Work Text:
Gwen never speaks about her banishment.
(Although she knows that once upon a time she could have confided in Merlin, she didn’t.)
She has never told anyone about her brief time being hunted in the forest, nor about her work in the small village that took her in.
(She hasn’t seen him in a year; not since he’d returned to Camelot to inform her of Arthur’s death and promptly left again.)
She doesn’t like to think about it—the banishment, the forest—and she’s perfectly comfortable locking those memories away forever.
(He hadn’t even stayed the night. He’d simply packed a few books and clothes and disappeared.)
She’s busy now, anyway. Busy being a leader and Queen, and nobody wants to be reminded of her transgression when everything already feels unsteady.
(And Merlin had written a letter, once, so she at least knows he was alive a few months ago.)
The past still hangs over her like a silent overcast sky. She never looks up. The storm above is constantly threatening to burst open—she cannot think of her banishment. She cannot think of Lancelot. She cannot think of her brother, her father, Morgana, Gwaine, and she tries to think of her husband least of all.
(And she cannot think of Merlin, although it’s for a different reason.)
(And how dare he have a reason?)
(How dare he stay away?)
The year has been a nightmare. Leon does his best as an advisor and as a friend. He helps to draft documents and lead the knights. He helps her with battle strategy and he helps clean up the mess left by war and death and the loss of a king.
Gwen buries her grief in her work and, later, it all comes out in a flood to Sir Percival, who is working through his own grief, and Sir Leon, who is an attentive listener and her oldest friend alive.
(The honour would have fallen on Merlin, but he is gone and he might be dead and he has clearly forfeited the friendship on his own terms.)
But she holds her banishment as something left unsaid, and nobody asks.
She’d never been close to Percival before, but now he reminds her of Lancelot and Gwaine and suddenly that dynamic has changed. He has never been a talkative man but then, Gwen has always been a babbler when nervous—and she is always nervous now. It has been nearly thirty years since Camelot has had a queen, and she is setting a precedent as she goes. It’s heavy. It’s overwhelming. It makes her babble.
(And then the deer appears.)
It’s during a moment of peace. Gwen is standing in the wood and taking deep breaths of the green-brown air when it occurs to her, quite suddenly, that she hasn’t seen a deer since her husband’s death. She’d hardly seen one before, and the thought of eating venison always makes her nauseous besides (not that she’s ever told anybody why).
That being said, the appearance of the creature would have been notable regardless, because it must be the most beautiful animal she has ever seen.
It is both wide-eyed and narrow-stepping, with broad shoulders that taper into delicate hoofs. The young stag’s antlers alone are impressive—a nearly-symmetrical tangle of geometric shapes—but they aren’t its most notable trait.
The hazy velvet outlining the antlers seems to pulse with invisible candlelight, and Gwen quickly notices that the entire beast seems to glow with a light of its own, as if carrying a tongue of golden flame within its breast. She has the impression that if she were to reach out and stroke its glossy fur, it would be as hot as the rocks that sun themselves along the river banks.
She does not reach out to touch it.
Instead, she takes a hesitant step forward. It surveys her with brown eyes flecked with the same glowing gold as the sunlight streaming through the forest canopy. It is not afraid, and Gwen is not afraid.
And then it turns in the silence and delicately picks its way back through the underbrush.
Gwen finds herself following it without question. It keeps a slow, continuous pace in front of her, moving with confident steps through the forest, threading between the ghostly white trunks of paper-birches and the slender, springy boughs of willows.
Gwen does her best to not think about what she must look like—the Queen of Camelot wandering through the forest alone? And following a deer, no doubt!—Leon would have her seen by Gaius ten times over.
Except that Leon is probably attending some council meeting or another, and despite being alone, Gwen doesn’t feel like she is in any danger.
The trees thicken and thin again. The ground grows springier, the air damp. She can smell marsh and moss and mud.
And then she is standing before the lake.
The deer stops ahead of her, the water lapping at the tips of its hoofs. It has left no imprints in the mud, and Gwen has a sudden fear that this is some sort of magical trap. While the kingdom has found relative peace since the legalization of magic, that does not mean there aren’t still enemies of Camelot lurking in the shadows.
The thing by the lake, however, turns out to be much more terrifying than any magical enemy could be, and it calls out in a very human voice.
“Gwen.”
She jolts and twists, hands already up in front of her, but the forest is undisturbed, and she can almost convince herself that she imagined someone calling her name.
Except she knows the voice, and it’s a voice that she thought her memory had banished long ago.
“I’m sorry.”
