just wrote 10 paragraphs to my MP asking him to push back against the EHRC's updated guidance, aka the trans bathroom bill.
Durham pride happened today. the Reform UK led council cut the funding, with the deputy leader, a gay man himself, citing "gender ideology, kids on puberty blockers, and men in women's spaces" as the reason he disapproved of pride. it went ahead thanks to group such as Durham Miner's Association fundraising (solidarity forever!) but the fact still stands that this attack on trans people hurt the entire queer community.
this new guidance hurts queer people in many ways (another example: gay and lesbian couples where one person is trans will no longer be protected as same sex couples under the Equalities Act) and of course, hurts our trans siblings the most (feeling unsure or unsafe about using public bathrooms will lead to trans people going out less. trans men are expected to either break the law or simply not go. trans people will be excluded from pools, gyms and spas that don't have mixed sex changing rooms.)
i wrote about all that, but you may have your own thoughts or relevant experiences about how this guidance has or will impact you or your loved ones. so write it. call on your MP to do the following:
Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate and a free vote on this Code.
Support any motion tabled in Parliament objecting to it.
Write to the Minister for Women and Equalities and the Prime Minister.
or, if you don't have it in you to write ten paragraphs (which is very understandable), you should still fill out this email template with your own personal touches and sign this petition, if you're british. and if you're not british, you should reblog this so your british followers can see it.
40 days. One email. Your name on the right side of history.
Launch a review into strengthening legal protections and clearer enforcement against discrimination, harassment and exclusion of trans women
don't save this for later. don't put a pin in it, planning to come back to it later. later may never come. we only have 31 days. do it now while it's on your mind. it really doesn't take long.
@merthurmicrofic prompt: exile
Word count: 1232 words
Written as a follow-up to my hole microfic, which will add context, but it's not mandatory reading :)
In the little hut in the middle of the secluded wood, Merlin forwent sleep, peace, and sanity in favour of working by the guttering candlelight to save his dying friend.
There was a hole in him, where there ought not to be one; and so his friend, who was Arthur, lay sweating and bleeding in his bed, where usually there was only Merlin, or some incidental crumbs.
Merlin could handle the exhaustion of a sleepless night, and he’d long ago learned to quiet the anxious ruminations he’d suffered working over the ailing and the crippled as a young physician in training; yet even as he took deep and fortifying breaths, he could not quell the trembling in his fingers as he drew the needle meticulously back and forth through Arthur’s skin.
It was too reminiscent of that night nine years ago, when Arthur had lain just as he did now, clammy and ashen-faced, upon the field of Camlann, with the wound from Mordred’s sword in his side.
With the sutures pulled into a neat row, Merlin sat back and mopped Arthur’s sweating brow. He felt for Arthur’s pulse in his neck, and felt it beating there, slow and steady, for a long time against his fingers. The dwale had taken hold of him, and he slept almost peacefully, as if he were merely resting, and hadn’t almost bled to death all over Merlin’s bedclothes.
~~~~
The sun had just crested over the browning elm, its light shining on their half-naked and shivering limbs, by the time Arthur woke. Merlin was rising from stirring the stew over the hearth when he noticed the eyes on him. He froze, and the stare that passed between them could not have been broken by holy flood nor hellfire.
“Merlin?” Arthur rasped. He made to sit up and grimaced, clutching his side.
“Don’t move,” Merlin said, bustling over to him. “You’ll pull your stitches.” With a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, he helped guide him back down; then he stood back.
Merlin had long grown used to the quiet: the days filled with nothing but the sounds in the trees and his own absentminded humming, but now, with the familiar eyes looking up at him, the silence was oppressive, and he felt the urgent need to fill it.
“Do you want stew? I made stew. Well, too bad if you don’t, actually, because that’s what we’re having, and you need to get your strength back, so this will help. It won’t be as rich as what you’re used to back in Camelot, but it’s hearty; it’s got venison, so…” He had moved, much like his tongue, without thinking, and found himself back over by the hearth, ladling stew into bowls before his brain had caught up with him. It was much easier, it turned out, to look down into the bubbling brown sludge than it was to look upon the face of a man you’d not seen for nine years, particularly when he was conscious.
