A/N: More from the shards verse.
. . .
Technically, every time Gwen kissed someone it was true love's kiss, depending on how you handled the semantics. She was Love, or romantic love to be more precise, so if you defined "true" as "genuine," then all her kisses were true love's kiss.
But there was the kind of kiss she gave Magic, sudden and after a magical sleep like a fairy tale, the kind she gave Chivalry, sizzling with passion after endless longing glances and quests to prove himself, and then there was the kind she gave Courage. Slow, lingering, a little bit forbidden, after they'd both worked themselves up to it. The kind that broke spells and built legends.
There was another kind that she saved for Courage too. Quick, everyday ones that lasted a second but made her smile while she worked in a world where they lived in camps. Quiet ones pressed to his brow in a world where it increased the chances of her catching the illness that wasn't killing him but that was making him miserable. Half defiant kisses in a world where their lips tasted like the ashes that were all around them but where they tried to build something anyway.
Each memory came back to her in searing light as Magic forged her back together. She screamed as the white hot blaze ripped through her.
But when it was done, she was Gwen, Gwenhwyfar, Guinevere, Jennifer, Guanhamara, Genivieve -
All of them. Every last one of them. Not separate and divided but one. Strictly herself again with no strings for Destiny to pull.
There was power running through her now, power enough to take on near anything, or so it felt.
Magic - well, Merlin, really, he'd always be Merlin - stood panting but triumphant at the edge of the circle. He looked haggard from the strain and the screams, but he managed a smile.
Arthur had been beside him, but he was already running, and Gwen rose to meet him.
The first kiss was True Love's and Courage's, shimmering with power that was almost magic and that belonged in a legend all its own.
The second one was Gwen and Arthur's, and it was nothing countless couples hadn't shared.
It felt like coming home.
