Archive of Our Own

It was cold.

That was the first thing Merlin registered.

The cold reached with grasping fingers through his skin and flesh, to his very bones, clinging to them with such a chilling, ice-cold grip, Merlin felt he was on the precipice of death itself.

  White fog rolled in and curled everywhere around him, surrounding him on all sides. The fog was so thick Merlin could not see through it. But he got the sense he had been here before; he knew this place and this place knew him.

 He looked down. A small circle around his feet was clear of the white nearly smoke-like mist, allowing him to see the grey stone beneath his feet upon which he stood.
The surface of the grey stone was unpolished and slightly rough, small pebbles and a scattering of light dirt spread across it, rolling and drifting with the small gusts of wind, which blew around him, caressing his skin with a gentle touch.

 Curling from his mouth with a sharp gust of breath, air puffed out. It was a cloud of white, like the fog all around him, a strange imitation of Kilgarrah, whenever Merlin said something that particularly displeased him, or whenever Kilgarrah mentioned Uther by name, his golden, glowing eyes narrowing and smoke pouring from between his jaws and out of his nose, the stench of smog and ozone drifting forward.

Merlin shivered.

All day the feeling of wrongness had haunted him. As if the very earth beneath his feet had shifted, and he was the only one who could feel, the only one who could see, that everything around them, everything about the world, was different. Wrong..

 The sensation crept forward and kept crawling all over him, up and down his skin, as if he had found a way to peel his own skin off, only to put it on backwards; wrong.

It had persisted all day, ever since loud voices, the clang of steel and hurried words, which had sounded not his own, despite how he had felt his own mouth shape and form them, had echoed strangely inside of his own ears.

And it had followed him into his dreams.

 Resisting the urge to wrap his arms around himself, he shook his head, as if it might dislodge the feeling and find a way to right the world once more, and squinted out into the fog-covered world all around him, trying to see past its heavy grasp. When nothing, not a shape or form, shadow or even a glimpse of anything else grew from the white, cloud-like fog, he took a step forward and the world around him shifted. His footstep rippled through the fog itself. The heavy mist instantly fell away; disappearing back into the earth, as if the stone had taken a great heaving breath and sucked most of the surrounding fog to itself, barring the world around him to be seen.

Stone appeared, rising up from the ground all around him.

Turning on his heel, Merlin’s eyes skirted over the pillars, his gaze falling upon walls and towers, all which bore markings of age and tear, soot marks and broken, jagged edges, as if the stone had been torn into, ripped apart by massive hands.

The sight was one Merlin had seen before.

The Isle of the Blessed. That was where his dreams had taken him.

The place was heavy with magic, teeming with it, even though it was not real; could not be real.

 Frowning lightly, Merlin wondered at the world around him.
The magic here, it was too much like the magic at the Isle itself. Had his dreams transported a part of him here, or was this merely an imprint, a reflection of the Isle? And why here? Why now? When it had been so long, since he had dreamed himself back on the Isle.

 Before, he had dreamed himself back on the Isle, but those dreams had been filled with thunderous lightning, splitting the sky apart with their unforgiving, forked hands, heavy rain pounding down all around him, the touch of the raindrops painful, almost scorching his skin, and the bodies of his mother or Gaius; showing him a reality, where he had been too late to save them.

 This dream was so unlike those.

The Isle, though surrounded by a subtly, drifting fog and eerie in the quiet pervading all around him, was calm.

And he was alone with not even a shadow of another body.

 Merlin did not know why he was here.

Except, he did know.

At least, the sinking feeling in his stomach, the one he had been carrying most of the day, the one that had been so heavy and made out of claws, slowly tearing him apart from the inside, told him he did.

  Heart pounding heavily inside of his chest, he surveyed the area. Despite the way the mist had dissipated at his single step, most of it still clung to the Isle, surrounding it, curling around the pillars and towers, shifting over the ground like a lazily drifting cloud.
Other than that, the Isle was as he had come to know it. Walls made of plain, rough, grey stone, carrying patches of black scorch marks, torn off towers and the echo of debris in the scratches and holes scattered across the ground.

Nothing and no one, except him, was here.

 A swoop went through his stomach. Breathing sharply, Merlin’s hand jerked, as if to clutch at himself.
It came from the strange pull in the centre of his stomach. Something he had attributed as something borne out of the imaginary and a day, which had been too long and revealed too many shadows, settling a weight upon his shoulders, he never thought he would have been forced to bear.
 The pulling string in his solar plexus shifted, tightened and tugged at something beyond the curling fog; the magic clinging to the Isle shifting along with it.

Air rushed sharply in through his nose with his sharp, almost shocked inhale. The noise echoed in the eerie quiet. The hairs on his arms rose. A chill went down his neck, all the way down his back and spine and he could taste magic on the back of his tongue. It was thick and heavy, tingling along his skin, where before it had left him mostly alone.

The air around the empty stone alter rippled. Magic rose, swooping towards the spot, falling and collapsing into it, drawn there by a pulling force. The magic gathered, settling there in the form of a figure, who appeared soundlessly, between one blink and the next.

  She wore a red dress. It was not the frayed one she had died in. This one draped across her shoulders and down her body like a waterfall. The fabric was silky and smooth, rippling like waves of water as her chest rose and fell with her every breath. Her dark hair hung in waves past her shoulders and down her back, swept out of her face and over the top of her head. Bright and blazing blue, her eyes were as ice cold and piercing in death as in life.

 Magic had brought her here. She was aflame with it; her entire figure swathed in flickering, burning fire, bursting with its golden touch, as if it was the only source of light in the darkest of nights, its light and crackle of its flames all calling Merlin’s name, even when its touch was cold.

The presence of this magic was something Merlin could not have missed, even if he had been blind.
 Magic would always call to him, whether or not it had been shaped by his own hands. This type even more so, ever since his last encounter with the very person who sat before him.

 Head turned down and away from him, her palm placed on the stone, gaze following the curve of her arm, down to the alter beneath her hands, Nimueh sat still, as if for a moment, she was just as much a part of the Isle as the stone all around them.

"This place was beautiful once," Nimueh finally said, her voice curling softly in the air, softer yet than Merlin had ever heard it. "You would not know this, of course. It was before your time," sadness entered her voice and tinged her words heavy. "I think you would have found it quite spectacular." She still did not look up at him. Her gaze, though directed down at the stone alter beneath her hand, seemed distant. "This place, it was so full of life, so full of magic," though her words were soft, they reached Merlin and curled into his ears, as if they stood right beside one another. "This Isle, it held such importance."

With Nimueh’s voice curling softly through the air, Merlin’s eye fell away from her, drawn to the lost world around them.
The walls, broken and jagged, gaped where it had been torn into. Soot marks spread across the stone, scattered and old, fading from the touch of time and weather. The towering pillars were torn and broken, as if a great fist had taken hold of it and ripped it apart.

Looking at it, Merlin could feel how wrong it was; how the stone beneath his feet, all around him, still mourned its loss. Standing there, the ghosts of what once was and should have been whispering faintly from the stones beneath his feet; Merlin could almost sense what should have been; the proud towering towers, unbroken and unbent; the stone walls depicting runes and drawings instead of soot; somewhere, a body of water should lay, a gentle, soothing trickle of running water, flowing underneath the stone and echoing from deep within; and everywhere, followers of the old religion, magic flowing amongst them like a caressing breeze, golden and warm in its touch.
 Distantly, the sound of chimes, carried by the wind, began to reverberate. With it came echoes of murmurs, of laughter and the quiet song of prayers.
Even in a dream, the Isle held ghosts of the past and all the people it had once listened to sing.

 Lump forming in his throat, Merlin swallowed thickly.

"It was a place for worship and learning." Merlin turned his eyes back to Nimueh. She still was not looking at him for all that she seemed to know of his presence. Her mouth tugged downwards in a sad, heavy frown. "People came here to learn and to live, to love and even to die," her voice carried the love she still held for the Isle in every word she spoke; it caressed each word softly, as if each one was a gift she was giving to this place, she held so dear in her heart. Then, the soft and sad curve of her mouth turned sharp, her words even more so, "Until Uther destroyed it."

"Why have you brought me here?" Merlin asked, shaking his head, as if it might dislodge the ghosts of the past that were reaching for him from all around.

"How should I know?" Nimueh finally raised her eyes to his, arching an eyebrow at him. "You are the one who brought me here. There is very little I can do." Raising her hands, she gestured at herself. "I am the dead one of us, after all."

"I did not bring you here," Merlin said, brow furrowing, "I wanted nothing to do with you in life, even less in death."

Corner of her mouth curving upwards, Nimueh looked him up and down.

"That may be, but here I am," she gestured at herself, "and there you are." She waved a loose hand towards him and shrugged upon dropping it again. "Something must be on your mind, otherwise I would not be here."

 Eyes passing over the Isle all around them and ignoring what her words implied, he said, "I thought it was impossible to reach the souls who had passed."

"Hmm." Nimueh pursed her lips. "The power of life and death is yours to hold. Has been for some time now." She flicked her hands across the skirt of her dress as if brushing dust of it. Her eyes, deep blue and striking, stared into his. Leaning forward, she continued, eyes shrewd and narrow, "But there is more to life and death than you have ever known. And with your great power there is more yet still unknown."

 Lifting his hands, Merlin looked down at them, as if the cracks and lines running across his palm and the hardened, calloused skin from a servant and farmer's work was a map he could trace, to the spring of the great magic, always thrumming and tingling just underneath his skin.
 But all he saw was pale skin and long, graceful fingers.
What he could not see, he could feel. He did not even have to look for it, to feel and sense the magic curling thickly in the air. It was almost cloying, as if the air had turned into something heavy and oppressive. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck still stood on end, a chill burrowing its way deep into his very bones. With the cold pressing into him, he almost expected his breath to turn to mist as he exhaled.

  Fingers curling up, he dropped his hands, letting his arms settle back down to his side.

Nimueh observed him silently, her gaze intent on his every move.

Merlin shifted, his feet grating against the stone ground. "Why would I call for you?"

Quirking an eyebrow at him and smiling as if the question amused her, Nimueh said, "That would be telling, would it not?" With a smirk curling from her mouth, her gaze flicked him up and down. "Well, dear foe, if you wish to play then let’s play." Leaning forward, her hands curled around the edge if the stone alter beneath her, arms bracing her weight, Nimueh's eyes on him narrowed. The smile upon her lips remained, but it turned sharp, nearly cruel in its shape. "Something must be on your mind. Something strong enough to reach past the veil and pull me through." Eyes roaming the air around him, as if it would hold some answers for her, Nimueh continued, "The world remains the same, except everything has changed. At least for you."

