Ari, Arthur, Val, Lam, Gwen—his people.
Merlin’s friends had helped spark one of the most hopeful moments of human history. In fact, it looked better in person than it did in the legends, since nobody had gotten their grubby whitewashing hands on it yet. Several of these nobles besides Lam, Val, and Ari were knights of color. Take that, racist revisionists!
Even Gwen had a seat at the table, which of course would be edited out later. The absence of more women rankled, especially when Merlin thought of Jordan. And then there was the matter of letting nonbinary people serve openly as knights and giving more seats to common-born folk and… There was still work to do. But for the first time since they’d arrived in Camelot, he felt it could be done. This was why Arthur’s story needed to survive intact. This moment would give birth to so many other moments. And Merlin was right here in the middle of it, even if he’d only gotten into the room by volunteering to serve the mead.
He made a circle around the table, humming in a non-magical way, clanking down cups. He deposited a drink in front of Ari and leaned down when she accepted it with a knightly nod.
“Tell me again that this is real,” he whispered.
“Arthur and I are BFFs now,” she assured him. “Kind of literally on that last F, if you think about it.”
Arthur drinking from the chalice had changed everything. Not just the shape of a table or the composition of the knights sitting around it, but Arthur himself. Ari had told Merlin that he’d seen his future. Not just the glory of Camelot, or even his death at the hands of Mordred, but all of it.
The cycles. Forty-one dead heroes. And then number forty-two, a girl from the future with a mostly broken spaceship, a smelly but lovable brother, and a mega-corporation to slay.
It was a boon to their quest to have Arthur understand his own story—although it was also a burden for the young king. His expression was covered in worried creases that hadn’t been there at his birthday celebration weeks ago. His hair was still rumpled and blonde, but somehow it looked less like spun gold and more like old straw. And his eyes? They held all the ghosts of the future in two soft blue spheres. It was too much for any person to contain, let alone such a young and tender-hearted one. Arthur looked as if he’d aged as many years overnight as Merlin had, well, de-aged.
But this, too, made a kind of sense. Something had finally happened to change the boy-king into the solemn, tragic figure of Camelot. The legends often pinned the guilt on Gweneviere—because the legends were written by misogynistic tosspots. Arthur’s overnight transformation didn’t come from a broken heart, but an unmoored soul.
Merlin set a cup in front of the king, who rummaged up a small smile for him. “Many thanks, carbuncle.” Merlin felt his face contort at the epithet. Arthur added, “Believe me, I understand. I’m the Wart.”
Merlin broke into a giddy smile. “We have something in common!” he whisper-shouted.
“Indeed we do,” King Arthur whispered back. “Merlin speaks highly of you. Do you think he’ll figure out that you’re one and the same, and he is in fact giving himself a grudging compliment?”
Merlin’s heart nearly stopped in its tracks.
Of course the chalice had showed Arthur what became of his mage, too. Merlin was a sizeable part of his future. The only sidekick that would never leave the king’s spirit behind—mortality be damned.
“May I ask you something?” For a moment, Arthur’s blue eyes had their youthful glow back. The Wart had always been terribly curious. It was one of his best qualities and led to great things. After all, questions and quests had much in common. “What is it like to consort with the person you once were? The rest of us have the mercy of leaving our finished days behind us.”
Merlin took a moment to consider. “Old Me is myopic at best, murdery at worst. But the more I think about it, the more I doubt that I’m the only one keeping bad company with my past self.”
Arthur laughed. “Gods, you really do sound like him.”
And the king of Camelot was starting to sound a bit like Gwen and Ari. This was a very odd sort of time travel exchange program.
“You won’t tell him about me, will you?” Merlin whispered.
“I swear it,” Arthur said, as solemn as a freshly turned grave. “You have more than earned my loyalty, young Merlin.”
The king dove back into the conversation about Camelot–Avalon relations as Merlin brought a very strategic cup to Gwen. Only the finest water for his very pregnant queen, purified in Old Merlin’s tower, tinted amber to resemble the mead everyone else was drinking.
If Arthur wanted to keep ignoring the impending baby storm that was about to touch down in Camelot, Merlin certainly wasn’t going to stop him. Perhaps he was allowing Gwen the space to figure it out on her own. Or perhaps his chalice vision hadn’t included Gwen’s assignation with Kay, also known as The Weirdest Lancelot Situation Ever.
Merlin put Gwen’s cup down, expecting a secret smile or a few coded words. Instead, she grimaced, cutting her eyes toward him and quickly looking straight ahead, as if anything else would be too painful to bear. Was Gwen upset with him? Upset in general? Were Arthur’s tragic feelings rubbing off on her?
Or… was she having labor pains and trying to hide them?
Merlin kept a close eye on her as he plopped down the next cup, where Sir Kay would have been sitting, had he still been welcome in Camelot—and dropped an entire glass of mead into Val’s lap.
He then dove into Val’s lap, trying to clean up the mess.
“Umm…” Val said, as the entire table looked at them. Merlin nearly died. That was part of his looming childhood it seemed; the slightest problem felt like
