see the strands of grey running through his hair, the limping shuffle that he walks with. Alaric is getting old. Although werewolves live for a long time, they are not immortal, and Alaric is approaching 400. He's been with me for nearly a hundred of them.

I catch the train north, buying a ticket and sitting down on autopilot, my thoughts preoccupied.

I've made this journey so many times, I barely think about it. I can already picture the lake, that stone cross, the undulating water. I spend so much time there, just ... waiting, I can visualize every detail. I still remember the first time I made this journey- I had barely worked up the guts to leave, thinking that he would wake the moment I turned my back. That was when I returned to Camelot, but I came straight back. I belonged wherever he did, unfortunately. I was tethered to him, with an iron bond I couldn't break, even if I wanted to. Since, then I have left many times, wandering the world, seeing everything this planet has to offer. I always find my way back to him, eventually though. Just to be there in case he ever wakes up.

As the train curves west, I do not feel that painful twinge of hope that used to accompany this journey- too many times I have been greeted by that same unchanging landscape, the unforgiving gravestone. In the end, it is easier, less painful not to hope.

A few hours later, the train rolls into the station, and I am one of the first off. It is a solitary bonus of looking about 80- people respect me, or at least let me push past without making a fuss.

The small hut I made for myself about fourteen hundred years ago is looking particularly shabby, with some of the wooden panels falling off, and the door barely hanging from its hinges. I mutter a quick spell beneath my breath, and they immediately right themselves. This side of the shore is always deserted- I've made sure of that. Whenever people get close enough to see the hut, they suddenly remember something urgent they had to do, and rush off. This place has become my place. I enter my little hut- its only got three small rooms, yet it contains all the comforts of home.

I toss my jacket onto a stool, and wave a hand towards the fireplace.

"Beourn." The embers light with an inaudible crackle, and I slump onto the small, rickety bed in the corner, exhausted. My eyes, as they always do, stray towards the corner, where a well-loved cloak hangs, as new as the day I collected it. I couldn't part with this thing any more willingly than I would part with my own hand. Because when he wakes up, and I must hold onto the hope that he will- otherwise what else do I have to live for?- and he realizes that Camelot and everything else he loved is gone, I want there be something, anything that is an anchor to our past.

I bustle around, making tea, and filling the hut with the aromatic scent, anything to keep busy. With the tea in my favourite red mug, I sit outside on an old leather futon I found a few years ago, looking out over the lake.

I pull my jacket closer to myself. I did keep the old outfit- its in a cupboard somewhere, but I started to look out of place a few years ago. I still wear a red t-shirt, but underneath a brown leather jacket, and black jeans. Sometimes I feel like I always did, a boy barely from his teens, yet others I feel the weight of the world crushing me, and feeling every one of my years.

That is when it happens. A wave of power washes over me, stronger than anything I've ever felt before. I try to stand, to see what's happening and am thrown to my knees, forcing a choked cry from my lips. What the hell is going on? Unsure what else to do, I stagger to my feet and throw my arms out wide.

"Fore mayeth se ar-esque boielie. Themthesia ecoutee haleth!!!" A bubble of air should have sprung up around me, as impenetrable as steel walls, and as thin as a second skin.

Nothing happens. I roar the words again, pouring everything into the spell. As an empty nothing greets me, I realize I am dealing with something far beyond my talents. A white mist swirls up in a tornado, whipping across my vision to form a solitary figure. It is male and female, old and young, black and white. It is every person in the world, and all of them are beautiful. I fall to my knees again, this time voluntarily.

"The white goddess..." I murmer, my head bowed with reverence. A finger, completely insubstantial, yet fully solid, lifts my chin.

"You've been so brave, my warrior, after all these years. I am truly sorry, for the hand I dealt you." I struggle to find words, anything, and manage to bob my head slightly.

Power pulses across the shore, and a small figure appears at the waters edge. I can sense the goddess's smile. "Look after him, through the dark days to come." She vanishes, gone between one heartbeat and the next. I can only stare, shell-shocked after her, for a few moments, before turning my attention to the figure crawling from the lake. All thoughts vanish from my head as I catch sight of the sword hanging at his side. All thoughts but one- a name, a taboo left unspoken for so many years. It appears in my mind like a leaf, coming to rest after its long, winding journey to earth. It is a sigh, echoing through time, haunting in its familiarity.

Arthur.