Professor Merlin Emrys

A Veil

Merlin died. There was no nice way to put it. No romanticized poem or vague metaphor that he could come up with. His life did not flash before his eyes, he had been dead too many times for that particular nuisance. The only way Merlin could describe it anymore would be darkness. The inherent absence of light. His mind would play tricks on him and he would think, "Maybe this time, maybe this time, I will not wake up."

He always woke up. It was agonizing, not just for the reminder that he cannot die but because it felt like being born. Odd description, Merlin would admit, but it did not make it any less true. Sound was always what came back first, his heartbeat the loudest of them all. The rush of blood in his ears made them ring. Wherever he was, footsteps echoed and made his head throb. Harsh breathing sounded like static that surrounded his body. The sharp tang of metal on marble was made, but Merlin could not focus for so much was happening all at once.

Next, came touch, almost simultaneous to hearing again. His clothes were too rough and he fought to direct his attention to what he had been wearing without opening his eyes. It was fruitless, he felt the unbearable chill of the marble on his face, he must have fallen forward. His own breath dissipated some of it but made the horrible sensation of being both cold and humid, however possible. Before he could dwell for longer, something had roughly pulled his body on his back. Sharp pinpricks burned and what he vaguely recognized as someone else's magic, preoccupied as he was, healing whatever had probably killed him.

Smell came back like ozone, and metal, and sand-blown glass. It came wild and familiar, and dizzyingly fast. It smelt like dried herbs, like Gauis. Of polish and lavender, like Gwen. His sense of smell remembered better than his brain did when he would die. What he associated with each and every person he had met, that he always tried desperately to remember when alive and breathing, always escaped but for these moments in time. It was sickening and exhilarating as it all blurred together. Merlin groaned, dreading opening his eyes. He felt the slap to his face like sandpaper still, the sound too loud to make it audible. He settled for attempting to rid the noise, his own weak hand fluttering somewhere and falling back down. Whoever it was, they were agitated and the shrill sound of metal on marble was back. It was followed by footsteps and angry breathing, angry but just as scared.

When Merlin deemed he was somehow alone now. He let himself cry, silent tears, not remembering yet how he had died or why. It felt like the first time after Camlunn after Arthur died. After Gwaine. After Gauis, Percival, Leon, and Gwen. His dear Gwen. He would remember they were all gone and it was agony to pull himself up after every sensation had settled. Things came back in bits and pieces, the cliche puzzle of his life that he would have to fit together until it all made sense again.

When he did, he rose like vengeance itself, eyes uncaring to the bright blue and eerie glow the smashed prophecies gave, uncaring to the destruction around him or his ripped robe. Unfeeling to the dead death eater he did not remember anyone hitting with a spell. What he cared about were the children he was charged with protecting, who he unknowingly sent into a battleground. He ran. He ran down the corridor, through doors as the dread in his body and magic seemed to multiply the longer he took. He stopped outside the familiar door to a black arch with greywater ripples to the world between worlds.

It was in that split second that he wished he would not have stopped for anything. In that split second he opened the door he saw Draco, slip, stumble, and fall through the veil. It was like watching Lancelot sacrifice himself again and again as it replayed in his mind. He only registered the laughter of a man, the demented sound of a father's temper and grief. It was then that Merlin stepped in, eyes molten magma in his rage, the unseen sheen of liquid making it all the more glassy and wild as the last of Draco disappeared into somewhere Merlin could not follow.