[Couldn’t find anything worthwhile on Youtube but here’s the wiki page for the episode. Item: A small stone, crumbled off the walls of the Isle fortress.]

The Dorocha are shapeless, wraithlike creatures: the voices of the dead, swarming from the Spirit World through the torn made in the Veil. You are here, with Arthur and his most trusted knights, to mend that tear.

The blood sacrifice that tore the Veil must be sealed with another. Arthur - knowing he is the heir to the throne, knowing that any of his knights would lay down their lives for Camelot - has decided it will be his. You don’t intend to let him. Your magic has no effect on the Dorocha, but your life is as good currency as anyone else’s.

(My life has always been marked out by destiny, you told Gaius before you left. If this is meant to be...I'm not afraid.)

You’ve been separated from the others. You wait to be found in a corner of the Isle’s ruined fortress, listening to the howls of the Dorocha all around you, close enough to put you on constant alert, not close enough to give you reason to run. You have no torch; no fire that will repel the hungry spirits. You seem safe where you are.

“They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn,” Arthur says. There’s fear in his voice, though neither of you would ever identify it as such. He’s afraid to die. You wish you could tell him it won’t happen today.

“Feels pretty dark right now,” is what you offer in return.

“Well, it can't be long then.”

Not long at all. The Dorocha comes through the wrecked doors, like a mist, and from there everything is instinct. Arthur moves; you push him back down and get to your feet, turning the corner to face the spectre.

“Merlin, no-!”

The Dorocha passes through you like a wave of ice, freezing the life from you as it has so many others. It throws you backwards like a doll, but you’re insensate by the time you hit the wall behind you.

[CW: Suicidal ideation. Clip on Youtube. Item: A scrap of red linen from a cloak.

Also, I’m a bit particular about who gets this one so please hit me up on PM or Plurk if you want it? Thank you ♥]

Kilgharrah, the Great Dragon, lands you gently on the shore of the lake of Avalon. You begin to drag Arthur to the water. His body already feels like cold lead in your arms, almost too heavy to bear: a crushing weight. But it is not a burden. Arthur is not - has never been - a burden.

“Merlin.” Kilgharrah’s voice is stern, if not unsympathetic. It echoes not just in your ears but in your heart. That’s what it means to be a Dragonlord, the spiritual kin of those few surviving dragons: the words he speaks are felt indescribably deeply. “There is nothing you can do.”

“I failed?” It’s barely even a question. Arthur is dead in your arms. You failed.

“No, young warlock, for all you have dreamt of building has come to pass.”

You struggle under Arthur’s weight; you bear him up, holding him against yourself, and your voice goes coarse and ragged when you cry out.

“I can’t lose him! He’s my friend!”

Kilgharrah’s voice is completely even, but you imagine there is some affection there. “No man, no matter how great, cannot know his destiny. But some lives have been foretold, Merlin. Arthur is not just a king, he is the Once and Future King. Take heart, for when Albion’s need is greatest, Arthur will rise again.”

You stare down at Arthur: his white face, the blood staining his chainmail. It is beyond your imagining.

“It has been a privilege to have known you, young warlock,” Kilgharrah tells you. “The story we have been a part of will live long in the minds of men.”

He turns away from you, takes flight in the loud beating of his wings, and you know you will never see him again. You watch him go and then, finally, you lower Arthur’s body to the grassy earth. It feels inelegant, disrespectful, but exhaustion weighs on you heavily. You haven’t slept in days.

For a long time you stare across the lake, to the tower at the heart of Avalon. You grip the hilt of Excalibur in your right hand.

As you grew from a boy into a man, your sense of purpose - a broad need to do good, to help people, to use your magic in service of what is right - has sharpened into a single point of resolve. There is no understating how singleminded you have become. Arthur’s safety, his future, his happiness - he was always your destiny, but now he has become your entire reason to exist. Everything else has burnt away. He is the fulcrum on which you balance, the sun which gives you life. This happened too slowly for you to notice it.

Now he’s gone. The absence transcends pain. You appreciate that later it will hurt; at some point, you will be able to mourn. Right now? You’re simply numb.

The name Emrys was given to you by the druids, before your birth. Immortal. And now at last you understand what that means. Arthur will someday return. Either you can somehow stumble on, wait for Arthur to return - however long it takes - or…

Excalibur was forged in a dragon’s breath. That which no mortal blade can kill, Excalibur can.

It would be so easy.

Easier than the uncertainty and loneliness and purposelessness that lies ahead.

It wouldn’t even hurt. Not for long.

You read the runes on the sword’s two sides.

Take me up. Cast me away.

You hurl the sword toward the water. Watch the hand rise to meet it, as you know it will. It disappears beneath the surface of the lake, gone from you forever - your only chance of escape, gone. And finally, you cry, for everything you’ve lost.