A/N: Some basic knowledge of history might make this more comprehensible. Not beta'ed.

Prologue: The Passing

Merlin supposed it was the dragons that first went extinct. Kilgharrah died after living too long shouldering the burden of being the last of his kind for years. Aithusa had quickly withered away after Camlann and Morgana's death never really getting the hang of living to begin with.

One day, a couple of years after Gwen passed on and he had left Camelot for good to guard the lake, a unicorn found its way to him. He petted it affectionately because it reminded him of his adventures with Arthur. When it went away Merlin didn't realize it had come to say goodbye. He never saw a unicorn again.

The Vilia disappeared without a fuss. So did the griffins, the wyverns, the serkets and every other creature he ever encountered. The Sidhe went into hiding first clinging to marshes and other unpleasant places where nobody bothered them. They weren't on speaking terms of course. But before vanishing forever they told Merlin quite vehemently how disappointed they were in him. He couldn't agree more.

Places he knew as a young man became ruins, then dust that was swept away in a puff of wind or were given new names. Arthur was not forgotten but he became a legend and Merlin could scarcely recognize his own friends in those tales. It was so long ago already and sometimes Merlin forgot in which order something had happened. Did he empty the Cup of Life or released the Great Dragon first?

Sometimes he forgot if it happened at all or if the tales he heard were only confusing him. How had Arthur reacted when he found out about Lancelot and Gwen? Where was Leon's role in the tales? And what about the magic? He feared the day when he himself would start to believe that it had only been a story…

Kings and queens ruled on through wars and famines, the Church divided and united, swords were replaced very slowly by loud weapons that made a lot of noise and smoke and had a laughable accuracy for now. Diseases were always present and there was nothing divine nor magical about them anymore.

Merlin found out early on that nature was quite capable of inviting Death to the land all by itself. He burned the bodies of sixty men, women and children when the plague swept through the village he was living in, killing everyone but him. Then he burned the village down as well, moved to the other side of the lake and built himself a cottage out of sight. Many of the dead had been his friends. He vowed never to make that mistake again.

So he lived on aging like everyone else, distant from others besides the occasional acquaintances he couldn't shake off. And when he got that old that even he felt like standing on Death's door he closed his eyes in the darkness of the night. Only to find himself young again at dawn when the sun woke him up. He honed his lying skills every time it happened but the truth was that nobody was paying him any attention.

The forests and woods became less dangerous with time. Paths were well trod on and travelling was encouraged. Explorers circumnavigated the planet, the earth was measured, species were classified and distant stars discovered. Maps made the world feel a little less magical because it became a world without secrets. Merlin tried not to cringe at the irony of that thought.

Men dug deep into the dirt, finding minerals, fuel and ancient bones of creatures that Merlin never even knew existed. The amount of fossils could only point to mass extinctions some said. That thought made Merlin shudder. And as the age of the earth was debated Merlin felt very young for the first time in centuries.

They never found remains of magical creatures though or if someone did it was no doubt explained away by other wise men and logical reasoning. Magic only had a place in the minds of children or between the pages of books. Science and society had no time for such nonsense. There were more people now and more ideas and everything connected to everything else and the world was set in a forward motion.

Merlin had managed to follow the technical advancements easily until the end of the eighteenth century. Then the pace quickened and he began to feel like the old man he truly was. In a hundred years' time whole societies changed. It was the weirdest thing to observe and although he had some good times in Vienna, London and Paris he never shared the optimism of his contemporary acquaintances.

By the turn of the century it became quite clear that Europe was racing towards something and while Merlin devoured one newspaper after the other where patriotism and a weapons race went hand in hand, he wasn't worried. Surely in the midst of a continental war Arthur would rise again. Surely amidst this much division and hate the Once and Future King would be needed. He had hope and went home again.

Arthur never came.

And Merlin watched how thousands of young men massacred themselves obeying their superiors and praised ideals for a bare strip of earth. Again and again and again as a storm surge that couldn't be stopped. For four years the world's most civil nations hacked themselves to pieces and when it was over and the guns were silent and the bombs buried underneath the earth, Europe had brought itself to its knees.

When living for so long, time sometimes plays funny tricks with your mind. Merlin remembered sailing to the New World early in the sixteenth century. He had been curious – an emotion that had been dulled with time – wanting to see those places he heard such wild stories about for himself. Those months on that tiny wooden ship were the longest he ever experienced after his days in Camelot.

After the First World War however Merlin had the feeling that he had only blinked and Europe was already unavoidably heading towards another, even more destructive one. After years of watching how men and societies worked he didn't need a crystal to tell him what was to come. It was painfully obvious.

Anger, hate and cruelty went hand in hand again and it was with some shame that Merlin hid in his little cottage near the lake while London was bombarded nightly. The inhabitants of the nearest village gave the old man he was only a passing glance as he sat day in day out by the lake waiting. He was afraid that if he left he would miss his King's return.

But even in his solitude he couldn't keep out what was going on outside his small sanctuary. New heroes stood up when ancient ones disappointed. Most of them died before others even learned their names, some however were on their way of becoming legends themselves. Photographs had been around for decades, radio was flourishing and now it became hard to imagine a world without moving pictures. Life had never been this documented.

So it was hard to miss when England and its allies started winning, when Germany capitulated and foreign flags were planted on top of the Reichstag. It was also hard to miss when two faraway cities were suddenly turned to ash. It signalled the end of the war but Merlin felt far from celebrating. As he looked at the pictures of that already famous mushroom-shaped cloud he couldn't help but fear what was coming next.

He glanced out of the window while slowly folding his newspaper close again. The lake was dark and still in the bleak August rain. For the first time in centuries Merlin wished Arthur wouldn't come back.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Next chapter will have another from Merlin's POV.