Title: Albion Rising

Fandom: Merlin

Rating: T

Warnings: Slight violence, about what you would see in the show, and mild language.

Pairings: Arthur/Gwen No Slash

Spoilers: The whole damn series

Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own Merlin. Would be nice if I did. My car is making funny noises….

Summary: It's been centuries since Camelot stood tall. Now, magic stirs again. Key players awaken. The Round Table reconvenes. King and Queen are reunited. Friends and foes meet once more. This time, it's not just Albion that needs saving, it's Merlin.

Prologue

It was the hardest thing Merlin had ever had to do, walking back into Camelot without his king by his side. Every step beat another hole into his heart. There were no more tears, however. He'd cried them all on the shores of Avalon.

Night had fallen by the time he reached the gates. Out of habit and a pressing desire not to speak to anyone until he found Gwen and Gaius, he slipped past the guards. It was almost too easy. They really did need to be more careful with all the mad sorcerers on the loose. Merlin didn't doubt that there would be many waiting to retaliate for Morgana's defeat. For all her cruelty, she had fought for the freedom of her people. That alone would have been enough to rally sorcerers to her cause. Her natural charisma, barely diminished by her madness, was just a bonus.

Merlin reached the castle more quickly than normal. Or maybe he just hadn't noticed the passage of time. It did seem to be moving in odd spurts. With the same practiced stealth with which he had moved through the town, he crept through the castle to Arthur and Gwen's private chambers. He supposed it was just Gwen's now.

He didn't bother to knock. What was the point of changing the habit of a lifetime when it was already too late? Arthur wouldn't be there to mock him for the rare show of propriety. His heart ripped a little further.

Gwen was still fully dressed. She was standing at the window, looking out of the courtyard. Even from across the room, he could tell that she was watching the gates, waiting for her husband. She didn't notice him enter. Gaius, who had been standing by the fire in silent company, did. The old man gasped. The queen spun round, took one look at Merlin, alone and so very broken, and crumpled. Her head dropped into her hands as her knees hit the floor and she was wracked with agonized sobs. Gaius clutched at the mantelpiece, his face pale, but silent. Acting on instinct, Merlin stumbled across the room to the woman who had been his very first friend in Camelot. He gathered her into his arms. She buried her face in his chest and clutched at his tunic. Would you look at that? It seemed he had some tears left after all.

A week later, Merlin had changed his mind. Walking into Camelot without Arthur wasn't the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. Picking up the pieces after all the losses was. They'd told Leon and Percival the news first. Leon had stood rigid in silent tears. Percival had punched the wall. When Percival had told him about Gwaine, Merlin had barely reacted. The pain in his heart was far too familiar.

He'd told them about Emrys, that he was the sorcerer who had saved them at Camlann, that he had come too late. He'd told them about Mordred and the prophecy and how he had tried so hard to prevent it. He'd expected them to hate him. They hadn't. Percival had figured it out long ago. Leon had given a weak smile and said that magic explained so much.

After a week of mourning, Gwen was crowned queen. The people rallied behind her, common born or not. Within hours, she lifted the ban on magic. She quelled any protest with the reminder that so many of them would not have survived Camlann without the help of magic. She then promptly named Merlin her court sorcerer and closest advisor. That took some getting used to, mostly for Merlin.

In time, they healed. The pain lessened, though it never left. Sorcerers seeking vengeance in Morgana's name marched on Camelot. They met the anger of Emrys. With the ban lifted, Merlin was free to study. He explored the breadth of his powers and was constantly amazed by what he could do. Magic came to him more easily now than it ever had before. Gaius said that it was remarkable. Merlin never told him what had happened in the Crystal Cave. He kept the meeting with his father close to his heart.

Gwen never remarried. It wasn't in her heart to do so. Some of the nobility muttered about the need for an heir, but he and Gwen both knew in their hearts that Camelot, that Arthur's vision, would die with her. All around them, the world was changing. Magic became ever more feared. Camelot was it's last haven. Even with the strength of her armies and the might of Emrys, it was only a matter of time. Camelot, with Arthur's fall, had become a relic of the past.

Four years after Camlann, Gaius died peacefully in his sleep. Merlin, Percival, Leon, and Gwen took his body to Avalon. They had done the same for Gwaine. Fifteen years later, Leon was killed in a raid. He took an arrow meant for a young knight on his first patrol. He too was taken to the lake. Gwen was next. At the age of fifty-six she contracted an illness that Merlin could not cure without wielding the power of life and death. Gwen would have killed him if he had tried that. He took her to Avalon before she died so that she might spend her final moments as close to her beloved as possible.

