Merlin: Return of the Monarch

Dead Twice, Resurrected?

There’s an old man who sat by the London Eye from time to time. He won’t have been there every day, but it was enough times to feel like de-ja-vou. He’d sit on that bench, with what seemed like and eternity of bread to feed the pigeons and the ducks that braved the Thames walkways. His beard and hair were white and seemed endless, the way they flowed into each other, and he would constantly be tucking it into his jacket. People who lived in the central city all knew who he was. There was a rumor he was so old he’d seen 1000 monarchs live and die, but such talk is foolish among today’s gossip. Silly superstitions of the past.

            A few months into the New Year, the old man vanished. People came to his bench and left flowers, and cards- it was assumed by all that he had passed. Day after day for a whole month, fresh flowers, new paper with goodbye letters and drawings from children were placed all over what there were referring to as ‘His’ bench. The winter thawed eventually, and people did what people do in the end. They moved on.

            By August, the only remains of the commemoration of the old man was a single tree, no taller than the average man. It had been planted by a young man, and was the first tribute to be made to the old man. The young man had come in the middle of the first morning, crying silently as he dug up the hole and jammed the tree into the ground. He glanced around him, his eyes wild, as he said to the watching crowd “He waited too long.”

            The council didn’t pull the tree down, it was simply left there, to grow and commemorate the old man. The man who had planted it was one of the only ones who still seemed to remember, and he could now be seen there, on a Saturday afternoon, come rain or shine, sitting on the bench, exactly where the old man once had sat. Nobody thought anything of it- nobody dared to ask why he was always there.

            Until the day an even younger man sat down next to him. The first man ignored him, and pointedly shifted away from him slightly. But this proved to be an amusement to the second man, who chuckled softly, his eyes glinting yellow in the sunset of the Saturday evening. There was silence for a moment, as the two young men just sat there doing nothing, and saying naught.

            Then the second man said something, something so powerful it cannot be written. Yet these words made, for the first time ever, the first man looked up at him. His eyes were wide, and his face held disbelief.

“My dear friend,” He choked, his hands shaking as he twisted in his spot to face the other. “Surely it is not possible?” He whispered, as if he dare not believe what he was seeing.

“It would seem it is, for here I am.” The other man said, quietly yet triumphantly.

            The men threw their arms around each other in embrace, as one would when greeting a very, very old friend.

            But then, this is the tale of two very, very old friends; bound together by magic, and set on this earth for a reason.

            In a land of normality and a time of grave danger, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of two young boys. Their names….

Arthur and Merlin.