When he turned back, Arthur was still looking at him, a little furrow between his brows, as if Merlin were a riddle and Arthur a particularly dim-witted mountain troll. The look was so familiar, it could have elicited a smile, were it not for the nervous energy thrumming in him, turning all his synapses to something reminiscent of the stew in the pot.
Then Arthur said, weakly, “I’m—where are my clothes?”
“Oh. Ah. Yeah. Sorry. I had to cut your tunic off to get to your wound, but it was so covered in blood, there was no saving it. The rest are drying.” He shifted so Arthur could see the trousers, socks and boots set by the hearth. “They were caked in mud, so I washed them.”
“Right.”
The silence was that uneasy sort, full of staring and a decade’s worth of things unsaid. Merlin stood with the stew in his hand, and his heart lodged somewhere up around his jugular.
“Are you cold? I can get you something of mine—”
“You’ve not slept at all?” Arthur said, at the same time.
“No.”
“Ah. No, I’m okay. The fire.”
“Okay.”
There was another agonising moment of The Silence, then: “Is that for me?” Arthur said, indicating the stew.
“Oh, yeah.” Merlin went to him, and took up the chair he’d sat vigil in all that long night, where he’d waited to see whether he’d be friendless again, by God’s hand this time, rather than his own.
Arthur reached out for the bowl, his arm trembling with the effort of raising it.
“No, I can do it,” Merlin said, and lifted the spoon to Arthur’s lips.
Arthur made a face as he swallowed down the stew. “Your cooking’s just as I remember it.”
“Oh, nice to see you haven’t changed at all. You’re still an ungrateful, arrogant prat. Comfort to know.”
“You haven’t changed either,” Arthur said defensively. “Still prattling on as usual.”
“You would too if you hadn’t had anyone to talk to for nine years.” He had said it like a joke, but the smile quickly left his face; he looked away, while Arthur looked deeply troubled.
“I—we did—that is to say, we sent out a search party, after… but—we never…”
“I put up wards.”
“Oh.”
“Look, we don’t have to talk about this,” Merlin said, and forced that smile which is not really a smile but a plea for the hurt not to be seen.
Arthur looked down, and then at the spoon which Merlin was still driving at his mouth, as if he could prevent any further heartache by means of stew alone. He nodded, and then, finally, after swallowing the latest spoonful, slowly said, “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
“It is. What I want is for you to heal, so you can get back to Camelot. They’ll be missing their king.” Merlin stood to leave, but Arthur reached for his wrist. Merlin felt the trembling touch on his skin, and closed his eyes. He had touched Arthur; in saving his life, he had had to, but he hadn’t been touched by Arthur, by another, since that day he had been sent away. And though it was only that meaningless thing, a quick grab for his attention—Arthur likely hadn’t the strength nor the desire to hold him any tighter—it still was like a balm for one so long alone.
“I—” Arthur said, and Merlin lifted his eyes to him. “I guess you have changed. A little bit,” he said finally.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said, and dropped his hand; Merlin tried not to mourn the loss too much. “Your hair’s longer, and you’ve got that—ridiculous stubble.”
Merlin felt, for the first time in a long time, the dimples hidden by the stubble grace his scratchy cheek. “You’re just jealous you can’t grow any.”
“I am not jealous.”
“Sure sounded jealous to me.”
“Well, you need to get your hearing checked, then.”
The hurts were still there inside him, as they had been, and as they would be for a long time to come, and he would talk about them, probably, eventually, once Arthur was healed, and he felt that they both could stomach it; but for now, he smiled at Arthur, and Arthur smiled, a little tentatively, back at him, and Merlin felt that something sorely missed had returned to him.
Merlin's barely recovered from the shock of hearing a polite knock on his very remote little cottage, when he swings the door open to find Arthur Pendragon staring at him. "I've been exiled," Arthur says calmly. "May I come in?"
"What?" Merlin wheezes.