Camelot fell. In the days after the queen's death, the Saxons struck with relentless fury. Even Merlin's magic wasn't enough to drive them back and he felt in the back of his mind the balance of all things willing him to let it happen. So he and Percival took as many refugees as possible and fled. When they were safe, he counseled the citizens of Camelot to seek homes elsewhere and to forget. Everything had its time, and Camelot's was done.

He and Percival journeyed the world for the remainder of the knight's days. They helped where they could, fighting bandits, blessing crops in secret. It was nearly ten years after the fall of Camelot that Percival breathed his last, an old man.

Standing on the shores of Avalon, the boat that held his last friend fading into the distance, Merlin let fade his last great lie. The years melted away from his body. Sagging skin tightened and regained its youthful color. His hair darkened and shortened. For the first time in decades, he stood tall. He had never told them. Not even Gaius had known. At first, he hadn't been certain. Events in the Crystal Cave had only hinted that he might be immortal. The last thing Merlin had wanted was to give his grieving friends more need to worry. Even when he'd been certain that he was no longer aging, he hadn't said a word. It had been easy to mimic the weathering of the passing years, to use magic to physically age alongside his friends, to pretend.

He raised his hands to the sky. No words were needed. There wasn't a spell for what he was about to do. He wasn't even entirely sure how he was going to do it, just that he could. He reached for the magic inside him and for the magic around him and wove a great barrier. No mortal man would set foot on the Isle of Avalon and the lake would remain unsullied, both standing as a final testament to magic, until magic itself disappeared forever.

The effort sent him to his knees. The world spun for what felt like hours before he managed to catch his breath again. Merlin slowly hauled himself to his feet. Mist had gathered over the lake as the only sign that his spell had taken. His eyes lingered for one final moment on the Isle. Then he turned. He walked away, leaving Merlin on the shore and taking Emrys with him.

The years passed. Merlin kept to himself. He had little desire to undergo the pain of outliving his friends again and there was little place for magic any longer. Christianity was quickly taking hold. The old ways simply were not tolerated. In many ways, it was like Uther all over again.

Merlin travelled. It was difficult to stay in one place for too long without attracting attention. Sometimes he aged himself as he had alongside his friends, but frankly the few extra years weren't worth the aches and pains that accompanied seniority. He saw things that, even as an immortal warlock, were almost beyond belief. He continued to study magic, especially the strange practices he found in other lands. It all came easily to him. Magic was magic, no matter what language the spells were. He preserved it all in a tower that no one else could enter that stood near what had once been the Valley of the Fallen Kings. He knew it would be needed some day.

It was just his luck that he was drawn to important historical events. He saw the Battle of Hastings in 1066 from afar. While travelling in the east, he saw Ghengis Kahn unite the scattered Mongol tribes and he was pretty sure that he met Confucius. He applauded at the signing of the Magna Carta. He tended the sick during the Plague. It wasn't like he even could get sick and someone had to do something. In a desperate bid to flee Albion for a while, he sailed to the Spice Islands on a Portuguese trade ship. From there, he ended up on a sugar plantation. When he saw the deplorable conditions, he cursed the owner with bad luck for the rest of his life as freeing the slaves would only put them all in danger. He would have done more, but he had learned a long time ago that sometimes saving the few made it worse for everyone.

He stayed out of the American War for Independence. Both sides were in the wrong with that one (1) and he wasn't about to get in the middle of it. Instead, he spent years with the native peoples, learning about their beliefs. It was the closest he had come to the Old Religion in a very long time. The new world lost its appeal after he was caught in the middle of the Civil War (and he hadn't wanted to knock sense into everyone so badly in centuries). He got himself back to Albion as fast as possible. He never could remember to call it England or Britain.

He visited the Lake of Avalon upon his return. A little town had grown up on the shore. The villagers fished on the lake, but they didn't set foot on the Isle, as Merlin had intended. Tired from his travels and fed up with the general state of the world, he disappeared into the few wild places that were left. Time was meaningless as he allowed himself to give over to his magic. It wrapped around him and flowed out into a world that needed it so desperately and at the same time didn't.

When he finally reined his power in, he became aware that something was wrong. He emerged from the Wild to find the world in the grips of a mighty war. The imbalance of life and death struck him with all the force of a mace to his gut. It nearly sent him to the round. He'd never longed for Arthur more.

Wishing did little good, so he conjured up the necessary papers and enlisted as a medic. He did the same when World War II began. When he found out about the concentration camps, he shattered every window in his building. He didn't stick around to explain.

