Chapter Text
Merlin watched the beast.
The beast watched him.
In his hands his sword weighed three tons more than what it had when he had first started the fight. His muscles screamed at the exertion and the clock looming above in the sky ticked on towards eight. He stood with his sword lowered, the tip resting on the rough black ground, blood dripping from the edge to form a puddle where it rested. At that moment all he wanted to do was sleep. Behind him a chilling voice egged him on. “
Come on Merlin just get on with it, what is this the ninth Shuck mutt you’ve faced?”
Merlin didn’t bother to reply, instead he sidestepped and avoided the sloppy lunge. The beast in front of him, a Black Shuck, was a wolf-life animal. It was completely black, as the name denoted, and its’ fur was shaggy and cropped at odd angles waving about like wispy dark smoke. It didn’t appear to have lips as every single one of it’s teeth was on full display, its mouth open in a viscous snarl. Its’ mouth started on one side of its head, under its ear, and wrapped around to the other. It watched Merlin with cautious glowing red eyes.
Around the panting creature of magic lay several similar corpses strewn about in a maze of pooled black blood and Merlin’s own bloody footprints. The clock in the sky was starting to dip below the horizon and Merlin calmly noted it was 7:49. Suddenly the beast let out a low growl and lunged forward again, only to be meet with the blood stained steel of Merlin’s blade. He buried it into the creatures side, twisting roughly and forcing to yowling beast to the ground. He pressed a foot against the Shucks hip and thrust his sword through, leaning his weight on it, until he felt it hit against the floor on the other side. The beast lay still like the others.
“Gee! I didn’t see that coming! You must tell me just how you fight so well?” Came the obnoxious voice again, dripping with sarcasm. This time Merlin turned to face it.
“If you would grow a pair and take on an actual form I would be more than happy to show you how I fight.”
“Why don’t you make me, huh? Using those modern insults and acting tough. You made this place didn’t you?Your little purgatory between the world of magic and the world of people. It was considerate of you, to create this battle ground for us to fight on, but your wearing down buddy and we can feel it.”
Merlin just grunted boredly in response, it was nothing that it hadn’t said before, the voice was coming from in front of him but there was nothing to see. The ‘purgatory’ that Merlin had created was an endless expanse of vermillion, the sky so far above was made of silent rolling waves, and the sun was just a round wall clock slowing ticking off the hours without a care for the war it kept time for.
“You think that you can stop us and that’s sweet. It reminds me of that old righteous you Merlin. But someday we’re going to get past you and the human world is going to have to get acquainted with magic beasts and sorcerers all over again. You can’t stop this Merlin because making it happen is your des-“
“Shut up!” Merlin roared and with a fluid motion wrenched his sword from the Shuck and threw it in the direction of the voice, the sword landed harmlessly some feet away. “Shut up about destiny already! I’ve waited centuries for that destiny to happen. Arthur has abandoned me and you know what? I don’t even want to see him anymore! If destroying magic destroys destiny, then that’s what I’m going to do. You can’t make me love them again. Gwen, and Giaus, Leon, Gwaine, and the bloody betrayer king Arthur. I would be more then overjoyed to hear they were never coming back. I’ve waited this long, so long, for nothing. They won’t come back to me. They never tried to come back to me. I don’t want to have a destiny anymore. Please. Please just stop. Please just let me kill you, let magic die.”
As his rant continued Merlin wilted, sinking to the ground until he was on his knees. Tears sprung to his eyes and he stared at the nothing the voice spoke from, pleading with his cerulean iris's as if it was the force of fate that had cursed him with this destiny so long ago. The voice didn’t speak for a long time. And when it did it sounded defeated. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. I miss the old you, Merlin, but i’m starting to think that I’m never going to see it again. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow I guess, I’ve got to rally some more troops.”
Merlin quickly wiped the corners of his eyes, and crawled towards his sword, exhausted mentally and physically.
“You can’t stop your destiny Merlin, Arthur will return. What happens next will be up to you.”
Merlin wiped black blood from his sword with his white night shirt, watching the clock in the sky tick closer to 8.
BEEP. Beeeep.
Merlin’s eyes shot open and he fell out of his small bed. His electric alarm clock blared at irregular intervals. He slapped it repeatedly, even after it had ceased it’s squawking. He glared at it for good measure. He stood up kicking the blankets he had yanked down with him away. They were covered in his sweat. With a sigh he dragged them to his laundry bin and tossed them in with the others, the he walked into his tiny bathroom and started to dry off his own body.
He stripped off the white shirt which was stained with black blood. The wet cloth was cold on his skin and he let out a satisfied groan as he started to feel human again. He kicked aside on of the many empty first aid kits to grab a bandage from the edge of the sink, strewn around the bathroom were various used and unused bandages, ointment tubes and slings. Merlin continued his methodic morning routine. His hair was combed and his bangs were clipped back with a pin, they were getting to long and he made note to cut them that evening. He wrapped the gash on his leg with the bandage and took off the old one which was tied around his arm, the wound underneath had healed completely.
A knock at the outside door formed the words rent money in his mind. He stumbled out of the bathroom, wearing nothing but the pair of crumpled dark jeans he had slept in. He waded through the mess of books and papers that lined his apartment floor, some stacks even reached his waist, and just general clutter that filled the small apartment. On his wall hung several swords and random music posters from some bands he’d never listened to. He yanked open the door, which slammed itself shut because it was still bolted. He mumbled an apology, unbolted it and opened it again. A teenage girl stood holding a clipboard and looking at him with annoyance and a mix of pity and curiosity.
“Mr. Emrys, I assume you forget that you must pay rent at my family’s apartments, again. You also seem to have forgotten human beings need sunshine, food, and other human interaction. The last time I saw you was when I collected rent last month.” Merlin handed her a one of the wads of cash he kept on a shelf near the door, pre-divided into the small rent he had been paying for the last year. Immortality had its perks so he didn’t worry about money, he worried about very little in the material world. He hadn’t checked his bank account in years but he had once been a very prolific man. When he still had hope.
The young girl took the bills with a frown. Then muttered as she wrote something on her clipboard. “Merlin Emrys paid cash again and was 3 days late for rent.” She looked him up and down again, not shocked by his lack of a shirt. “Is it too much to say I’m worried?”
“Thanks Will, but just go.”
He slammed the door closed, strode back through the mess, grabbing a sword and a whetstone as he went, and put a pot of coffee on. He sat at his dinning room table and continued the day like he always did. Praying quietly to the triple goddesses begging them to stop trying to unleash magic onto the human world and to make sure he never saw Arthur Pendragon again. And then sharpening a sword, preparing for that night where he would once again fight the beasts that were trying to open a portal in the world of magic. He didn’t move but the TV flicked on in the next room, playing some celebrity gossip show that Merlin liked to absently mindedly listen to.
“Today were going to talk about someone who hasn’t been in the spot light for years. This boy is the son of a billionaire and a philanthropist, he himself is set to become the heir to the biggest airline and shipping company in the world. And he is so hot he melts ice cream in winter.”
Merlin smiled at the shows horrible compliments, talk shows were his only joy these days.
“And if you can’t figure it out by that description then hears a hint, he just turned down a Yale scholarship in favor of taking a leap year off with some friends in Britain. That’s right we’re talking about the pretty boy, Arthur Pendragon.”
Merlin didn’t move an inch but in the next room over the TV shattered.