Arthur seems to take that as invitation enough, shouldering past Merlin to enter. Dimly, Merlin notices he's wearing his long traveling coat, his sword at his hip, and a pack slung over his shoulder. "You keep this place just as messy as you did my chambers," Arthur tuts, looking over the humble interior of Merlin's cottage. His nose wrinkles in distaste as he looks at the dirty bowls on the table sat next to tinctures of bitter and poisonous plants, and Merlin's few articles of clothing drying on all the chair-backs. "Honestly, Merlin, what would your mother think?"
He swings his pack around, throws it down on the table, and begins to remove his coat. "I," Merlin breathes. "You. What are you—"
"Please tell me you have some actual meat in this hovel," Arthur adds. "It's a very long ride from Camelot, and I didn't stop to hunt for fear that I wouldn't make it here before nightfall."
He removes his coat, folding it and putting it up on a nail that sticks out from a wall. He turns and looks at Merlin expectantly. "Well?"
"EXILE?!" Merlin shrieks. "What are you— you're not— how did you even—"
His magic is bubbling up inside of him, confused, hurt, and restless. If Merlin hadn't already checked that it is indeed Arthur standing in front of him, he'd have thought the man an imposter. "How did you find me?" he settles on, hands curling into fists in an effort to control his raging emotions.
"I didn't," Arthur says. He leans over, absentmindedly straightening a pile of scrolls Merlin left askew. "I always knew where you went."
"What?"
"Lancelot is a very good tracker," Arthur says, in the tone of voice that indicates it explains everything Merlin needs to know. "Although he got a little too close following that business with the Sluagh. I told him to make sure you were well, not press his face into the windows."
"The wards," Merlin says faintly. He felt them thrum a couple weeks prior, indicating that someone had approached his cottage, although Merlin was unable to discover who.
His magic gave him no such warning for Arthur's arrival, the bastard.
"You've known where I've been ever since you sent me away," Merlin says slowly, trying to make his mind understand. Arthur is still looking at him with the expression he has whenever he thinks Merlin is being particularly slow about something. "And you didn't… mind? Say something?" Scream at me to leave? Show up with a company of Camelot's knights to dole out the law?
Arthur looks cross. "Well, you could have chosen someplace further than a day's ride out from Camelot," he says, and Merlin winces. Arthur then suddenly looks apologetic, and Merlin doesn't know why. "But it's for the best that you didn't. It would have been too hard for me to reach you had I need of you."
"Need of me," Merlin echoes faintly.
Arthur's apologetic expression melts into one of guilt. "I— I made sure I wasn't followed," Arthur says, and it is as he is instinctively flexing his hand that Merlin notices the bruises on his knuckles. "But I should have been more careful. My father, well—" A pained expression crosses his face. "Out of the two options, I was betting that he wouldn't choose exile. The other, I could handle."
Oh. So that's what this is about. Arthur has done something to irritate Uther, and he has turned to Merlin to fix it. He is desperate enough to decide he has need of Merlin again to seek him out. Merlin supposes it shouldn't be surprising that Arthur knows where he is, since it doesn't matter where he lives, as long as it is away from Arthur. Or maybe Arthur just wants the security of knowing Merlin can't run if Arthur decides to renege on his mercy.
If Merlin were his own friend, he would advise himself to have more self-respect. As it stands, at least there is no one else in the cottage to witness how pathetic he is. "What do you need?" Merlin says quietly.
Arthur shoots him a look. "Well, a fire would be nice, for starters. And I wasn't kidding about needing a meal—"
"With Uther," Merlin says exasperatedly. "Surely you must have some idea of how to calm his anger. I could conjure a kelpie and make sure there are witnesses to you heroically slaying it—"
"I've got my father under control," Arthur says. "Sure, it does make things a bit harder having to conduct a base of operations from this…." He looks around, and decides on a word that won't spark Merlin's ire, "abode, but my knights and I have been using coded communication for months now. The council was losing faith in him even before he chose to exile the crown prince. I give it less than a month before he brings Camelot to the brink of crisis, and then I'm sure the guards will be more than happy to allow me to return."
