moved @ emohell

‘You are son of the earth, the sea, the sky. Magic is the fabric of this world, and you were born of that magic.’

OH MY GOSH WHY WOULD YOU EVEN SAY THAT

I DIDN’T HAVE THAT HEADCANON TO KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT THANKS A LOT FOR NOTHING YOU UNGRATEFUL IDIOTS I WILL SPIT IN YOUR PASTA

But elfpen, Merlin keeps not noticing (he doesn’t want to know). What a stroke of luck, he thinks, that he is a quick healer. 

 One time a crossbow strikes his heart and he doesn’t come back for a full minute. Arthur doesn’t know why that makes him feel so sick, because shouldn’t he be happy? Because Merlin’s alive? And apparently invincible?

 Arthur nearly tells him when Gwen urges him to. Arthur nearly tells Merlin when the first gray hair is spotted hidden in the blonde (Merlin’s still got that thick dark curtain). Arthur nearly tells Merlin when he’s starting to get stiff after sitting too long, and Merlin still looks like he’s in his twenties. He’s just afraid to say it. “Hey, you’re going to outlive all your loved ones, you magical freak,” has the wrong sound to it. 

 As for Merlin, he’s afraid to hear it. He smiles and smiles and persists in not noticing. But obliviousness doesn’t come easy to Merlin and it’s starting to weigh on him. His eyes look old, even if no other part of him does.

YOU ARE

UGH

but now you’ve got me into it like

First he outlives Gaius

and then Hunith

And then one by one all of his friends start going grey

And as magic becomes legal in the kingdom there are all these perfectly nice sorceresses and other ladies who try to win his affections, but he pushes them away because he knows it could never last him a lifetime, and he could never bear it any other way. Maybe he has a fling or two but never anything serious.

And he can see that Arthur worries about him, so maybe when Arthur is getting older and he’s really concerned, Merlin magics his hair to look greyer than it is, to make Arthur think he was wrong, that he won’t leave Merlin alone after all. He lets it fade back to normal after Arthur is gone, and that’s when everyone else who is still alive realizes. 

Soon people start seeking him out from all over the world, trying to figure out how he stays alive, what his secret is. Kings seeking eternal power, men and women seeking cures from their terminal illnesses. He can’t convince them that it’s just because he’s him, and that it really isn’t all its cracked up to be.

He finds a place to build a cottage out in the woods and hides there away from everyone. He leaves only when people have forgotten about him. He spends his years learning and teaching and protecting, but never growing too attached to anyone. He visits Camelot’s cemeteries sometimes, until the Normans come and smash it to ruins. Then he just visits the lake and watches it for hours.

insp. x

insp.

Bonus:

Contrast between Merlin & Emrys; Insp &requested by x

And sometimes I am just overcome with how much I miss Merlin

*slides a ten dollar bill to the bbc* there’s two more of those if you start up merlin again

merlin (character)           ↳ tvtropes alphabet

How small you are for such a great  d e s t i n y.

❋ Merlin meme: [1/2] OTP Merlin & Arthur "We brushed our hands right back in time through centuries" ♫