Those Who Waited (BBC Merlin)

Chapter 4: The End of the Beginning

It must've been the next morning, because Merlin's deep blue eyes opened to meet the lavender sky of a sun just rising. Sitting up quickly, ignoring the spinning and dull thudding in his head, Merlin immediately let out sobs as he saw his village before him. What used to be his village. Now, it was just piles of strewn ashes. Every last house, stall, gate, even farmland was burned to the ground, the stench only just beginning to thin in the air.

He stood shakily, but couldn't make his feet step closer. He didn't want to see it. Didn't want to see his last safe place, his last home, his last bundle of decent—even happy—memories reduced to this. He couldn't even see bodies. If there were any that survived fire, they were covered in ashes anyway. Briefly, he wondered if there were any survivors, but doubt quickly wiped the thought away. Those raiders hadn't been looking for prisoners or slaves, just to destroy. It was so quiet, not even insects dared to move or chirp.

Merlin turned and ran full-tilt into the forest. He had two things to do, and he could do them in one motion: get far away from this place, now only even more guilt and regret and pain; and get to Arthur. Ealdor was on the border of Camelot, but the five kingdoms were now united as Albion, under Arthur and now Guinevere and Leon. Raiders so far within the kingdom, on the edge of Camelot itself. A kingdom in peril, Arthur must be rising now.

The man ran the majority of the two-day trip to the Lake Avalon, desperate to be there to see and to help his king. This time, he promised, this time he would not fail anyone. He would arrive, Arthur would rise, and he would teach and guide Arthur, protect him and fight by his side, redeeming all those Merlin had failed by saving Albion. The images flashed in his mind once again, but they only spurred him to run faster. The faces of the fallen: Lancelot, Freya, Uther, Elyan, Gwaine, his mother, Susetthe, Lilly, Rowanna, Ainsley and Aiken, Arthur. Arthur. The faces of those left behind, but let down: Gaius, Gwen, Leon, Percival. So few, yet they crushed Merlin's soul to pieces every day.

The lake's surface was still when he arrived at nightfall. That was all right, perhaps Arthur would rise in the morning, with the sun. Merlin could see it, the dawn glinting off the golden hair and silver armor, bathing the red cloak in light and hope as the king rose, in his hand, Excalibur, which in the dawn looks to be set on the very fire which had forged it. Merlin lay down on the shore, exactly where he had set the boat adrift four years ago. His dreams played the hope, the fantasy, over and over.

But in the morning, the lake was as still as a mirror. Merlin sat, regardless, as the sun rose higher and then sank. He ate some of the food he had brought with him, plants and small game he'd hunted on the way. He slept again on the shore. And again, sat next to the lake all day. The second day, he ran out of food. So, he let himself go hungry and then fell asleep again. As the dawn broke on the third day, he ventured only a few yards into the woods and gathered wood and plants, with the help of his magic for larger amounts, and spent the day making rope and firewood.

After a few years, there was a small house, no more than two rooms, set up right on the shore. Inside was a loosely sewn mattress filled with grass, a spindly-legged wooden table, and an array of herbs, furs, dried meats, and other supplies strewn on the walls. On the bed was the pouch, full of the enchanted books Gaius had passed on to Merlin. He lived in the house, everyday watching for his king. He grew older, until he was that old man with the long white hair and beard, as he'd disguised himself so many times.

A day came, the one right before that when he was to be exactly one hundred years old. His king never rose from the lake, and he never saw anyone he'd met in Camelot—or Ealdor—again. Queen Guinevere and King Leon ended their reign, dying at an old age. It was just two years into the reign of their son, King Thomas, and his wife, Queen Aeritha—the daughter of Princess Mithian, in fact, Merlin grinned. The sun had set, and an old Merlin hobbled slowly to his bed and lay down, feeling a weight dragging at his bones and eyes, begging him to close them and sleep for a long time. He did.

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Or so he thought. He did go to sleep, an old man of exactly one hundred years old. Almost eighty years he'd sat waiting at the lake, the weight of guilt and failure and hope and disappointment somehow never crushing him, even when he couldn't lift his chest under it to breathe. The next morning, however, Merlin awoke in his bed, his house looking exactly as it had the evening before. No overgrown plants or extra dust or missing or misplaced objects to show the passage of time. Stepping outside, there was little change in the forest around him. And, as always, the lake was still. He couldn't have slept more than a day, yet it felt like years.

Looking down, he noticed how easily he'd gotten up and walked. He was himself again, the self that so many had known, a young man—even back in his serving clothes, the trousers, shirt, and neckerchief. Merlin was...Merlin, again. At exactly one hundred years of age, he'd just changed. Had he died? Or just his magic was preserving him, making him cycle through life over and over?

Inspecting his reflection in the lake's surface, he noticed how young he was. Like when he'd first come to Camelot, his late teen years. He had another eighty or so years, then. Shrugging at his own power, which often was far greater than even he understood, Merlin took his usual seat on the shore of the lake.