Head jerking away, as if her words had struck him, a sharp stab of pain jolted through his neck. His body turned with the jolting motion. Merlin inhaled sharply. He knew the exact path her eyes had traced on his face, before she had even confirmed it.

She continued, her words falling into his ears as if she stood right beside him, "Yes, today changed everything for you. Now that you know."

Rising from the echo of Nimueh's words, came a different voice, as if plucked from the past; one softer and lighter and for a moment, Merlin heard the soft echo of a woman's voice; words torn from the throat of a spirit nearly glowing with light, each word ringing and echoing in the wind all around him, as if the world itself wished to speak them.

 Blinking, the memory faded and Nimueh’s sharp voice replaced the faint echo of Ygraine's words.

"You may have been able to fool Arthur, but there was no one left to fool you." Swallowing thickly, a sharp lump in his throat scraped against his throat, almost cutting against it with the motion. Nimueh continued despite his silence, or perhaps, because of it, "Morgause may have manipulated Ygaine's spectre like a puppet on strings, but you felt the truth of her words echoing in the world and magic all around you, and now you cannot escape them."

Closing his eyes and squeezing them shut for just a moment, causing blinding white spots to appear before his eyes, he sucked in his breath, the air passing loudly past his teeth in a sharp gust of air and echoing around them, bouncing off the stone.

Finally, opening his eyes once more, he raised his head and turned back to her. Their eyes caught immediately and blue locked onto blue. Her gaze seemed to pierce straight into his heart, even as she seemed perfectly content to sit back and observe him calmly.

"Well, now you know," she said, her words softer than they had been. The sharpness of her eyes lessened, just a little. She opened up her hands, it freed Merlin from her piercing stare and he flicked his gaze down to them as she showed him her empty palms. "I was the reason. I was the catalyst for the death of our kin. The catalyst for this ruin." Sweeping a hand out, the motion slow and graceful, she gestured at the crumbled towers and broken stones all around them. "I was not who and what you thought me to be. I had not been so bad. So intent on evil. I only did as my King bid me. He did not heed my words and my many warnings," she spoke slowly, as if wanting to draw out the tale she was speaking off, despite them both knowing the beginning and end of it. "I told him of the price that would be demanded of him, and yet, when I hesitated, he commanded me."

Despite speaking more softly than Merlin had known her to speak in life, each word landed like a blow and Merlin was helpless but to close his eyes again, squeezing them shut for a moment, unable to bear her words and the story they told. It did not take long for him to open them again, his gaze called back to her while she continued to speak.

 Small sparks of pain shot through the palm of his hand and he realised he had curled his hands into tight fists, his nails digging into the soft flesh of his palms. Making an effort to unclench his hands, his fingers unfurled one by one, the motion painstakingly slow and jerky. The bed of his palms stung where his fingernails had been biting into them, leaving prickling dips and furrows in his skin as they eased off.

 All the while, Nimueh continued to draw the story, which had sparked and set off the inferno, which had burned through Camelot and spread to the other Kingdoms in Albion, devastating and earth shaking; the after tremors still rippling through all corners of Albion; the heat of it continuously razing throughout the lands, burning, ever burning, threatening to scorch anyone who looked and stepped too close, and beyond the heat, suffocation lie waiting from where ashes and smog still fell from the sky, "I gave him the golden heir, he was blinded beyond reproach to want and in return, he burned my people and my holy places to the ground," Nimueh's voice turned sharp, her words cracking through the air, like the force of lightning. "It changed something for you." Her eyes roamed over his face, searching. "Knowing how it happened. Knowing what I did and why." Shrugging, her startling blue eyes snapped to his. "It is why I am here."

"I did not call for you," Merlin said, his voice rough and cracking.

"Oh, I'm certain you did not intend to," she said with a slight smile curling on her lips. "There never was much love lost between us, not in life or in my death." Lips pursing, her eyes narrowed. "It was quite easy for you to strike me down, in the end." One shoulder rose in a half-hearted shrug as she shrugged it off with a small huff. "But, it is different for you now that you know the truth." Even as she glanced him up and down with sharp blue eyes, her gaze softened and she tilted her head sideways. "The guilt you feel must be quite unbearable."

"I do not regret your death."

"Hmm. Perhaps not." She pushed off the stone table and walked slowly towards him. The brim of her gown trailed in a whisper across the stone ground behind her. "But I did say guilt, not regret." The corner of her mouth tilted upwards in a small smirk. She kept walking towards him. When she came near him, her path veered off and she walked around him, circling him, her eyes leaving the echo of a faintly blazing trail, as her gaze stuck to him. "They are two different things, are they not?"

Merlin stayed still, letting her circle him without turning to follow her path. She came back into his sight, her lips drawing into a mocking smile, her eyebrows quirking upwards.

"How could I feel anything but relief at your death?" Merlin's eyes narrowed on her. "You would have been the death of my mother. Of Gaius."

Nimueh paused, her step halting, her mocking smile fell and she huffed her breath, almost rolling her eyes at him. "And that gives you the right to take mine instead?"

"Perhaps not," he allowed, but he tilted his head to the side, "but I gained the powers of life and death when I killed you; you must have felt the power of it, when I struck you and kept your life in my hands, before I guided it to Gaius' lungs. I claimed back then that I knew it was you, not the Old Religion, who had chosen to take my mother's life instead of my own. After gaining the power myself, I knew with certainty that you had deliberately reached for the heartbeat of my mother and not my own." He took in a measured breath, but it still shook as it made its way through his nose and into his lungs. "You may say I had no right to claim your life, but neither did you in claiming my mother's. Perhaps, that is why, the ability to mirror life, the power of life and death, so easily slipped from your hands to my own." Taking a step closer to her, he looked down at her. "The Old Religion did not try to take my mother's life, but maybe it had a hand in bringing justice to the bargain you broke and defiled, and in settling the balance you disrupted."

"Justice?" She quirked an eyebrow at him. "You call giving my life to the son of Uther Pendragon justice?" He did not respond. Narrowing her eyes at him, keeping her gaze on him for a moment, before resuming her prowling walk around him, Nimueh told him, "I dedicated the rest of my life to avenge the fall of my kin. To bring Uther to his knees or his grave-" she quirked an eyebrow and a smirk ghosted briefly across her lips "-whichever came first."

Turning slowly on his heel, Merlin followed the path she walked slowly around him.

As she spoke, her words seemed to echo from all around them, whispering from the stone instead of her lips and it was hard to tell if it was truly her speaking or the very Isle itself, "Instead, you gave my life to his son. One of the very things I set out to destroy. Taking my life from me and giving it to the very cause I wanted to see fall."

Merlin came to a stop, letting her continue her circling path without following her and she disappeared past his shoulder.

"My breath in his lungs, my heartbeat in his veins," she came into his sight again, "my soul given to a man who hates me and my kind. Who hunted people just like me, simply for existing." Feet swallowing the distance which had remained between them, she stepped closer to him, her chest nearly brushing his own, as she came to a stop and she looked up at him with cold and calculating eyes. "You may try to call it justice, but I am here, because part of you knows just how cruel that is. Especially, now that you know how truly twisted Uther's motives are." Her eyes searched back and forth between his, a faint frown appeared on her brow. "I cannot imagine the guilt you must be feeling from that."

Merlin's jaw clenched. Shaking his head sharply once, he blew his breath out. "Don't pretend you know me," he said lowly, eyes narrowing as he stared down at her.

"No?" Arching her eyebrows, eyes scanning his face, she flicked a smirk at him and lifted her chin, tilting her head up. A puff of air blew past her lips and ghosted across Merlin's face, her breath cold where it touched his skin. The hair on the back of his arms, standing on end, prickled and stung. The two stood so close they were nearly touching.

"We were not so different."

"We share nothing."

"Something you tell yourself every time you have to look in the face of another sorcerer, who comes to Camelot bearing death and destruction," she said calmly. "A belief you cling to with such desperation, that you can no longer tell truth from lies." Head tilting to the side, she pursed her lips. With a sweep of her cold and cruel gaze, she doused Merlin in ice from head to toe, as if the blue in her eyes could call forth the touch of winter itself. "Tell me, Merlin. How many lies did you have to tell yourself, before you started to believe them?"

Merlin scoffed and shook his head, looking away from her, his eyes darting wildly about the Isle.

"No, that's not it. Is it?" her voice had lost the cruel twist it held, instead a certain sense of despondency crept into it. Helpless to withstand the pull of her words, which seemed to reach as deeply into his soul as her crystal blue eyes could see, Merlin's gaze returned to her. A look of contemplation crossed her face and her eyes faded, becoming distant and almost unfocused. "You believed it," her words were soft and low, "with all your heart, you believed in your cause," a flash of blue had her gaze flickering back to his; focused once more, but without its previous cruelty, "but now you feel it crumbling beneath your feet and you are desperately wanting to close your eyes as not to see the failings of the world around you, failings you helped maintain."

Her words cut into his heart and exposed everything he had tried to bury deeply. Though perhaps less sharp than they had been before, her blue eyes, piercing as was their nature, were stripping him back and he felt raw and exposed in them.

 Swallowing thickly, past the ever-present lump in his throat, he clenched his hands into fists and tried to ignore the small flicker of victory in her eyes and the small twitch of her mouth.

"You don't know me," he said, voice rough and trembling.

Her gaze jumped down to his hands and back up to his eyes. "No?" she asked, flicking an eyebrow. “I may have died in the bed I made, but at least I knew which one I was making,” she said, meeting his eyes head on. “Do you?”

Her words hung in the air between them. The stone all around them, even with most of them somewhat hidden in the fog, echoed them, pushing them back and forth amongst one another like the tittering song of birds in treetops, except this song was far more chilling; its sound dragging a long, icy finger down Merlin's back, causing ripples of goose bumps all over his skin, where the presence of the dead had not yet touched.

 When the chorus of her voice finally died down, Merlin exhaled slowly, a gust of air shaking out past his mouth, trembling from his lungs. He forced the muscles in his back and shoulders to release with it.