"You all right, mate?"

Merlin blinked himself out of his memories. He did this, every now and then. He'd lived so much that sometimes, he just lost himself if what had been. He wondered if it helped keep him sane and drove him just a little bit madder.

He was sitting next to a window in a generic café somewhere in London. A young woman, just older than he appeared to be, with a dirty white apron tied about her waist was looking at him concernedly.

"Sorry, what?" he asked.

She gestured vaguely to the table in front of him. "You were staring at the sandwich like you wish it would go up in flames."

If that were true, I wouldn't be trying so hard. Aloud he said, "Just thinking, I suppose."

"Worried about the new term?" she asked knowledgably.

"Yeah." Not really. He'd been to university before. Every thirty years or so he went to medical school in memory of Gaius. He did history every now and then to see what they were getting right and what they were getting wrong. This time, it was Literature. He was getting a bit itchy to be one place for a while and it sounded like something that would keep him busy for a while.

"What year?" pressed the waitress.

Merlin smiled shyly. He had far too much practice at this. Deceit had become too easy. "First," he replied.

"Don't worry, love," she said reassuringly. "Freshman year isn't so bad. You'll manage. Do you want that reheated?" She indicated the now wilting sandwich.

He shook his head. "No, it's fine. I'll just take it go, if that's all right."

"I'll be right back with the bill."

He didn't wait. Pulling a few bills out of his pocket, Merlin dropped them on the table, picked up his sandwich, and left.

The sun had set long ago, while he was lost in his memories. The streets were mostly empty. Every so often, a car would trundle by or he would pass a man in a dapper suit, briefcase in hand, hurrying home after a late day at the office. This particular section of London was sleepy in a way that appealed to him.

He pulled a sheaf of parchment out of his pocket as he walked. For some reason, it seemed to hold enchantment better than modern paper. Merlin had spent an interesting few years figuring out how to make it, but eventually he'd figured it out. These particular pages were covered in the flowing language of Old Magic. All that was missing was the activation. Merlin had discovered early on that living forever came with a certain amount of lying. In more recent years he'd started keeping false identification with him at all times. It meant less sneaking around. However, tonight sneaking was exactly what he was doing. The one downside to the spell he used to replicate official documents was that he needed to know exactly what he was replicating.

Which was why he was breaking into the local public records office.

Merlin gave the parchment one last look, just to be sure the ink hadn't run or the pages hadn't been torn, as he slipped unerringly into an alley that ran behind the records office. He carefully tucked the parchment back into his jacket pocket and observed the building with a practiced eye. Hardly a high security office, it was easy to get inside. A wordless spell had the door swinging open.

He worked quickly. Within ten minutes he'd found every document he needed to duplicate. The original was laid alongside one of the pieces of parchment. Merlin spread his hands. Again, he didn't speak. He'd done this too man times for that. The words on the parchment glowed. They bled together, forming new words and lines. Then, the glow faded, leaving behind a birth certificate, several report cards without outstand marks (he'd been in school for centuries, it was only bloody fair), medical records, and some other paraphernalia that he might need.

A pang stabbed through Merlin's heart, as it always did when he used this spell. It was a variation of the one he'd used so long ago in a mad attempt to help Lancelot.

Shaking the maudlin thoughts away before they could consume him, Merlin quickly replaced the documents he'd removed from their respective filing cabinets. No one would be any the wiser. He tucked his own back into his pocket and quickly slipped out the door.

The magic hit him the moment the door locked.

It was like nothing he had ever felt before, not even in the days of Camelot, when magic had been at its strongest. He could feel it roiling under his skin. It took all of his considerable control not to loose his grip. He stumbled and caught himself against the wall. The magic ripped through him again. With a jolt like a kick to the stomach he realized that it wasn't his magic. This power was raw and primal, the very power of the earth. It was the magic he had felt in the crystal cave.

All thought was driven from Merlin's mind. The magic poured into him and through him. His own power battled the invasion instinctively. He felt like he was being torn apart from the inside. His very soul was in agony. Golden light obscured his vision.

Everything went black.

(1) This is just something I picked up in my history class. One of the major grievances that the colonies had was that the crown was trying to levy taxes that they should have been paying in the first place. They just hadn't been required to for one reason or another. Of course there were a dozen other, very legitimate reason as well, but I can just see Merlin wanting to throw his hands up.

Author's Note: Okay, I know that I should be working on RoM or any of my other WiP and I promise that I am. This plot bunny just hit me over the head yesterday and it's amazing and I can't stop thinking about it, so here it is.