Morgana raised her hand again, eyes wild with fear and confusion, “Answer me! What are you?!”
Arthur blinked, his face scrunching up with frustration, his wings flapping forward harder. They pushed air across the room, the dust and ice picking up into a whirlwind, clouding the room. Merlin clung to him, struggling not to be blown away, too. He pushed into the safety of Arthur’s side, blinded by the snow and deafened by the wind.
“Please,” Arthur called to her, “I don’t want to fight you. We were friends once… Morgana, the more ruthless you are the more enemies you’ll create -”
“Is this why…” Morgana’s face filtered through a multitude of expressions as fear, wonder, and realisation panged through her in succession, “You have magic? Arthur, you have magic?”
Arthur blinked down at his blood and frost-covered hands, Merlin’s shaking fingers wound tightly in his thin white shirt , “We are not so different in the end, it seems.”
Merlin defeated the creature easily. He turned away from his fallen foe and back to the boulder blockade he’d trapped Arthur behind. Too late, Merlin saw the King had found his own way out. He had seen… everything.
Arthur didn’t look angry. He didn’t even seem surprised. Just… hurt. Merlin froze when he saw that Arthur was crying. The King hadn’t seemed to notice it yet, his eyes lost and face void of emotion, but tear tracks lined his dust-coated cheeks. Arthur didn’t cry. It was a rule he rarely disobeyed, his motto, “No man is worth your tears.” It took Merlin a second to understand, but he wasn’t angry… he was heartbroken.
Arthur discovers Merlin’s magic. Realising that nearly everyone close to him has betrayed him, Arthur blames himself and obsesses over being a perfect king. He finally taps into his potential, follows his beliefs, and becomes the man that he was meant to be. Arthur also discovers he’s not what he thought he was and begins keeping secrets of his own. Meanwhile, Merlin repents for his mistakes and learns about Arthur’s past. What is Arthur hiding? Can Merlin win back Arthur’s trust? Who and what is Arthur Pendragon, really?
*if you look closely you can see a little reflection of Merlin in Arthur’s eyes*
Thank you to chrisfrootart! I love your art style and hope you like how this turned out. Sorry my ADHD kind of made a nose job into a full art session.
The monster was white and skeletal, with bones protruding from its spine and joints. It crawled like an insect across the ceiling, two talons sharp and glinting from each foot. As though looking for them, it huffed and sniffed, and Merlin prayed that it was blind and would leave if they stood still without a breath. It flexed and shifted, its skin wrinkled with each movement, shining with dew. Merlin’s lungs screamed at him for air, and when he could hold it in no longer, he sucked in a breath. The creature’s head snapped towards him, beady black eyes blinking hungrily at him. It snapped its jaws with rows upon rows of teeth glinting in the moonlight, and dropped to the floor and lunged.
“MERLIN!” Arthur yelled, grabbing Merlin’s sleeve and yanking him away from it.
Merlin scrambled backward and dodged as the creature slammed past him and into the ground. The walls shook from the commotion and an idea popped into the warlock’s head. He saw Arthur slowly approach the beast from behind as it shook its head frustratedly. Merlin had to keep Arthur safe. Running forward and pushing Arthur out of the way, he screamed, “ARTHUR, GET BACK! THE CAVE IS COLLAPSING!”
When the monster lunged again, guided by his shout, Merlin rolled and shot out a hushed spell towards the cave ceiling. It shook and fell, building a blockade between them and the king. He heard Arthur yell for him, but all that registered in Merlin’s thoughts was that the king was unharmed. Now Merlin faced the beast alone.
It was a Lymocton. ‘The starving man’. He’d seen it in his book before. He couldn’t remember much, only that they had an aversion to light and heat. So he spun around, fists blazing hot with fire, and called to it, “Alright, you’ve got me now. Give it your best shot!”
CHAPTER ONE : THE BAD FEELING & THE TREASURE CHEST (Pt. 2)
“Didn’t peg you for an artistic soul, sire! Now you’re telling me you can draw? Hopefully better than whatever Morgana doodled on the walls.”
Arthur shot Merlin an unamused eyeroll but pushed a bound notebook to him all the same. Merlin pursed his lips and carefully opened it. The bindings were brittle, and some pages slid out, Merlin fumbling to catch them. When he did, he whistled quietly and looked up at Arthur and back at the page in rapid succession. Arthur could draw… incredibly well. He flipped through the pages and gazed at them with wonder. Some of the drawings he instantly recognized. A detailed sketch of a horse’s head. A simple outline of a hut on a hill. But as Merlin got further into the book, the drawings became grander and grander.
One depicted Morgana, with her features sharp even as a child, gazing out of her window to the courtyard. Another of Gwen’s face, her eye’s closed and smiling gently. An old man with a long beard with a cloak pulled over his head. A woman kissing a child’s forehead. He flipped through the pages enthralled by their contents. When he got to the end, he found a paper ripped out and folded in half. He looked up at Arthur questioningly, who had averted his eyes to avoid Merlin’s reaction to his work. Getting no response, he pulled the page out and opened it.
This drawing was different than the others. With the rest of his art, Arthur had painstakingly created tiny details and gentle shading. This one… the face of a young boy, was haphazard and roughly made from jagged lines and harsh shadows. Merlin ran his fingers over it and then raised it to the king.
I love a nice Merlin-reveals-his-magic-to-Morgana-and-they-become-a-super-awesome-power-duo fic as much as the next person, but I’d love to see more Merlin-reveals-his-magic-but-he-and-Morgana-still-don’t-see-eye-to-eye fics.
Like, they fundamentally disagree on a lot of things, and it would be excellent to see more fics where they argue and fight but still ultimately want the same thing (ie. freedom from oppression).
Bonus points if they’re not mortal enemies but just like…passive aggressive allies, or magical pals who would die before revealing the other’s secret but also low-key poison each other over, like, the most minute differences in opinion.
The great thing about this dynamic is the way it would just confuse the fuck out of everyone. All the castle residents are certain the king’s ward and the prince’s manservant mustbe friends since they’re always hanging out together (so they can learn magic), but they also so clearly hate each other, what with their habit of glaring daggers across the room, exchanging ruthless insults in otherwise polite company, and competing in an alarmingly intense prank war.
Of course, the glaring daggers across the room is the result of constant arguments over Mindspeak (usually discussing Uther’s murder right in front of him)
Morgana: I could kill him right now.
Merlin:Morgana…
Morgana: It would be so easy. I’ll accuse Lord Halstead, and everyone will believe me.
Merlin: Morgana, you can’t just go around framing innocent people for murder! We’ve talked about this.
Morgana:…
Morgana: He was a jerk to Gwen yesterday.
Merlin: Oh shit, really? Well in that case, continue.
Three seconds later:
Merlin: Wait, fuck! Murder is still bad! STOP USING GWEN TO SWAY MY DECISIONS!!!
And of course, the ‘prank war’ is actually just Morgana repeatedly attempting to take over Camelot while Merlin stops her in increasingly bizarre ways. Morgana’s chamber being stuffed full of live chickens and Merlin’s clothes mysteriously becoming three sizes too small were necessaryparts ofcleverly laid plans, NOT juvenile pranks thankyouverymuch.
But despite their differences, if anyone tries to attack one of them or (gods forbid) accuse one of them of having magic, you can bet the other will drop everything to shut that the fuck down. Because when it comes down to it, they’re in the same struggle,even if they have very different ideas about what the solution looks like.