"You are wasting your time, your words of poison will have no power over me," he said, standing as still and immovable as a rock, as if it could counter the slight tremble clinging to his voice and the shaking of his hands.

"Hmm," her gaze flicked over him again, briefly assessing him, "I don't need it to," her lips upturned in a cruel smile, "seems you are doing a marvellous job poisoning yourself for me." Finally stepping back from him, she lifted her arms briefly up in token surrender. "But be as you wish, my dear foe," she said, arching her eyebrows and giving him a twisted smile. "You will forgive me, I hope. It is, after all, not every day I get to be resurrected, however brief and empty it may be." Lifting a hand, she gestured loosely around them at the Isle, the grey stone of the ground and pillars and the white fog, which curled over it and encompassed most, burying part of the Isle in its grasp. "And I should be honoured; I am in high company after all." Hand turning towards him, she waved lax and loosely in his direction. "I must ask. To which do you prefer?" at her words, her lips curled in a mocking smile. "Should I kneel or bow? Or is it only the druids you allow such a show of service?"

"I don't-" Merlin began.

"It is quite interesting, you know," she said, completely bowling over his protest, ignoring it and looking at him as if he were an interesting tapestry hanging on the wall. Her voice had lost the mocking tone and there was a glimmer of something in her eyes, of which Merlin could not place. "The dead whisper your name, you know. It travels far, even in the land beyond the Veil. The great and powerful Emrys, walking among men at last," she said, then added, almost as an afterthought, her expression musing, "No wonder my poison did not kill you," and tilted her head to the side. "Perhaps, I should have known better than to challenge you back then, when you survived its touch." For a moment, she looked contemplatively at him, then seemed to drop the matter, the expression on her face shifting as she arched an eyebrow at him. “I wonder what they would say if they could see you now.” Her gaze flicked him up and down. “Brought to destroy the very thing you were meant to build, the very thing you were made for, by a simple spectre and words specially chosen to pick your prince apart.”

Merlin took a step back, twisting his body and head to the side, turning to the side and away from her. Curling his hands into his fists, he dug his nails into the bed of his palm, air shaking in and out of his lungs with every breath he took.

“I wonder,” she continued, voice quiet and cold. “Would they still pray for you in their deaths, if they knew what you’ve done?”

Her words were left to settle quietly in the air between them, hovering sharp and acerbic before him.

”I never asked for it,” he eventually managed to say in a rough, gravelly voice, finally grasping some words out of the echoing vacuum Nimueh’s voice had caused. His head was still turned away and down, his gaze stuck on the ground. “I never wanted to be seen as Emrys.”

”No, but they do. For better or for worse,” she said, her voice softened, turning not kind, but humane and mild. “It’s up to you to decide what that means to you.”

Turning, Merlin looked back at her, searching her piercing eyes, but her gaze gave nothing away.

  With one last twisting smile towards him, Nimueh stepped away, turning her head and looked all around. Momentarily, she paused, her eyes focused on something beyond where Merlin stood. Turning back to him, Nimueh smiled mockingly. "Well, it's been a pleasure to see you again," she said, beginning to walk around him once more, her feet leading her in a small circle. "You sure do know how to bring life into the afterlife, but I really must be getting back." Walking past him, her words drifted with a strange echo in the air and curled inside of Merlin's ears, making it sound as if she was standing right next to him, even when he felt her move further and further away. "Do be sure to give Gaius my best."

Merlin turned but she was gone. Only the ghost of her laugh echoing in the air remained of her.

 Chest filling with cool, chill air, he took a breath on the Isle in his dream and exhaled in his bed, eyes opening.

  Magic hung thickly in the air. It clung to him, laying like a thick blanket all over his skin, tingling against the hairs on his arms and neck, which stood on end, sharp and prickling all over his body.
 The cloying scent of acidity and rot hung in the air and Merlin inhaled and exhaled haltingly, trying to breathe past it, even as his chest ached and strained for air, his heart pounding and his pulse throbbing inside of his veins, as if he had been running for hours on end.

 With the sound of his stuttering breaths, loud in his small chamber, he raised a hand and rubbed his palm across his face, wiping away small traces of sweat, beading on his skin, across his forehead and the bridge of his nose.

There was a chill clinging to his bones. As if death had breathed on the back of his neck and the ghost of it had yet to leave him.

  Fumbling with both of his hands, as if his fingers were echoing the rapid beat of his heart inside of his chest, Merlin cupped his palms and held them up against his mouth. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air, held it, while his lungs still strained for more, then blew a gust of air into them. A wave of heat, fluttering with magic, blasted onto his skin and swept through his chamber. Pieces of parchment crinkled lightly, fabric, drying herbs and what other miscellaneous stuff Merlin kept in his room, rustled and shifted at the surge of heat.
Urging the warmth along, as if pulling on the leash or harness of a particularly resistant animal, it spread over him, seeping into limbs and deep into his bones, to chase away the chill of the dead.

  Merlin did not sleep again that night.

The ghost of Nimueh's presence clung to his bones, cold and heavy, her words echoing strangely in his ears, as if she was still speaking them and every word was carried to him from far away, joining the distant echo of Merlin’s own voice, reverberating from somewhere deep inside. Whether it was Merlin himself, or if the castle’s stonewalls had picked up his words and clung to them, repeating their treachery for all to hear, as if determined to make his words heard by all, so everyone would know just when and where and what he had said to forsake his kin, Merlin could not tell.

  It took a while for him to feel warm again, despite the magic he had called forth, and longer still, for the whispering touch of the dead to leave the back of his neck.

  That was the first time Merlin dreamt of the Isle of the Blessed.
He tried not to think about it. Tried to tell himself that it had only been a dream. His magic told him it had been anything but a dream.

 He continued as he had for a long time, never sparing any thoughts for talking with the dead in his dreams, thinking he would prefer to never experience such a thing again. He almost managed to convince himself it had been a dream. Almost. If the death of Freya, if the death of the father he had never known, was not enough to call out to them; to bring them back, however short, so Merlin could have a chance-, so they could have a chance to speak of everything, they had not had the time to, then. Then, maybe, it had all just been a dream. Something that had grown from the looming shadows of a day with only mistakes and bad choices to be made. (Not the only of its kind, no, Merlin grew far too familiar with those days, far too familiar with only bad choices and the roads they let to.)

Almost.

Then, Lancelot walked into the tear in the Veil.

Merlin was still blinking the sight of Lancelot framed by the tear in the Veil out of his eyes, when the tear collapsed, falling closed behind him with a resounding whoosh.

 Somewhere nearby, Arthur lay unconscious from when Merlin had drowned his mind in magic and pulled him into darkness of which would take a while to wake from. Gwaine too lay unconscious, thrown by the Cailleach, too fast for Merlin to cushion his fall.

 Magic rippled. It surged towards the tear, falling into it as if sucked, then exploding out in a billowing wave. It rushed out, a wave rippling through the world as everything fell back into place and balance was restored, like two misaligned pieces falling back into place in a rippling wave.

And Merlin?

Merlin should have been swept up in it, carried in its warm grasp, intricately interwoven with magic as he had been since the day he had been born, more magic than flesh and blood.

But he was not.

 Instead, he stood, staring at the slight ripple of air, where the Veil was.

All over his body, hollow spots ached and throbbed with phantom touches of hands he knew as well as his own.

Lancelot may have mended the tear, but he left Merlin to stand alone on the other side.

He barely had time to comprehend the world he remained in, was one he could no longer share with him, but he already carried the ghost of Lancelot’s presence on his skin; his hands still held a trace of warmth from when Lancelot's had last pressed against them; the feeling of his fingers entwined with his own, pressing into it, like a phantom hand, pulsating with the echo of a heart beating alongside his own; the ghost of Lancelot’s breath still tingled across his lips, fanning across them, as they leaned in and exchanged whispered words and air, before meeting in a kiss; his body still felt the imprints Lancelot's hands had left behind, the last they had laid together and held each other, the last time Lancelot had pressed his love and adoration for him into his flesh, leaving paths of worship marked by trails that blazed with warmth and tingles, fingers digging deep as if every touch was a tether that would keep them both bound to earth.

 With the echoes of Lancelot still or perhaps pre-emptively clinging to him; Merlin froze, completely still and stuck in place, breath caught in his lungs and yet drowning on air. A sinking feeling swooped in his stomach, a horror burrowing deep down inside of him as every nerve in his body twisted and turned with wrongness, despair and disbelief.

 A loud and piercing ringing echoed in his ears in the otherwise completely still and quiet night hovering over the Isle, the contrast to the shrieks and screams of the dead from before making the Isle seem even more eerie than ever. Past the ringing, his blood roared, rushing through his veins, carried on by the rapidly increasing beats of his heart.

 Merlin's chest and his lungs ached and twisted with pain.

Distantly, he realised he could not breathe. That he needed to force air into his lungs. But he could not. He could only stare at the space before him. The now empty and vacant space, where the tear in the Veil had been; where he had last seen Lancelot; where Lancelot had looked back at him, one last time, his lips pulling into a small smile with sadness, yet not a trace of regret in his deep, brown eyes.

Both were gone now.

The air was vacant. Empty. As empty as the space around him already felt.

"No," small as it was, the word still ripped itself free from his lips again. It was all he could say. All he could think. It was like everything else had left his mind and all he could feel was this deep, dark emptiness, pressing into every corner of his mind, until all there was left was that one feeling and thought, repeated over and over as if enough denial would make the last few minutes come undone; as if, if he clung to his denial long enough, his magic would rise and reach for the threads binding the world together and he could pull at the strings, unweave and rethread them just right, so that the world he stood in, would still be one with Lancelot in it.

At some point, he sunk to his knees. Hard stone slammed into him. He knew he should have felt the pain of it, but he did not. It was lost to the storm of trying to comprehend a world that could be in balance without Lancelot by Merlin’s side.

 He did not know how long he knelt there, but eventually other sounds reached his ears. Voices, loud at first, then softer filled the air. Someone might have said his name, called out to him, but Merlin could not pick out the words from the jagged storm tearing through his mind, trying to pick out broken pieces and piercing them together to form something he could understand.

 There were murmurs, harsh breaths sucked through teeth, a loud yell cutting through the air, even the thump of flesh hitting stone.
It meant nothing to him. It was not said with the right voice, with the right tone, with a warm, gentle touch to his shoulder or hip or back of his hand, so the distorted pieces were discarded before they could even form into anything other than flickering glimpses.