The words are behind her again, as if coming from the lake, and Gwen turns back around to face the deer—it has waded further into the reeds, fur melding with the water at its calves, and blocking her view of its body is a tall, dark shape—a man with a hooded cloak.
And Gwen knows who he is before he pulls the hood from his face.
“Merlin,” she whispers.
It comes out equal parts angry and confused. Gwen had imagined their reunion many times—she’d imagined happy ones, full of relief and nostalgia and hugs; angry ones, where she yelled and spat and broke the items in her chambers; sad ones, where they shared a moment of understanding, of both losing the man who meant so much to them—but now that the moment is here, she isn’t sure what to do at all.
Her throat feels cold. Her lungs are tight. She can’t bring herself to say more and she can’t drag her eyes away from him, not even when he takes a step towards her.
His eyes flash gold.
The deer behind him tosses its head back, scattering gold-white drops of light across the surface of the lake before wading into its cool depths and fading into the suddenly-thin-and-frigid air.
Gwen takes a step back. She is not afraid of Merlin’s magic but she is, distantly, afraid of this Merlin. His hair is longer. There are shadows of stubble under his chin and along his cheeks, which are more weathered than she remembers—did he always have that scar below his eye?—but it's possible he’d aged even before he left, and she hadn’t had the time to notice.
Even his clothes are a darker, thicker material, and more ragged with dirt and use.
He has the same boots.
She keeps staring at his boots.
“How have you been?” Merlin asks softly. His voice is unmistakable, but it sounds more gravelly than it is in her memory. Gwen keeps looking at his boots because if her eyes go any higher, she’ll see a wild animal in the tangle of his hair and his hunched shoulders, and she refuses to believe that this is the real Merlin, because if he’s able to stand and speak, then he should have been able to return to Camelot, or to write, or to send word in any way at all—
And she does not answer his question. She doesn’t know how.
Merlin shifts his feet. The boots are caked with muck; there are holes in the toes and deep creases where the leather bends.
“I brought you this,” he says, still soft, still gravelly, still hesitant. There is no preamble, and Gwen feels cheated, but she forces herself to look at his hands as they appear from under the cloak.
He’s holding a sword. It only takes Gwen a moment to recognize it, but she doesn’t want to focus on that yet.
“Where have you been?” she hisses instead. Merlin’s hands waver, the blade dipping.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, and Gwen thinks Merlin sounds hollow. “I shouldn’t have stayed away for so long.”
Gwen does not care for this hollowness, nor for his tactless greeting and year of neglect.
“It’s been a year, Merlin.”
“...I know.”
She is glaring at him. Merlin’s eyes are about the same, at least—maybe a little less bright, but that’s true for everyone these days.
“I just...I didn’t know how to return,” he whispers. Gwen doesn’t quite keep the hysteria in her throat down. Instead, she barks out a laugh without a smile.
“Well, everybody else figured out how to return.”
“Yes,” he says, “but I’m the one who failed.”
Gwen doesn’t think he failed, and she wouldn’t care if he had.
“So you abandoned Camelot, you abandoned Gaius, you abandoned me—“ she begins, and it feels good.
“I know.”
“—and now you’re coming back with—” she finally looks at the sword. “With that, and an ‘I’m sorry?’”
He raises his hands again, and gods—it’s exactly as she remembers it. The year might have dulled Merlin’s eyes and boots, but it has not done the same for the blade. The edge looks freshly sharpened and the golden inlays are just as bright as when it was forged. Gwen would know—she’d been there when it was pulled from the flames. She’d seen her father work the steel and polish the precious metals.
“Arthur’s sword,” she says, clipped, more to herself than to him. Merlin flinches at Arthur’s name but Gwen pretends to not notice. “You’ve carried it all this time?”
"No,” he says quietly. He is still standing with his back to the lake, “I got rid of it. But it keeps calling me back here.”
“Here?”
“This is where I laid it to rest.”
He won’t say Arthur’s name. She doesn’t think he ever will, and she wonders if it’s the sword that’s calling him, or if it’s something different, something he won’t put a name to.
“And you're giving it to me?” Gwen isn’t sure if she can bring herself to touch it—an item forged by her father and carried by her husband. An echo of lives that are now gone.
“It’s yours,” he says.
“Why?” her voice catches.
“It has to be yours.”
“There must be more to it than that.”
Merlin turns the blade over in his hands, extending the hilt towards her. When she doesn’t take it, his voice gets a little louder.
“There’s trouble coming. I don’t know when, but I have a feeling you’ll need it. It’s been forged in a dragon’s breath. It will offer you protection.”
He tries to thrust it into her hands, but she takes a step back, frowning, her eyes surveying his.
