Title: None Goes His Way Alone (1/?)
Rating: K+
Word Count: (this bit) 635
Warnings: Spoilers for entire TV canon including S5 finale, bits and pieces of legend. (Archimedes belonged to Arthurian legend long before Disney's The Sword in the Stone)
Genre: Humor, fluff, AU, fix-it fic, animal fic, anything else I eventually decide to throw in due to my own lack of sanity
General Summary: Merlin has always thought that the sorcerer chooses the familiar; his new familiar begs to differ.
This Bit Summary: Prologue, getting the backstory out of the way. Immediately after the S5 finale, everything changes.
Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own Merlin, or there would still be a Series 6, and certain characters would have very different fates, etc.
A/N: Fix-it, of sorts, for certain S5 events. My readers can probably guess which in particular those events are. Despite the solemn tone of this prologue (had to get the angst out of the way right away), this will be a lighthearted fic, as I think that's probably what the fandom needs badly right now. Title comes from one of my favorite poems about fate and immortality: A Creed, by Edwin Markham.

There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
None goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

I care not what his temples or his creeds,
One thing holds firm and fast
That into his fateful heap of days and deeds
The soul of man Is cast.

In the end, it was not the knowledge that the tide of the war had turned, and that with the death of Morgana Pendragon peace would soon come to Camelot. It was not that the Old Religion was satisfied for the first time since before Uther's reign, nor that all of Albion had at last united – not in friendship and fealty, but in mourning for a young and well-loved king who had been taken from his people before his time. It was not Gwen's wholehearted acceptance, nor the remaining knights' loyalty and allegiance, nor even Gaius's fatherly affection and understanding when he retreated from Camelot to a self-imposed exile.

It was not that Magic itself was finally at peace, despite a wounded, bleeding soul at its very heart.

No, none of this was enough to fill the void, assuage the pain that accompanies a soul being ripped in two, a destiny crashing in ruins; a terrible contradiction of peace and turmoil, love and hatred, trust and betrayal.

Endings and beginnings.

In the end, it was none of these which shone the first beam of light into a wounded soul, for the first time since a funeral blaze lit the skies above Avalon, and the heavens opened to weep along with Emrys for the terrible fulfillment of his Destiny.

No, it was a tiny, irreverent little owl, that changed everything for a grieving warlock.

Queen Guinevere, her subjects and those unwise enough to doubt her soon found, was a force to be reckoned with. There were those, who doubted her ability to rule as skillfully her husband had in his too-short reign, but those doubts were soon dispelled by her expert diplomacy, borne from compassion and years of interacting with both commonfolk and nobility.

Within three months, Albion had rallied around a grieving Camelot – the dream for which Merlin had worked tirelessly for nearly a decade – and with the aid of close allies as the Queens Annis and Mithian, the five kingdoms united around the bereaved Queen and her loyal people. From peasant to merchant to noble to Druid, all bowed before the memory of King Arthur Pendragon, and the transition into a kingdom where magic was free was met with less opposition than expected, due to every Camelotian knight knowing that King Arthur's mysterious guardian sorcerer had turned the tide at Camlann and dispatched the Witch herself. The tales told around cozy hearths of nights grew and multiplied, for it is human nature to share grief through the aged art of storytelling, until every child in all Albion knew of the mysterious Emrys and his steadfast loyalty to their fallen King.

And through all this, Merlin watched from the shadows of his self-imposed exile, heart bleeding for his dreams as they fell into place with an ease that was nothing short of poetic mockery.

But as Time passed with its inexorable kindness, the bleeding wound left by Arthur's death slowly staunched, and when the ban on magic was lifted eleven weeks after Queen Guinevere's formal assumption of the monarchy, the kingdom rejoiced. From the furthest reaches of Camelot's borders to its inner city walls, the old and young alike gladly formed a procession which took three days to complete, as each knelt before the throne and swore allegiance to Camelot and her Queen.

And if the Queen shed silent tears as the very last man dropped to his knees in front of the empty throne to her right instead of hers, well. The tales told of the High Queen of Camelot embracing a sorcerer in front of the entire gathered council only fueled the fires of joy which burned through the kingdom that night.

No one noticed a tiny tawny owl perched comfortably on the mysterious man's shoulder, calmly regarding the proceedings with satisfaction.