Kneeling, a sharp stabbing pain, prickling in his chest, as his lungs strained for air, sharp gasps of air falling in and out of his nose, the air trembling and shaking through him; the world around Merlin began to quiver, as if the very air, not just what passed in and out of his lungs, shook and trembled, a great force building and building all around him until it shook.

 Blinking, eyes dry but the world somehow still blurry and distant, as if trapped behind distorted glass, Merlin looked down. His hands were shaking. At least, he thought they might be. But the air inside of his lungs trembled, and the world around him shook with a building pressure and he could not tell which was which.

Breathing loud inside of his own ears, Merlin shook his head and blinked rapidly. Reaching for his magic, which was always so steady, so very solid, and everything around him snapped into place.

His hands were shaking, but not from fear or emotions or in echo of his trembling lungs. No. It was his magic. It was bubbling just beneath his skin and trembling in the air, just a breath away from slipping from his grasp in one great bursting and exploding force.

For a moment, he was blinded by it.

 If he could, he would reach it forth, tear through every wall and veil, every rule of magic and of the world to bring Lancelot back beside him. And perhaps he could. His power was strong, infinite. The veil was what separated the land of the living and the land of the dead from one another, to Merlin, that was just another wall he could punch through. Perhaps, if he poured enough magic forth, he could reach for Lancelot, wrap it around him and pull him back into this one, let the wall crumble into dust between them.

 He almost did it, then. Almost reached for his magic to let it pour forward. It was already thick and heavy, heaving and trembling with immense force all around him, and still, following the thoughts rapidly running through his mind; it grew; rising in him and wrapping thickly around his hands, his eyes blazing brilliantly gold.

"Merlin," the voice was hesitant, tentative, but it still cracked through the air and Merlin's reverie.

He blinked and released the magic he held in his hands, gold giving away to blue once more.
Rippling like a wave at sea, the magic fell back, some of it retreating under his skin, just beneath the surface; the rest returning to the air all around him.

 Blinking, as if having to blink the presence of his magic away from his vision, Merlin looked up at the man peering down at him from where Merlin had fallen to his knees; his gaze heavy, but soft and worried.

That was when Merlin felt it, as if the eyes of another was enough to anchor him to this world. Sucking in a sharp breath, air hissed past his teeth.

He might not be reaching to tear through the veil for his lover, but his magic was still bubbling and boiling just beneath the surface, tearing away at his skin like the usually gentle and tingling nature of it had turned into sharp claws and was raking up and down his skin, tearing him apart from within. The magic that had slipped from his grasp, churned and quivered in the air all around him; its presence a pressure squeezing Merlin in a tight grip.

Rising at his touch, as if the weight of his gaze was enough to stir it, his magic rose in a swelling wave.

He closed his eyes, hiding the gold burning in them.

Something shifted and he snapped them back open.

Near him, hovering and bending forward, Gwaine was reaching for him, concern and sorrow writ plainly on his face. "Merlin, I-"

Crackling and bellowing, his magic surged, the air turning heavier still and Merlin grasped for it.
It buckled in his grasp, tearing and building with the pain ripping through his chest, stealing the air from his lungs. The air crackled with it, shooting tiny sparks of lightning on his skin, the pressure of it building and building all around him.

"Stop," he inhaled sharply.

"Merlin." Gwaine still reached for him.

Jerking back and away, Merlin shot to his feet. A soft crack sounded, like walking on dead leaves of autumn. Merlin looked down. The ground beneath him had small cobweb like cracks forming through it, reaching out from underneath his very feet, as if his weight alone was enough to make the earth begin to crack open.

Sucking in a sharp breath, air hissing loudly past his teeth, Merlin tried to grab onto the power vibrating in the air all around him.
 His magic coursed wildly through his blood, trembling and crackling through his very veins. It emanated out of him, trembling in the empty space all around him and squeezing his body with all its might, pressing tightly as if it was sucking all of the air from the world.

  The tear in the Veil mended once more, the effect of it rippling through the world, everything falling back into place and balance; Merlin's own shattered at his feet.
And it took everything in him to keep his magic in check as it buckled wildly, in response to the storm of emotions Merlin could barely feel past the storm of his magic.

 Desperately reaching for it, he tried to reel it in, tried to bind it with every ounce of power and control he had ever had to wield before.

It was nearly not enough.

It was like trying to cup water in his palms, trying to catch smoke with nought but his fingers. Already, he could see how it could so easily slip from his desperate grasp and tear out into the world, splitting the very Isle they stood upon in two, cracking it through the middle.

"Merlin, I am so sorry." Gwaine reached for him again, taking a step to mend the gap between them.

"No, Gwaine, please don't," Merlin choked out, squeezing his eyes shut and holding his breath as his magic surged in a silent roar. Hands curling into fists, he dug his nails into the bed of his palm. A sharp sting shot through his hands. ’Stop, stop, stop, I can't control it,’ he thought desperately as Gwaine stepped even closer, his hand hovering in the air just in front of him.

"I know Lancelot-" he broke off as Merlin jerked back, stumbling over his feet, his magic pushing painfully against his grip and he cried out.

It was like two raging storms coming to meet. Merlin’s pain and his magic, clashing in a storm of silent lightning and thunder, raging through his body, tearing at his skin and clawing at the world around him, desperate to escape the bounds of him and the grasp he desperately tried binding it with.
He could not even tell where his pain ended and where his magic began.
It was as if Merlin's chest, his heart, his body, had become a battlefield and he could not tell which was his enemy; the pain or his magic. Drowning in its all-encompassing burning, thrashing touch, the world around him falling apart, it felt like both were and neither would leave anything of Merlin behind, once their storm had passed.

 Stumbling over his feet, Merlin slammed into the stone alter, half crashing into it and half-catching himself against it with his hands. His upper body crumbled, nearly falling all the way onto it. Splitting through with a soft crunch, a crack formed where his hands touched. Biting back a sob, choking as he cut off mid-cry, he lurched away from the stone alter, scrambling over his own feet.

"Don't-" he panted "-don't touch me." Not caring how it looked, he put his hands on his head and dug his fingers into his scalp, squeezing painfully with his nails biting into it, sparks of pain shooting through his scalp and into his head. Squeezing his eyes shut with his breath held in his lungs, he struggled against his magic. Trembling all around him and crackling against his skin, it thrashed in his grasp, like a buckling horse, like trying to contain a thunderstorm.

"Gwaine." Merlin peeked one eye open. Arthur, wearing a painful expression, held out a hand towards Gwaine, halting him in his tracks, where he was headed towards Merlin. "Just give him some space," his voice was choked and pained. And finally, finally, Gwaine stopped advancing.

 Eyes flickering gold, Merlin's magic snapped against his skin and he squeezed his eyes closed again, holding his breath as he fought to get it under control. He hoped they would not see the sweat beading on his brow or hear the gasps of his struggling breath, or if they did, that they did not think of it, only attributed it to his grief.

 They all knew he and Lancelot were lovers.
They had not meant to share it, wanting to let it settle between them, before speaking of it, but Gwen had seen how happy Merlin had been and so when she had told him, how delighted she was to see him so full of joy; he had decided to tell her, for Gwen was one of his dearest friends and her sincerity, as she had remarked upon it, had warmed his heart, and because Merlin already kept so much of himself locked away from the world, keeping even more locked away, would have felt like killing parts of himself.
  Not long after he had told Gwen, Gwaine, one evening while he had been happily drunk, had made an offhand joke about the closeness of Merlin and Lancelot and the looks they always sent each other and an epiphany had occurred in him - one that had stayed with him through to the next morning, when his hangover and sobriety had hit him.
  Then, Arthur had noticed Merlin coming in late one morning, all rumbled and in yesterday's clothes and he had said, "Oh, good god, who's the poor girl?" and though he had tried to evade with starting up the usual chatter, Merlin's red cheeks had been a dead giveaway until, eventually, when Merlin had gotten tired of the disbelieving looks Arthur had given him, he had said, rather indignantly, "Who says it's a woman?" Then it had been Arthur's turn to blush.

 And well, one day everyone had just known and they had stopped hiding. Not that they had ever been very public, even when all of their friends had known. It had always been something just for them.

But, that was over now.

All of it; the knowing looks; the flicked eyebrows and responding shrugs; the comforting touches; the way Lancelot's eyes always sought out Merlin first, whenever they had been in a battle or fight and the never-ending looks of wonder and awe, Lancelot had always given him, whenever Merlin had performed feats of magic, from lighting the candles in his chambers to fighting their latest foe with it.

  Something deep inside of Merlin twisted up painfully, digging deeply with sharp claws that tore through him.

 Back crumbling, as if a great weight bent him forcefully over, Merlin held a hand to his chest, fingers digging into his ribs. A sob build in his throat and tore from his lips.

His magic snapped and cracked; a spark of lightning shot through the sky, bursting blindingly white among the clouds gathered above their heads and thunder rumbled loudly, roaring through the dark night. The wind picked up, blowing past them with increasing force, buffeting them, as if trying to blow them off the Isle.

 Okay, okay, he could do this. He had been through this before. He could shut down his feelings and carry on. It might tear him apart, but it would not tear the world apart.

Without another glance at his pain, he shoved everything deep down inside of himself, searching, reaching for the calm, numbness of the dark, black pit of which he had fallen into before, when he could not show his grief to the people around him. Will, Freya, Balinor. They had all been his loved ones, which he had carried in his heart, but had had to turn his back to, for the danger of people seeing their names written across his face and in the whisper of his shuddering breath and wonder why it was there.
 As if plunged into cold water, an empty numbness rose inside of him, washing slowly over him, like the slow rising of the tide.

As the numb shadow washed over him, dousing everything in its touch, the storm raging through and around him calmed, movements slowing and stilling.

Magic still, as if frozen, Merlin could finally reach for it and grasp it. Withdrawing it, his magic collapsed back to him, falling back underneath his skin, like taking a deep, heaving breath.

 Breath filling his lungs with cool, chilled air, the touch of it rushing through him, as if it was the first gulp of air after hours of holding it, his chest rising and falling; he opened his eyes, calm and blue once more.
Beneath his skin, his magic still trembled and crackled, coursing through his veins. But it no longer tore through and out of him, threatening to split the world beneath his feet apart.

It was the best he could do.

