stungunbilly | Epilogue, by stungunbilly. A Merlin vignette.

One of the reasons I love Merlin fandom so much is that it's made me want to write.

Epilogue, by stungunbilly

In Avalon, the scales were off his eyes. Arthur waited by the water until the boat knocked against the shore. He was still as a statue, surprised to find new experience could still come to him.

Merlin smiled when he stepped onto the grass, pale sunlight limning his midnight hair and the swirl of his cloak. He held out a hand to Arthur and smiled brightly, like a youth again, though with a radiance that shone beneath his pale skin. His eyes glimmered yellow.

He was beautiful.

“Hello, Arthur,” said Merlin, and ducked his head a little. His sculpted cheeks pinkened and he looked at Arthur through his lashes like he always had when they were still years away from the pressures of Kingship and magery.

“I loved you,” said Arthur, voice hollow with years of being dead.

Merlin blushed more, smiling in the defensive way he'd had. It couldn't hide his power, or the way the very earth and air seemed to pulse with urgency to conform to his bidding. His shy gazes showed the soul behind them; gateways and passages, the light behind the stars, the weight of the planets in their dances.

“I had rather hoped you still did,” said Merlin, and his voice contained resonances high and low. It shivered over Arthur's skin like satin on naked flesh, like the fresh wind after a storm.

The sun had been at mid-morning in all the endless time he'd dwelt here in the Blessed Land. It rose into the sky fully at last, and the fog blew away.