Y’all Remember When Arthur Basically Proved How He Already Had Feelings For Merlin As Early As S1 EP4

You are strongly advised not to feed the ducks in this pond.

Observances

Merlin/Arthur | Mature | No Archive Warnings Apply | Word Count: 373

Historical AU | Festivals | Prophecies | Second Person POV (Merlin)

For the @merlinmicrofic prompts "feast" and "new year."

Will post to Ao3 once it's back up.

Arthur's halls are decorated for the birth of the sun, Saturnalia was a sennight ago, and you saw an ominous sign this morning in the movement of the birds.

small tw: for animal (bird) death

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Arthur’s hall is decorated with yew branches. Up and down the benches there is elaborate food upon decorated plates of a dull silver that he told you was called pewter. His hounds whine and beg for scraps from the revellers, having grown bored of the swan wing that had been tossed to them. Now it lay on the straw strewn floor, gnarled and upsetting. 

Your eyes are on him, but everyone’s eyes are on him, they always are. Warlord, lord, king. Tonight he wears an abolla that is a red as rich as blood (and you’ve seen plenty of blood, by now). His hair and eyes are pale against the colour but not diminished by them. 

But his eyes are on you. They shouldn't be on you, not as much as they are, they need not ever be on you, but they are. You’re a servant, what’s more you are of the Silures, reviled by his father, yet his eyes have been on you since you were crowned with oak leaves for saving his life.

What a strange mix of observances that he claims as his own. 

On Saturnalia he said that you could do anything, so you sat in his lap and had him feed you figs and almonds with his fingers.

But that was a sennight ago, now above his chair there is a bower of willow and ivy, now he raises his cup and you go to his side to pour him grape wine from across the sea. 

He would put you to death for your aurgury this morning. It was the flight of the hedge sparrows that alerted you just a breath before it happened; a peregrine claimed an ouzel, too slow to retreat to the coppice, right before your eyes. There are signs in everything, you are finding, even the strange prognostications of the Romans. Ouzel cock, black druid, guide to the otherworld. Your people go unmarked in death as they do in life. There are few left, even, to cry your name. Fewer still will survive to see the spring.  

The fire is making you sweat, causing the woad staining your arms to run. 

His cup goes up, the room stills.

“The sun is reborn,” Arthur says. 

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

'The Milky Way' (detail) by Frida Hansen, (1855 - 1931).

Elyan was being haunted by this watery ghost child and was being really freaked out by him but when he first actually talked to he went 'you're so cold' and then just hugged him like

why does no one talk about this??

Amazing art for one of my microfics, thank you so much @merthurotica 🥺!

Merlin/Arthur | Mature | No Archive Warnings Apply | Word Count: 100

Rescue | Angst and Hurt/Comfort | Merlin's Magic Revealed

For @merlinmicrofic with the dialogue prompt "I promised"

Arthur saves Merlin from the pyre

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Arthur cared not for the blistering flesh of his arms, only Merlin blackened and coughing in his lap.

Voices, hooves came.

He covered his mouth.

They died away, leaving just the wind in the leaves.

Arthur’s whispered agonised apologies as Merlin wheezed for air.

“Go back, Arthur,” he pressed out. “You’re supposed to-”

“I don’t care what fate or your dragon has to say! I promised.”

Tears tracked through soot. “…Please.”

Arthur smeared them away. “Merlin… I can't manage without you. We’ll run.” 

Merlin laughed brokenly. “And if I can’t run?” 

A kiss, all ash and salt. “Need you ask?”

no more media analysis until we agree that all art is a sublimation of the desire to ritually sacrifice the king. yeah all of it. yeah even cars 2 and stuff

Guinevere's wedding dress and chainmail veil in Excalibur 1981

i recently became possessed with the idea of a merlin series rewrite that would follow more closely the legends in some aspects. i'm not exactly sure how one would pull it off but i already ordered a copy of le morte d'arthur to refresh my memory

something something uther dies from an illness while arthur is still a child and how that's gonna affect things?

but, i still want merlin and arthur to be the same age

so balinor is gonna take on the role in events that occurred pre arthur's birth where merlin's figure was involved?

i really love-hate the story about ygraine in the legend. adds so much trashinnes to uthers character. so fitting.

uther literally got hots for a married woman, got pissy offended when she left in the night because of his creepy behaviour and waged war against her husband because of that.

and than he impersonated her husband and slept with her. which is really SA. and then when her husband died, in that same war, he was like "well guess you'll now have to marry me". what a disgusting creature.

i can go on and on