 Still. He did not let anyone touch him.
Gwaine reached for him again, words of comfort and grief curling on his tongue, his eyes drowning in it.
But Merlin, once again, wrenched himself out of the path of his searching hand, fearing his control would snap at the slightest touch, and even if it did not, he feared, if Gwaine touched him, he would have been able to feel the power coursing like a wild river unleashed from a dam after days of endless, heavy rain, beneath his skin.

He only allowed his horse to touch him, and even his calm and steady mare was unsettled and skittish from the power crackling under his skin, just a hairsbreadth away from snapping and lashing out into the world.

 Thus, with ice and darkness in his stomach, slowly spreading through his veins, they turned around and headed back for Camelot, one less knight and one storm brewing underneath Merlin's very skin. And while he kept it from snapping out into the world, the more time that passed, the more tenuous his hold became; a thin thread slipping out from between his fingers, slowly spilling out into the world.

  That first night, the first one free from the screams of the dorocha, since the Veil had been torn, Merlin forced himself to stay awake.
 Body rigid and tense, he laid down on his bedroll, keeping his back to everyone else and bundled up his almost-very nearly raging magic into a tight ball, gripping it so tightly he almost could not breathe.
 He had not lost control in years, not to the extend this would be; he would not allow this raging magic to move a single inch. Let it rage and tear Merlin apart from the inside, even it would rip him apart piece by piece. He would not let it tear into the world.

 For six nights, Merlin hardly slept and for six days, he hardly ate. He hardly did anything. Barely moved or spoke. He only went through the motions of taking care of his horse and help with setting up the camp, but the rest of the time, he just retreated to a shadowed corner, his magic unconsciously pulling and wrapping the shadows around him.
 The others let him. They sent concerned glances his way, eyes shadowed and heavy with their own pain and their voices lowered in soft murmurs, exchanging words Merlin cared not to pick out, but still, they let him.
 Once or twice they tried bringing him food, tried getting him to speak or just talked to him. Their words were like the buzzing of bees and Merlin heard not a single word. Eventually, they realised the futility and let him be. They might have tried to reach him more than that. But Merlin was too far gone to notice.

He wished he could sleep, the hollow pit in his stomach burned and he wanted to get away from the yawning pit that had swallowed his heart and replaced it with something made out of sharp edges and serrated knives. But he feared that if he slept, he would lose control of the magic he barely managed to keep a hold of.

 They had nearly made it to the city, when Merlin's control of his magic finally slipped through his grasping fingers and when they rode through the gates, they brought with them a thunderstorm.

Merlin brought a thunderstorm.

While his magic no longer crackled in the air with the smell of ozone or threatened to crack the earth beneath his feet open, as it had on the Isle of the Blessed, it continued to snap and crackle right underneath his skin.
Slipping through his fingers in a thin thread, it had reached up into the heavens and gathered heavy and dark storm clouds. Merlin hardly swung off his horse by the time the first drops of rain fell. One glance over his shoulder, at Candor, at Lancelot's empty saddle, brought the deep rumble of thunder, emanating and echoing loudly from the clouds, booming nearly deafening from the sky.

Merlin clenched his jaw and held his breath, trying to cease the pull of the clouds and power stirring up in the sky.

It was no use.

Soon, lightning cracked above them, in flashes of brilliant white, setting colours of purple, blue and white dancing amongst the dark clouds, loud booms and clashes echoing from everywhere, roaring all across the sky, and rushing down to their ears.

 The wind picked up, whipping around them as if they were at sea, amidst roaring waves and a storm determined to pull them from the deck and into the roiling water.

  Retreating inside the castle, barely feeling the embrace Gaius’ shaking hands pulled him into, only hearing the timbre of his voice speaking but not the words; Merlin saw to unpacking while Arthur arranged for Lancelot’s funeral pyre.

 The tapestries and paintings he passed fluttered to life, but not the kind that had swept through the land some twenty years ago, when a baby with dark hair and golden eyes had been born in a small, unknown village. No, this time they remained mostly still, dragged down and stilled by a pain not their own.
 If Merlin had had it in him to pause and look, he would have seen himself reflected in the artwork he passed; animals turning their heads down and away, the poses of life, bodies caught mid-jump or flight, drooping and instantly all mannerisms and depiction of life, joy and brightness vanished; the people, previously shown smiling and laughing, caught in merrymaking of the everyday and festivals, all began to cry, tears of perfectly shaped drops of water falling from their eyes and trailing down their cheeks. Several of the people wearing hats, removed these items and clutched them to their chests as their head lowered. Some of the people turned small; their legs collapsing beneath them and faces buried in their hands or the opulence of large skirts.
Sadness filled the surface of every piece of art, of which the frenzied, straining magic Merlin carried around could manage to reach; trees drooped, branches and fruit hanging low; birds and butterflies all folded their wings, as if they could not bear to be in flight anymore; insects and stray leaves shown blown in the grasp of wind, all fell down, until they hit the very bottom of the canvas of which they had home upon. Everything swept up in a sorrow not their own.

  But Merlin did not look and so he did not see.

It would not be until the next day, passing through the castle in a daze of fog and numbness, he would feel magic tingling on the back of his tongue, catching just traces of the magic, which had roared through Camelot on his behalf the day before, and realise more than just the storm, had mourned Lancelot alongside him.

That was in the afternoon.

 By evening Merlin's bones were heavy with exhaustion from the unintentional use of power; in gathering the storm and from a grief so deep and heavy, he felt he had fallen into a dark abyss from which he would never again escape.

 Lying in bed with night falling heavily upon the castle, he stared unseeing up at the blank ceiling above him.

The hollow pain in his chest and stomach had grown. It was so deep and so very painful; it was agony, turning and twisting with sharp claws.
Putting a hand atop his chest, he pressed down, as if, if he pressed hard enough, he might be able to reach inside and unearth his heart from the pit it had fallen into.

But it had not fallen into a pit in his chest.

It had been ripped from it.

Lancelot had been holding it in his hands, when he had stepped into the tear and he had brought it with him to the other world, so now, Merlin was left with an empty space beside himself and a hollow place in his chest, where his heart was meant to be.

  Merlin had carved Lancelot into his skin, sewn him into his very soul and this was the price; entire parts of himself torn away from him and brought to an early grave, from all the places where Lancelot had been stitched together with him.

 The pain rushed over him like one great sweeping wave and formed as a lump in his throat, his eyes prickling. He closed them, tears leaking out from behind them, running down the side of his face, leaving behind a wet trail on his skin. The sound, as he swallowed, was difficult and thick.

 It was like a wall crumbling. Barely repressed cries build from his stomach and chest, rushing and wracking through his body, and up his throat, tearing from his lips like the sound of a wounded animal while he thought of Lancelot; of his smiles, the way they could be brilliant and blinding, warm and soft, tender and gentle, teasing and devilish; of his brown eyes, the way they crinkled at the corners and the way they shone with warmth and light, how the darkness of them was so deep and so beautiful, Merlin could stare into them for endless hours and never once feel lost, how they narrowed in mirth whenever a grin split across his cheeks, and how intensely they could look upon Merlin, as if he was all that he could see, as if he was the only thing in this world that mattered, would ever matter; of his body, how it felt against his own, as they laid in bed or sat leaning, pressed into one another; of his hands grazing, brushing, shifting against his skin, the way they could be tender and gentle, but rough and strong too.

Never again would he feel or see any of that.

 Thinking about Lancelot was a mistake. Tears ran freely down his face now and he could not breathe past the sobs that tore their way from of his chest and past his mouth.

 Curling up on the bed, Merlin pressed himself into the smallest of balls, trapping his pillow between his stomach, chest and knees, squeezing it tight in lieu of grabbing onto his own flesh and pressing until bruises formed.

He felt more than heard the rain picking up outside, smashing into the ground like the rumble of drums.
Forked lightning flashed across the sky, setting off deep and echoing clashes of rumbling thunder.

 The sound of his own grief, tearing its way across the sky, Merlin wished, more than anything, that he could hold Lancelot in his arms again. That he was here, right beside him; his body warm and strong and firm against his own; his hands soft and gentle as he brushed them over his skin or held the palm of his hands against his cheeks, or held onto his hand, intertwining their fingers, slotting them into place as if they had been made to fit together.

  Merlin cried until he had no more tears to shred.

Utterly spent, he laid still on the small, narrow bed, somehow feeling bigger and emptier than it was, just breathing in and out and focusing on the sound of his breath filling up the small chamber and the rain falling past the castle’s walls.

Keeping his eyes open, he blinked at the dark and empty room until he could not hold them open any longer.

 The reserves of his magic finally spent, Merlin fell into a dark and troubling sleep.

With his magic escaping up into the clouds and the storm still raging beyond the castle walls, still being pulled at by a small thread of his magic; Merlin thought he had exhausted his reserves, his magic and himself finally able to rest and he would no longer have to worry, of what his magic might do.

He was wrong.

Even in sleep, his magic pulled at him, a small bundle of building and curling up in his stomach, slipping out into the world and wrapping around something he could not see, pulling at it.

  Merlin did not know how. One moment he was in heavy, exhausted and dark sleep, the next his consciousness surged all around him and he stood in the middle of a stone island. A very familiar stone island with very familiar pillars and towers of stone rising up around him.

Merlin wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He wanted to rage and scream. He wanted to push his magic into the ground beneath his feet and tear the Isle into two, crack the earth open and rip the stones apart until only pieces remained, where he could set fire to them and watch as it burned down to nothing but ashes.

 The Isle of the Blessed was quiet and still.

Merlin remembered the first dream, how it had been cold and full of fog.

This time, for it was surely a dream much like the last one, the Isle was full of light.

Tipping his head back, Merlin looked up into the sky.

The storm had not followed him into his sleep.

 Thin clouds, wispy and light, covered the sky. There were holes, large gaping spaces between them, from which rays of the sun reached through and touched upon the world. Such a way had found the Isle and the grey stone was bathed in a gentle, though bright light.

It was beautiful.

And never before had such a sight been so misplaced.

This place ought to be covered in shadow and darkness until the end of time. It ought to be cast into a world beyond theirs, from which there was no return.

 Never had he felt quite so empty, returning to a place, which teemed with life and with magic. For in dreams, as in life, no matter what else had happened on the Isle of the Blessed, magic would be swirling and curling thickly in the air.

 The hairs on the back of his neck rose. The pulling in his stomach swooped. His breath caught in his lungs with a small noise.

