Saving Destiny (A Merlin Fanfiction)

vii | like the old times

She was freezing.

Her shivers had cut Arthur off his stupor, as he quickly ushered her inside and directed her on their couch. Sobs still racked her body, and Merlin couldn't help but hug herself in desperate need for warmth.

Arthur disappeared for a moment, before reappearing with a comforter in his hand. "Here," he said, as Merlin shakily held it in her hands. Merlin wrapped it around her shoulders and snuggled deeper into it, trying to gain more warmth in her body. Tears still streamed down her face, and she haphazardly wiped them with the comforter, too.

Her Head Bodyguard once again came into vision, this time with a white t-shirt. She could see that he was uncomfortable, perhaps at loss of what to do, but above all those Merlin could see that he was relieved. And she could not really blame him.

"I..." he started, words dying from his lips. He shifted awkwardly, his hand absentmindedly tousling his already messy hair. "You... well, you don't need to worry about Gwaine. He sleeps like a log." He gave her a small smile. "The only thing that could wake him is the wrath of his ex-girlfriends."

This made her smile.

She was calming down, and Arthur still stood in front of her. The princess was now sporting a headache from all the remembering that had happened, and she was reeling from whomever she was. The fog had lifted; now clearly thinking, she could associate everyone she knew right now with their original selves in the past. And her! As the Legendary Merlin himself! Merlin was still clearly in disbelief.

"Do you want some hot chocolate?" Arthur offered, and Merlin nodded, a little distracted.

Arthur already prepared the hot beverage, and Merlin took her time to watch him do so. 

The headache was still throbbing, but it turned into a dull one. The memories that came back to her, though, were increasing, and Merlin was still reeling from all the information she was gathering. Flashbacks played in her mind, with her, the original Merlin practicing magic in secret or saving King Arthur's life, and she could not help but wonder why it never dawned to her that perhaps she was the future reincarnation of Legendary Merlin.

"The memory loss..." Merlin muttered. Arthur looked up, the made hot chocolate already in his hands. "How come I've never, you know, pieced everything together? My bodyguards... and roommate! They're all reincarnations, aren't they?"

Arthur slowly nodded his head, now approaching the bewildered Princess. He passed the drink to her, which she absentmindedly clutched, still lost in her thoughts.

"Every time you try to remember something of your origins," he started, "there is a fog that clouds your thought, isn't there?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "How did you know?" she exclaimed, shivering in remembrance of the hazy state her brain turned into every time she tried to rack her brain for some answers to her questions.

"It's the consequence of being a reincarnation," her bodyguard clarified. "Reincarnations are not supposed to remember their past lives... well, that was the rule. So every time you come close to an association with your past, some bit of magic works and you're left all fogged up and confused."

Merlin distractedly massaged her head and frowned. "There's still some fog," she said.

"Don't worry, it will clear up soon now that you're starting to remember."

"No wonder Freya and Gwen felt this way too," she mused aloud. Merlin wondered if her other bodyguards also had these certain episodes, but like her before, they merely brushed them away.