“You’re leaving again,” she says slowly. Merlin fumbles the sword, and he grimaces as he catches it.
“I need to,” he says. “There’s nothing for me here.”
That hurts. She never thought she meant so little to him.
“And there’s more for you out there?”
She throws a gesture towards the lake, and he follows her gaze across the water, turning fully. The sword is still in his hands.
“No,” he whispers.
“Then stay.”
Merlin shakes his head. Gwen takes a step so that she is standing beside him and watches how the water swirls patterns of light across his cheeks. She is struck by how lost he looks—what has he been doing for the last year? He visited his mother in the beginning, she knows—Hunith sent a letter to Gaius. He’d stayed for only a few days.
And Merlin had written once—only once—to thank her for legalizing magic .
And then he’d disappeared.
Merlin shakes his head. “What would I do? Be a servant again? A physician? How can I go back to the way I was?”
“You could be my advisor,” Gwen says. She’s thought about it before. “Or a court sorcerer, if you so choose. Or a noble, a strategist—gods, Merlin, I’d even knight you if you wished—you just need to stay.”
“How can I face the court?”
“The court!” Her laugh is only slightly less bitter now. “Merlin! The court is me. It’s Leon. It’s Gaius and Percival—your friends, Merlin! You don’t need to face anyone. You already know us all.” She pauses. “But you’ll have to tell us where you’ve been,” she adds.
“I haven’t been anywhere.”
“Then the story should be short.” Gwen’s tone carries a warning—Merlin cannot refuse this. She will not let him.
(And yet…)
Merlin seems to be having a silent conversation with the lake, because he doesn’t immediately answer her. He waits until the sound of the water shifting the grasses around them becomes deafening before he speaks again, with confidence this time:
“I knew the deer would work. I know you well.” There is a ghost of a smile on his face as he holds the sword up. “Please take it.”
Gwen crosses her arms. She knows the sunlight is dancing across her face in the same patterns as his, and the colors remind her of magic—inextricably linked to broken promises and abandoned destinies, to wonder and to fear—and while Merlin might be the sorcerer, Gwen has stubbornness on her side.
“Only if you promise to stay,” she says. “You must swear it to me.”
This time, Merlin really does smile. “I miss you too.”
“Merlin…” Another warning.
“There are a few things that I need to see to first,” he says. “A few loose ends to tie up, a few spells to learn—”
“In the forest?” She is incredulous. Merlin gives her a sideways glance.
“I’d imagine you, of all people, could tell me exactly how much can happen in a forest.”
Gwen thinks she should be angry, but instead she just feels exposed. “I could.”
“...And you probably know a good deal about deer, and running a kingdom—”
“...Yes.”
“And I could tell you a bit about magic.” He shoots her a jarring and honest grin. Gwen isn’t sure where he is going with this. He looks down at the sword, thinking hard. He bites his lip before speaking again.
“... I have no interest in being a noble, and at the moment, I’d make a frankly horrible knight...But if you keep the position open…”
Something in Gwen’s chest shifts. Something in Merlin’s face does, too. He looks at her sheepishly.
“...I think I might be available to face the court in the spring.”
He holds out the sword again. “As long as you manage to avoid trouble until then, that is.”
Gwen looks at the sword. If she touches the hilt, it will be Arthur’s hand there, and her father’s and Merlin’s, and it sounds very heavy.
She takes the sword.
“You’re right,” she says. “You would make a horrible knight. You can’t even hold onto a proper sword.”
She gives the sword a few experimental swings, appreciating the way the hilt is already warm in her palm. “But I will keep the position open until spring.”
“And you’ll stay out of trouble?”
Gwen holds the sword up between them, as if ready for a battle. It feels like an extension of her own arm and soul. She smiles.
“I’ll do my best,” she says.
Merlin looks from her to the sword and seems about ready to cry. The words seem to have been stolen from his throat. He coughs.
“I’m trying to come back, Gwen. I’m trying to figure out how.”
Gwen lowers the sword, letting the tip brush the long grass.
“You will have to find a way eventually. Everybody does.”
Merlin smiles at the forest floor. Behind him, the stag materializes and steps gracefully out of the water. Gwen wants to say more, wants to beg him to come with her one last time, but she holds the words back. Instead, she turns to follow the creature.
“Gwen?”
Gwen stops. Merlin is still standing at the very edge of the lake, but he’s staring at his empty hands. He looks at her.
“Thank you. You will be the greatest Queen Albion has ever known.”
There is a shift in the air, a warm breeze, and then Merlin is gone.
In the silence, Gwen places her hand on the smooth flank of the stag and allows it to lead her home.