A soft inhale of air echoed faintly from the rock around him.

"Merlin," a voice said softly, like a gentle breeze ruffling through grass and leaves on trees.

Merlin sank to his knees. The impact cracked sharply into his bones, and yet, it was nothing compared to the hollow pit in his chest, which only seemed to grow at the softly spoken word, and the twisting, burning, stabbing pain in his heart.

"No," Merlin gasped. His eyes clouded over. Squeezing his eyes shut, he put his hands over his face, burying himself away. He did not want to see. Could not see. "No, please, no," he whispered into his hands and shook his head vigorously, "I won't be able to bear it."

"Merlin, my love," his voice was warm and soft, "will you look at me?"

"I can't bear it," he whispered, heart throbbing with an ache and pain so deep, he could barely even breathe. The shake of his head then was small and weak. "Please."

Warm hands touched upon his skin. Gentle fingers encircled his wrist. Slowly and gently, Lancelot removed his hands from his face. Merlin's eyes welled up and a tear fell from each, falling down and catching upon his cheeks.

His eyes rose to Lancelot's. Brown eyes, deep and warm, caught his. He knelt on the ground, on both of his knees, in front of him, mirroring Merlin's own position.

"Lancelot," he breathed. Eyes welling up again, Merlin blinked, willing the tears away. "Why would you- why have you come?" he asked, despite already knowing the answer.

"Because you called me," he smiled, "and I will never not come, when you have need of me."

"You-" Merlin shook his head, a sharp inhale blowing past his mouth. "How can you say that," he whispered, "after what you did?"

"Because it is the truth," he said simply. "It has been the truth, since the day we met and it will remain the truth long until the end of time and even beyond that. Death will not be enough to erase that." Shaking his head, he kept his eyes on him, gaze intent and focused.

Merlin shook his head vigorously. Breaking his hands out of the loose grip Lancelot had on them, he reached out towards him. Laying his hands on top of Lancelot's shoulders, his fingers gripped and dug into his flesh, the fabric of his loose, white tunic twisting beneath his hands.

"You told me," he whispered fervently, his voice shaky and faint, "you promised that you would stay by my side, that you would-" he broke off, his words choking in his throat in a soft whine. Swallowing thickly, hardly able to breathe past the painful lump in his throat, Merlin dug his fingers deeper, the strength of it shooting pain through each digit, while the fabric of Lancelot's tunic twisted further and further.

"I did," Lancelot said softly.

"Then, why-" his words cut off in a strangled choke again "-why would you leave? Why would you sacrifice yourself to the tear?" As he spoke his vision swam and blurred, he blinked and tears fell from his eyes, catching upon his cheeks and trailing down his skin; their touch hot at first, but quickly cooling, turning cold and wet against his cheeks.

"I would not live in a world without you."

"That was not your choice to make," Merlin said, staring at him with a quick fury and yet such sorrow in his eyes.

"Neither was it yours," Lancelot said calmly. Sighing heavily, he drew his hands up and down Merlin's arms, the touch light and warm. Finally, he lifted them all the way up to his wrists, where he carefully circled his fingers around Merlin's wrists and slowly guided his hands off his shoulders. He drew his hands together in front of him, enfolding them in the palms of his own, enclosing them carefully. Then, he drew their joined hands close to him, close enough for his breath to skim across Merlin's skin. Freeing one hand, Lancelot ran it across Merlin's; his touch gentle and soothing as he trailed his fingers over the back of each hand, across his knuckles and against his palm, all the while he looked down at them, his gaze heavy.

"I am sorry that I left you, it was the last thing I have ever wanted to do."

A small choked noise escaped from the back of Merlin's throat.

Lancelot's eyes flicked briefly up to his, before he lowered them again to their hands. Bringing them the rest of the way towards himself, Lancelot mended the small gap which had remained between him and their joined hands, and lifted them high, letting his lips graze across Merlin's fingers, his lips dragging over his skin. His breath trailed its warmth over his fingers, smooth as it blew softly past his fingers. "And it was the thing I had sworn to you I would never do." Pressing his lips against his fingers, leaving a lingering kiss against them, he sealed his words to Merlin's hand. When the kiss eased up, he did not move away, he simply shifted Merlin's hands along, trailing his fingers across his lips and left another kiss on a different pair of fingers. Shifting his grip on Merlin's hand, he kissed his knuckles, twisting his hand further so that he could place a kiss on the back of it.

 Gently moving one hand out of Lancelot's soft grip, Merlin reached out to place it against his cheek, cupping his face in the palm of his hand, gazing into his eyes. Tears build and prickled in Merlin's own, falling and trickling down his cheeks with nothing to stop them and no reason to.

"Lancelot," he whispered in a strangled choke, his name thick in his throat.

"I know, Merlin," Lancelot whispered back and brought a hand to Merlin's free one, holding it in both of his. Turning it around, his grip soft and gentle, Lancelot bared Merlin's palm, then bent slightly forward and kissed the soft flesh nestled inside, "I know," Lancelot spoke softly to it, as if it was a gift for Merlin to cup in his palm.

 Merlin swiped his thumb back and forth on Lancelot's cheek, a path that was so familiar to him, his palm felt at home against his skin.

"I do not expect you to forgive me." Lancelot raised his eyes to Merlin's own again, still cradling his free hand in his.

Avoiding his gaze, Merlin pressed his mouth into a thin line. Lancelot was here, he had a chance to see him again, to speak with him, to feel and touch him, how could he sully that with harsh words and grief turned to anger?

He brought his hand from Lancelot’s cheek, laying it atop of their joined hands.

Lancelot ran his palm over the back of Merlin’s hand, enclosing it in the grasp of their joined hands."I don't want to," Merlin said, keeping his eyes fixed off somewhere to the side before he turned his head back to him, his gaze with it.

"And I will not ask you to." Lowering Merlin's their hands so that they lay on his chest, near his heart, Lancelot leaned forward until their foreheads touched. "Only that you will keep it in your heart that I did it with all the love I have for you."

Merlin closed his eyes, squeezing them shut against his words. Two tears fell from the action, joining the trail of already shredded tears down his cheeks. "And how can I hold that against you?" he whispered, his breath and words fanning across Lancelot's skin, "that you love me too much to let me die?"

Breathing as deep as he could, with his chest aching, the inhale shaking and trembling inside of his lungs, Merlin opened his eyes again, meeting Lancelot's once more.

"If I had known, I would have done everything in my power to stop you. I would have torn the Isle apart to stop you from walking into the veil. I very nearly did, after you were gone," he confessed in a whisper.

"Are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?" Eyes widening, Lancelot pulled a little ways away, his gaze roaming all over him, as if Merlin might have carried his wounds into this dream of life in between. The concern in his eyes was enough to take Merlin's breath away, as it often did; instead, he choked on another sob, which carried a disbelieving laugh in its embrace.

"Of course, I am not alright! The man I love the most is dead and gone, after he gave up his life so that I may live. Of course, I am not alright." Another painful laugh tore out of his mouth. Ripping his hands away from Lancelot, Merlin gripped his own head, digging his fingers and nails into his scalp, until it burned and stung. His eyes widened as he spoke, "I nearly tore apart and destroyed the Isle of the Blessed! I brought a thunderstorm with me to Camelot that is raging so far out I can't see where it ends! And I can hardly find it in myself to care, because you're not with me!" Like something inside of him had broken, he bent over, crumbling in on himself.

"Merlin," with his voice heavy in his ears, Lancelot's hands found him again, coming upon his cheeks as he helped him stay upright, keeping his chin up, gaze looking deep into his own, "I know you don't mean that, I know you are only hurting."

"Vengeful sorcerers and witches are only what they are, because they have endured beyond human capability, their power only makes their grief and anger that much more devastating," Merlin said, staring wide eyed into Lancelot's eyes, his gaze darting back and forth between them. "Who will I be, if this becomes me? If your death is the last straw that will break me?"

"It won't be," he said firmly, conviction clear in his eyes and strong in his voice. His hands on his cheeks pressed into his flesh. "It will not, because I know you, Merlin. You are kind and compassionate, good-hearted and selfless and all things good in this world," not once did he break his intense stare while he spoke. "You would rather tear yourself apart, than cause any pain or devastation upon the world. Your magic will rip yourself apart, before it even touches upon the world around you."

"You did not see the cracks I left in the stone on the Isle. You have not seen the thunderstorm." Reaching up to grab onto Lancelot's hands, removing them from his cheeks, Merlin shook his head. He pulled them away, fingers curling around his hands, but he could not bear to part from him, so he shifted his grip until he held them, gripping them tightly.

"I do not need to," Lancelot said softly.

At his gentle voice, Merlin raised his gaze and the tender warmth inside of Lancelot's dark eyes were softer still. The lump in Merlin's throat seemed to double in size and scraped painfully against the wall of his throat. He did not know what to say.

"You just gave yourself up," he said, for it was all he could think of, all he kept coming back to. His voice was thin, stuck somewhere between the lump in his throat and the harsh, grating pressure that formed when trying to push down all of the things, he was trying so hard not to feel, not when Lancelot was right there in front of him, right beneath his hands. Firm. Warm. And real.

"It was no less than you we're going to do."

"But-"

"It was my choice," Lancelot said, eyes intent on his, "for you to live another day."

Merlin shook his head, his breath shaking as it passed his lips. "I didn't want you to. I didn't ask you to."

"You did not need to," he said simply. "I would give anything, for you to live. My life included.”

Merlin squeezed his eyes shut.

"I wish you would not," he croaked, words cutting off into a choke. "Had not. More than anything," his words ended in a faint whisper, which hung frail and fragile between them.

"I would not change a thing about my life,” Lancelot said in a steadfast, yet soft whisper. “It may have brought me here, beyond the veil, but it also brought me to you." At the tenderness and softness in his voice, Merlin opened his eyes again, meeting the warmth, which shone from his dark eyes. "Your love has been the greatest achievement of my life." Leaning forward, Lancelot placed his lips upon the side of Merlin's face, pressing a kiss onto the high point of his cheekbone. Merlin’s eyes fluttered closed at their loving touch.

"And you mine," he whispered.

"I hardly compare to defeating immortal armies and great beasts," Lancelot said to his cheekbone, his lips brushing against his skin as he spoke.

Merlin pulled away from him, just enough to look into his eyes again. "My power, my magic, is nothing without the people I love."

