Spread Your Wings - Let Them Burn

Chapter 6

I probably won't ever return. I ask you to forget about me.

Those words from Merlin's farewell letter echoed in Arthur's brain, his heart. His blood ran cold, his eyes and mind refusing to comprehend what he was seeing.

"Arthur?" Emrys (not Merlin, it can't be him) said, his eyes bright with tears that were pouring down his skin, leaving glistening tracks as they slipped down his cheeks and jaw.

He certainly looked like him. The same pale skin that Arthur remembered, the same blue eyes that always sparkled with something he could never put an exact word to, the same soft looking black hair he had always wanted to run his hands through and never got a chance to.

No, it couldn't be him. Merlin wasn't coming back. He wasn't. Emrys was an enchantment. He had changed himself to look like him. Arthur didn't know why, and he didn't bother to wonder.

"No," Arthur said hoarsely, his voice barely louder than a whisper, wrecked and choked with the emotion from a few minutes before, along with the disbelief warring with hope in his chest. "You're not him. He isn't coming back."

"Arthur," Emrys repeated, a fresh wave of tears moving down the tracks made by its predecessors. "It's me. It's Merlin."

"NO!" Arthur all but screamed, turning away and running a hand through his hair, tugging on the flaxen strands until pain shooted down his nerves. "Don't say his name."

"But why?" Emrys said, sounding genuinely confused. "It's mine."

"It's not. It's his, and he isn't coming back. To Camelot, to me."

"Arthur," Emrys called his name, and oh god, it sounded just like the way he used to say it, filled with emotion that was beyond the realm of human comprehension. "I'm here. I'm with you."

"No, you're Emrys."

"Emrys is me, I'm Emrys. It's just another name for me, a title, like you're called the King, but your real name is Arthur, right?" And there was it again, the name said in the same way. Emrys voice had changed, now sounding just like Merlin's before he had vanished. He certainly sounded more calm than Arthur felt.

"You're magic," He said, still refusing to look at the man sitting beside him.

Emrys was silent for a while before he spoke again. "I know. I'm sorry, Arthur, but please look at me."

He didn't.

"My lord," Emrys tried something else, an honorific that Merlin had rarely used when he had been here, only when he knew Arthur needed it. The words made a memory spring in the forefront of his mind, the one of his and Merlin's first meeting.

'You can't talk to me like that.

I'm sorry, how long have you been training to be a prat, my lord?'

The memory brought joy to Arthur even a decade and a half later, even though he had felt nothing but irritation when it had actually occurred. Funny how that happened.

"You're an enchantment," Arthur told him, but he found out that he didn't quite believe it himself.

"I'm not."

Arthur didn't reply.

"Look," Emrys started, and Arthur felt him shift behind him. "You can ask Morgana. It's me."

At those words, Arthur whirled around, turning to face him in anger and taking dark satisfaction at the way Emrys flinched back. "Morgana? What has she got to do with this?"

Emrys lowered his eyes to the mask still cradled in his hands, and ran a thumb over the engraved designs. "When I- When Merlin left Camelot, three years ago, it was in the cover of night. There was a feast going in the castle, and everyone was happy and celebrating." Arthur already all that, he didn't really care for that part, but still listened raptly, facing away.