Trials | Merlin FanFiction (Merthur)

Épilogue

Merlin listened to the sound for a long time before he finally identified it, prodding his groggy mind for the word: a whetstone. Once he'd identified it, he realized that someone--and he was almost sure that, for once, it wasn't him--was using it to sharpen something. A sword, from the sound. That meant someone was there with him.

With a huge effort, he opened his eyes.

Lancelot was sitting beside the bed, testing the edge of his sword on a scrap of cloth. He looked terrible, bruised and battered, but he was clean and bandaged and wearing fresh clothes. Merlin made a confused sound, and Lancelot's head jerked up.

"Merlin," he said, sounding tremendously relieved, and stood, sheathing his sword and going to the wall. He peeled back a part of the wall--oh, Merlin recognized belatedly, it was a tent--and said to someone outside, "He's awake."

"Arthur," Merlin managed, and felt out of breath just doing that.

"He's with the Mercians, and his father," Lancelot said soothingly, coming back to sit on the edge of the cot. "He'll be here when he can."

Mercians? "What happened?" Merlin asked, and Lancelot gave him a strange look.

"Don't you remember?"

He remembered fire. He remembered rain. He remembered Arthur, his tight hands, his wide eyes. He didn't remember anything else. Merlin shook his head.

"Well," Lancelot blew out a nervous breath, "uh. You did some stuff, and. We won."

"Good," Merlin said, a little confused, and Lancelot gave him a smile, looking a little less strange. "What did I do?"

"Um. You sort of, well. Set the field of battle on fire," Lancelot said, in what was almost a normal tone of voice.

Merlin stared. "The whole field?" he asked after a minute.

Lancelot nodded. "Plus a bit of the forest. And a hill. And then you called a storm, and caught lightning bolts from the sky on your hands and threw them," Lancelot continued, looking uncomfortable. Merlin was starting to understand the strange look.

"I don't remember," he said numbly.

"And then the earth shook and some really big crevasses opened up, and then it started to rain, and finally you screamed and passed out and Arthur carried you back to camp." Merlin groaned and wondered if he could just hide under the covers for the next ten or fifteen years or so. None of that sounded good, and if even Lancelot was acting this jumpy around him, he literally couldn't imagine what the reaction of the rest of the army--or Uther, or for that matter Arthur--would be.

Also, he couldn't believe Arthur had had to carry him. That was just pathetic.

"Anyway, after that, you wouldn't believe how eager the Mercians were to sue for peace," Lancelot concluded, wryly, and patted Merlin's shoulder a little awkwardly. "So it all worked out."

Arthur appeared in the tent doorway, a thick bandage on his left arm and walking stiffly on his right leg. Lancelot immediately rose and bowed, and Arthur smiled at him before hobbling over to Merlin's bed. He sat with a thud, and Merlin barely noticed Lancelot letting himself out.

"Ahh," Arthur sighed, and stretched his right leg out gingerly. "Feels good to get off that."

"Lancelot tells me that we won," Merlin said, watching Arthur nervously. Arthur wasn't acting any differently, at least.

Arthur yawned and lowered himself to lay on the cot beside Merlin, hitching himself closer and sighing with relief. "Yes," he said, and turned his face to Merlin's. Merlin searched his eyes for disgust, fear, anger, and found only fond affection.