Lancelot smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled. Lifting a hand, he brought it to Merlin's hair and brushed his fingers through the strands, his touch gentle and soft. Keeping his eyes on him, his gaze dark and heavy, his smile quickly fell, his hand continuously brushing through his hair, fingers curling through his strands until his hand ended up by his neck, his palm cupping it, fingers carding through the small hair curling at the nape.

"I feel like I am drowning without you," Merlin confessed in a low whisper.

"Then you must learn to swim," Lancelot said with a quick, small smile. "I know you will get through it, you have always been resilient."

A sound burst past Merlin's lips; a strange, strangled laugh, for all of one second before it transformed, caught behind a choke as a sob tore its way out of his chest.

Head dropping forward, Merlin let himself fall, caught by Lancelot's arm and his chest.

Arms wrapped around him, Lancelot raised his hands, one hand cupping the back of his neck, the other his head. "Oh, Merlin," he dropped his head onto Merlin's and sighed into his hair, the strands fluttering at its touch, "I am sorry, truly sorry, to leave you like this, to leave you with all of this, if I could I would-" he cut off with a sigh "-if I could, I would have found a way to change the ending, so that no one had to walk into that tear." Turning his head, Lancelot rested his cheek against the top of Merlin's head.

Both of them shook with the force of Merlin's cries.

 Merlin reached for him, resting one hand against Lancelot's chest and the other somewhere by his shoulder, gripping him.

Blinking, tears fell from his eyes, falling hot, then cold against his cheeks.

 Lancelot's arms fell down, wrapping around his shoulders and drawing him closer. "You will get through it, I know you will," he said, voice rumbling softly in his ears.

"I don't want to," Merlin managed to say between the sobs that shook through his body.

"You must."

"I should hate you, I want to hate you for leaving me."

"Hate me if you must-"

Merlin shook his head in denial, the movement causing Lancelot's clothes to rustle against his ear

"-but I do not want to waste this last time we have with anger and hateful words." He swept his hand through his hair again. "Thanks to you, we get this. Thanks to you, we have the chance to see each other one more time. I get to hold you, one final time,” his words got heavier and heavier as he spoke, his voice turning thick and strangled, as if he had to fight to get them out. “We get to say goodbye," he finished in a rough whisper, words grating and struggling against his throat.

"No," voice cutting loudly through the air, Merlin jerked back, Lancelot's arms falling away from him, and shook his head, eyes wide. "I-I can't."

"Please, Merlin-" arms jolting, Lancelot’s reached forward, scrambling and fumbling in the air and against Merlin’s chest, grasping for Merlin’s hands, before he found them and enclosed them in his, raising them between them as he gripped them tightly "-let us say goodbye."

"No." Merlin shook his head violently again, the motion shaking through his entire body. Reaching forward, Merlin pushed his hands out of Lancelot’s, the grip around them loosening until his hands fell away, falling alongside Merlin’s, sliding up to his wrist and forearm. Lancelot’s hands curled around his arms at the same time Merlin grabbed him by his shoulders, gripping him painfully, bracing himself against him in stiff arms. "Goodbye means it's over, goodbye means that you are truly gone."

"Would it be better if we said 'see you soon'?"

"No."

"Tell me what I can do to make this easier for you. To make my passing less painful."

Palms sliding off his shoulders, Merlin's fingers curled into fists on top of Lancelot's chest, fingers snagging onto the fabric of his tunic, twisting it up in his grip.

"Nothing," he said, his voice thin and tight. "Nothing can be done to make this easier."

"I am sorry, my love," he said heavily, voice full of gravity.

"Stop saying that," Merlin ground out through gritted teeth. His hands twisted further. The tunic pulled painfully taut where it wrapped around his fingers. White bloomed from his knuckles from how tightly he was clutching onto him, pain spreading through each of his fingers at the force with which he gripped the fabric. "It changes nothing and it will not make it easier and I do not want your apologies, I want you to live!" His head dropped forward, not quite enough to fall against Lancelot, but close. "I want you to live," he repeated in a small whisper.

"I know, I know," Lancelot said, voice rough. “And I am sorry, I truly am.” Putting his hands atop of Merlin's, his palms warm and soft against them, he brushed his fingers gently back and forth across the back of his white-knuckled hands. "But I will not regret that you called for me. That I get to see you and hold you again, one final time. Even if it is to be a goodbye you do not want me to say."

Like the burst of lightning, shock jolted through Merlin. His head jerked up, his eyes wide. "I called for you," he said in a rush, "I called for you and you're here." Lightning fast, his hands came upon Lancelot's cheeks. Holding his face between his hands, his gaze darted rapidly all over his face, eyes widening even further.

Lancelot raised his hands and took Merlin's in his own, bringing them down from his face and holding onto them, wariness creeping onto his face. "Yes, Merlin-"

"I brought you here," Merlin whispered almost in disbelief, making Lancelot cut off. Leaning forward, his hands in Lancelot's twisted until he gripped back at him, his grip tight and nearly crushing. "That must mean-" his breath stuttered, but his voice was strong, urgent "-it means I can bring you back." And yes, Merlin could feel it now; the thread between him and Lancelot, which had pulled him to this place, which tethered him to Merlin and this half-way life. The thread was thin but golden in his grasp; pulled taut and close to snapping, but for now, it held.

Clinging to Lancelot's hands, Merlin leaned even closer to him, expression earnest. "Let me bring you back."

Lancelot's eyes widened, but he shook his head. The sorrow in his eyes grew heavier. "No."

"You know I can! Let me do it, let me bring you back!"

"I cannot let you do that."

The bright earnest expression on Merlin’s face fell away at his words and Merlin's eyes darted to his, his gaze nearly cold with how intense and hard it was, his jaw clenching.

"I will not let you do that," Lancelot said, his voice firm and his gaze just as sharp and hard as Merlin's.

"Who said I'm asking?" Merlin jutted his chin out. "It's all the same to you. You didn't ask me before giving your life for mine, and now I'm not asking to take it back." Reaching towards Lancelot's chest, his hand unfurled, palm opening as it neared where Lancelot's heart laid.

Lancelot's own hand shot out, catching Merlin's wrist, his grip around it tight and crushing as he held it back and away from himself. Merlin's hand in his was warm; warm and pulsing with light and life and a heartbeat. "No, Merlin." His grip tightened further, bruising him. "That is not the man I am. Or the man you are," he said fervently. "It is not the way I want to live."

"How can you ask me to live without you?" Merlin asked, his voice tight, but not with fury, no, it caught in his throat by something much more painful, scraping roughly against with his every word.

"How can you ask me to live at the cost of another?" There was no judgment in his eyes, only complete understanding and empathy, all of it swirling in a heavy sorrow.

Merlin's hand sagged; it dropped forward, hanging loosely in Lancelot's bruising grip. The life and warmth pulsing in it vanished, leaving his hand cold and empty.

Easing his grip, Lancelot let their hands drop down to their laps, where he wound his hand into his, entwining their fingers. "We both know the price such a thing would require. For one life to be saved, another must be given. You have told me this," he said, his voice soft and gentle as it travelled between them. "There must always be balance. A price to pay, a life for a life." He shook his head. "That is not how I want to live. I cannot live on the cost of another. Don't force me to."

"But-"

"Merlin, my dear, wonderful Merlin," gathering up both of Merlin's hands in his, Lancelot cupped them between his own, bringing them to his chest and held them there, "I know my death has hurt you so, will continue to hurt you, but I made my choice and I ask you to honour it," he said solemnly. Despite the conviction of his words, pain danced in his eyes and his voice shook. Knowing it hurt him too, did not make the words any easier for Merlin to hear.

"I am powerful, you know I am," Merlin tried again, leaning forward, "there never has and never will be another like me," he said, grasping at the knowledge of this, despite it being a source of pain and loneliness for him most days, "maybe I ca-"

"My life for someone else's?" Lancelot cut in softly, voice low. "That is not a price I want anyone else to pay," he shook his head solemnly, "not for me."

"We don't know that!" Merlin said determinedly. "Not for sure. My power-" he held up his hands, his palms facing up "-my magic, I'm-" his voice cut off as Lancelot put his hands on top of Merlin's, their fingers curling together, a sight so achingly familiar; sun-browned hands against moon-pale skin, and while it should have warmed Merlin's heart, as it always did, it instead ripped through his chest, surged past his ribs and his lungs, wrapped around his heart and tore through it, leaving cracks and tears from its brutal, unforgiving touch "-I'm stronger," he finished in a whisper so very faint and still his voice cracked. And though he did not say it, the word 'different' still passed between them. Neither of them had to say it; they had shared too many words and thoughts for it to be necessary.

Lancelot's grip around his hands tightened in a squeeze.

"I know, Merlin, my love," he exhaled heavily, "I know," he spoke so very gently, as if Merlin was made of dust and sand, in danger of falling apart and blowing away at any wind stronger than the softest of touches. Lancelot leaned forward until their foreheads touched and still he looked deeply into his eyes, never once tearing them away. "But you and I both know the rules of magic; of life. We cannot know if the price for that power is different in your hands, and I am not willing to risk it," his words were of no surprise to Merlin, but even so, each one of them plunged deep into his heart, cut a piece of it off and pulled it out of his chest, to be gone and dead forever, and he doubted, he would ever be able to revive those parts of his heart again, "even for you. Even if I wish - deeply wish - it could be different. But that is not the sort of man I am. I could never live with a life on my hands. Not in this way." Shaking his head, he sighed, his breath fanning across Merlin's cheeks and lips in a gentle gust of air, grazing his skin. "And I know it is a lot to ask, an impossible ask, but I ask it of you anyway."

"Please," Merlin whispered, the word leaving with his breath, barely audible as it blew past his lips, while he shook his head, just a little, from side to side, "please, no."

"Do not bring me back," Lancelot finished. "If you want to honour everything that we are, the man I am, do not give me back my life."

It was as if the final strength Merlin had left vanished at his words and something inside of him snapped, breaking apart. "No, no, no," he moaned, shaking his head.

The pain in his chest twisted sharper than ever, reaching deep into him and digging claws so sharp and deep it tore him apart. Choking on a sob, he crumbled, falling and dropping forward, catching his face in his hands. He fell and would have fallen to the ground, but Lancelot caught him, as he always did. His hands grabbed onto his shoulders and heaved him upward. Fingers digging into his shoulders and holding tightly onto him, Lancelot kept him upright. Shifting his grip, still digging his fingers painfully into Merlin's flesh, Lancelot pushed him forward until he fell into his chest. Only then did Merlin hear the quiet sounds coming from Lancelot's mouth.

"Merlin, Merlin, Merlin," he murmured repeatedly into him, wrapping his arms around him, his fingers winding around opposite shoulders and digging tightly into flesh and muscle, his arms around him tight and strong. It pushed Merlin into him so much so it was crushing, nearly painful, where their bodies met.

Merlin's own arms wound around him, pulling him into him just as strongly, just as crushing. Turning his head into Lancelot, he buried his face in his neck, pushing the expression twisting across it into the warm, bared skin.

“Oh, Merlin,” Lancelot sighed, pressing his lips into the side of Merlin’s head.

Breath hiccupping as he cried, sobs tore from Merlin’s chest and out past his mouth in painful surges, shaking through them both.

  Voice whispering soothingly into his ears, Lancelot’s arms wrapped around him, hand rubbing up and down his back; Merlin would have stayed like that for forever, if he could, but he knew he could not.
Lancelot's life pulsed and strained between them, the thread pulling tighter and tauter, tugging painfully at his stomach.

Merlin squeezed his eyes shut, willing it to remain.

Just a little longer, please, he begged, but knew he would not be heard.

Almost as if in answer to his prayers, Lancelot's hands around his shoulders squeezed.

  Easing away from each other at the same time, careful to keep their arms around each other, only loosening their grip enough to shift back so that they may look at each other.
Noses nearly grazing, their eyes met. Their breaths fanned from each of their lips, mixing in what little space remained between them.

  Merlin's face was wet with tears, his face streaked, Lancelot's eyes shone wetly and his eyelashes curled together in damp clumps.

"How can I live without you?" Merlin whispered faintly, his breath still shuddering.

"With great love and great joy."

"Lancelot, I can't-" Merlin turned his head away.

"No, Merlin." Keeping one arm around him, Lancelot grasped his chin between his fingers and pulled his head back around to face him. "Your heart is good and strong and true, and you hold much love in it. Do not lock it up for me. You will make it through this, you will live on and you will love greatly and deeply again."

"How can I?" he looked down, averting his eyes from the intensity inside of Lancelot's. "Without you-"

"You will be alone again, I know, Merlin." Moving his hand from his chin and down to his chest, he rested his palm on top of Merlin’s chest, right above his heart. "It is my deepest sorrow that I must leave you." Lancelot's eyes were heavy on him. "But I know you, I know your heart. You are strong. You will survive this." Sighing, he dropped his head for a brief moment, nearly touching it to Merlin's own, before he picked it up again, once more meeting Merlin's gaze. Raising his hand, he placed it on the side of Merlin's face, cupping his cheek in his palm, eyes darting back and forth between Merlin’s.

"I have seen your path, Merlin," he said lowly, as if it were a story told in the dark of night on a shared pillow in a shared bed or a secret to be told and held in the palms of his hands, "it is a lonely one, but you let me share in it. When you can do that, it is not such a lonely road to walk. All I wish for you, Merlin, all I have ever wished for you, is to find someone to walk alongside." He brushed his thumb gently back and forth on his cheek.

"I-I-" Merlin stuttered. But the words were lost in his throat. Squeezed into nothingness by the lump that had lodged itself at home there. And even if they had not been, he was not sure he could have spoken. His mind was a whirlwind and his chest - his heart - hurt worse than if he had been stabbed clean through.

Shaking his head, he swallowed painfully, blinking rapidly as his eyes prickled and vision blurred.

"Merlin-" Lancelot began, his fingers against his cheek squeezed. He did not get further.

 Merlin sucked in a sharp breath, air hissing loudly past his teeth.

Pain tightened in his stomach, tugging and twisting. The thread between them pulled taut, too taut, pulling painfully at the centre of Merlin's stomach. An icy coldness spread out, seeping from the tips of his fingers and through his hands, leaving the tips as cold and freezing as ice, a layer of white frost coating each of his fingers. Looking down at them, Merlin's eyes widened. White, wispy vapour, the kind often coming from ones warmth breath in the midst of winter, curled from his hands, frost emitting and curling from them like a faint white mist.

"Merlin, you have to let me go." Lancelot's gaze had followed Merlin's down to his hands; his were eyes wide and his tone urgent. The hand upon Merlin's cheek left as he reached out with both of his hands towards Merlin's. It hovered above them, just barely catching the wisps of cold vapour, which curled from them. "It is dangerous to keep me here," he said. "Already I've been here too long."

"No, no!" Despite his ice-cold fingers, Merlin's hands shot out and grabbed onto Lancelot, his fingers curling into his tunic. "We have more time, it's not enough, not yet." He shook his head vigorously and held tighter to the thread of Lancelot's life, which strained and pushed against his grasp.

"Merlin-"

"I don't care about the balance! So much has already been taken from me, the least the world can do is give me a little more time to say goodbye."

Lancelot smiled sadly. "You cannot hold onto my life for forever."

"I can damn well try," he spat out through gritted teeth.

"My last sight of you, fighting to the very end." The corners of his lips lifted even higher. "It seems fitting."

"Don't you dare say it." He glared at him, his heart twisting and pounding inside of his chest.

Lancelot reached up and cupped Merlin's face with both of his hands, his palms pressing softly into Merlin's cheeks. The smile he gave him was warm, yet incredibly sad. "Merlin, you have been my greatest joy, my greatest choice and my greatest love. Never doubt that for a moment."

 Eyes prickling and his vision swimming, more tears fell from them as Merlin blinked rapidly.

"Lancelot," he breathed, shaking his head.

Lancelot leaned forward, and placed his lips on his forehead, kissing his skin tenderly.

Moving his fingers from the death grip on his tunic to his shoulders, Merlin curled his hands around them. Swallowing thickly, he managed to speak past the painful lump in his throat, "I will never forget you," he whispered, every word grating roughly against his throat. "And I will never stop loving you," he spoke his promises, sealing them to him as if they were lanterns that would guide him and keep him warm through the lands of the dead, or maybe he hoped, by speaking them, he would seal their souls together, sew them into one and thus, even when he was forced to let Lancelot slip back through the Veil, he would keep him with him. "As long as I shall live, I will keep you with me."

Lancelot brought his hands to his lips and kissed them, pressing his lips softly into his skin. Against Lancelot’s lips and held between them, Merlin’s icicle hands were a barrier, reminding them of what now lay between them.

"I don't want to let you go," Merlin confessed.

"You must." Releasing his hands, Lancelot cupped his cheeks in both of his hands. "Merlin, cherish my life and the love you hold for me, mourn me, but do not bury your heart." He smiled sadly at him. "You have made me happier than I ever knew I could be. You have let me share in your love and strength, your joy and sorrow, in your heart and magic. Merlin," he spoke his name as if it was a prayer or an oath that needed to cross his lips.

"Lancelot," Merlin said, for his name was the same to him. Tears drowned his vision again and he blinked them away, before they could take Lancelot away with them.

Gaze roaming over his face, as if he was desperate to burn every last detail of Merlin’s face to his memory, Lancelot said, "One day I hope you will find another great love to walk alongside you." Leaning forward, he closed his eyes and kissed his forehead, the press of lips slow. "Until that day," he continued, lips grazing his skin as they moved, "know that you have been loved and will be loved until the end of time."

Merlin curled his hands around Lancelot’s wrists, holding carefully onto him. "I love you, Lancelot," he choked out between the sobs fighting to rise and break out of his chest again. "Don't-" he stuttered, shaking his head "-don't ask me to let you go. I-I can't."

"You must and you will." Lancelot drew back and held his face in his hands. With gentle swipes of his thumbs, he wiped the tears from his eyes and his cheeks. "Remember my heart and my love, it will be yours till the end of time, but never forget your own." Leaning forward, he touched his forehead to his. "Merlin, my love, my light," he said, his voice soft and his eyes full of such love and such sadness. The smile, which grew from his lips like blossoming flowers was gentle and warm, such a one Merlin had known him to give only ever to him.

Before he could say goodbye, Merlin tilted his head forward, closing the small gap between them and caught his lips with his own.

The kiss was raw and tender. An ache inside of Merlin's chest throbbed in response to it.

 Pushing further into him, his arms wrapping around him tightly, Merlin clung desperately to him, even as he began to slip through his fingers; the thread between them fading and fading until it turned to smoke, which passed through Merlin's grasp and vanished.

 The last exhale Lancelot ever took echoed inside of Merlin's ears.

 With the familiar press of his bed against his back and Lancelot's presence still fading from Merlin's arms and lips, an echo of his body lingering on top of his skin; Merlin woke up, breath catching in his throat and his eyes fluttering wetly open.

 Eyes falling upon the only source of light in the room, a small touch of grey light falling into the room from the window cut into the wall. A soft patter of rain fell outside the walls of his chamber, drifting in through the window, which had opened sometime while Merlin had slept.

 The wooden shutters hung from the hinges, appearing almost suspended in the air, an errant wind catching upon it and causing it to swing slightly back and forth, the gentle light flickering across it with the motion.

 Magic tingled on the back of his tongue and laid heavily upon his skin, pressing into it like the touch of a heavy blanket.
 The pull, which had stirred the clouds to be dark and heavy, making them cover the sky and put the world into shadows, touching down upon the earth with ear-splitting thunder and blinding lightning, was gone.

 Tears clung to Merlin’s cheeks, both wet and dry, his skin stinging from their raw touch, his eyes aching, red and raw from crying. His lips were still tingling from Lancelot's lips and his last kiss.

Lancelot remained like a ghost pressing into his body; the echoing touch of his hands on Merlin’s chest and face, lingering against him, his phantom touch as soft and gentle as the breath of the smallest of breezes.
 Heart aching and twisting painfully inside of his chest, he wondered how long these last traces, these last touches of Lancelot would remain with him, before that too would fade from this world and from Merlin.

 Hands clenching uselessly at empty air, Merlin took in a breath that shuddered and shook all the way through his body, his lungs trembling. The air caught in his throat and he choked; the sound turning into a strangled sob that wrecked through his chest and scraped harshly against his throat.

Pushing against the bed, Merlin sat up, bringing his knees to his chest and dropped his head low as he cried for his love, his Lancelot.