Merlin blinks. Perhaps this really is an imposter that has entered his home wearing Arthur's skin, or maybe he has finally gone utterly mad. He would have thought it would take more than half a year of broken-hearted solitude to get to that point. "Arthur, what are you talking about—"
"Oh, right. I'm sorry, I considered sending Lancelot with a message, but I didn't want him to be caught with anything on him were he found. I couldn't—" His thumb brushes over his lip, and Merlin sees a scab there. "I couldn't risk anything pointing to your location. Hence why I told my father I wouldn't give up that information, even under torture."
"What?!"
"Don't ruffle your petticoat, I'm fine," Arthur says quickly, as if Merlin had not just felt his magic jumping under his skin with all the fury of a dragon guarding its treasure. "I was expecting him to take me up on the offer, and then I wouldn't have to bother you. But it seems my father decided it more appropriate to strip me of my rank and title until I told him where you've been hiding."
Merlin stares at Arthur dumbly. There's no doubt about it, he has gone mad.
At least one of them, anyway.
"Why wouldn't you just tell your father where I am?"
"Very funny. Should I have offered to lead the knights to capture you myself, then?"
Merlin keeps his face blank to conceal the pain. "I suppose."
Arthur gives him a queer look. "You're acting odd. Did your brain wither away from having a forest respite for a few months?"
"Forest respite," Merlin sputters, and he may be pathetic but he still has enough dignity to grow angry. "I don't know what you want, and I'll help you with whatever you need, but might I remind you that you were the one that exiled me!"
Arthur rolls his eyes, and Merlin's hands curl into fists. "You're being dramatic."
It's so casual, so thoughtlessly cruel, that Merlin's magic lashes out before he can stop it. It doesn't hurt Arthur—he never would, never could—but Arthur's mouth falls open as he is shoved into a chair and held in place with invisible hands. For a second, fear flashes across his face, but even that is not enough to quell the anger inside Merlin. Like the first crack of ice across a frozen lake, it only splinters under further pressure.
"I did everything for you," Merlin rasps. "I bled, I killed, I would do it again without hesitation, and I know I lied to you, I know I hurt you, but— but you can't just turn up again like nothing has happened, when you sent me away—"
"—Merlin—"
"It's not fair, it's not fair to take me up one day and cast me away the next, so after this," Merlin's voice trembles, but he juts his chin upwards, he is stronger than this, damn it, "if you no longer wish to see me, then respect your own wishes and leave me be—"
"Merlin!" Arthur is still straining against the weight of the magic holding him in place. But he doesn't look angry, more confused and irritated. And sweaty. "When did I exile you?"
"Oh, I don't know," Merlin snaps. "Maybe this will refresh your recollection: 'Leave here now and don't come back.'"
He knows his voice is a harsh imitation of Arthur's exact words, as they have been ringing in his head since the moment he first heard them. They had barely sunk in, leaving their impression in the grove of his mind—a permanent scar that would never fade—when Arthur barked, "Now," his expression utterly furious. And Merlin had listened.
He breathes out harshly, trying to get a rein on his anger. And Arthur looks—
—well. He doesn't have a word to describe how Arthur looks, exactly.
"Merlin. You did magic in front of my father and his entire court." Arthur is speaking very clearly and slowly. "It was all I could do to buy you enough time so you wouldn't be caught while you fled."
Merlin blinks. He hasn't focused on that part of the situation, truly. He has been more concerned with the hurt in Arthur's eyes, the way his expression turned cold and commanding within a second. All of it, targeted at Merlin. "You were angry."
"I was frightened." Something shudders across Arthur's face before he can conceal its honesty. "I always knew you were a reckless idiot, with how little you cared for doing magic in plain sight, but I knew even I couldn't save you from that display—"
"You." Merlin feels dizzy. He sinks heavily into one of his chairs, and he hears Arthur take a deep breath as his magic releases his hold on him. "You knew. About my magic."
"Of course I knew; I'm not blind," Arthur says, aghast. "I just figured you were pretending otherwise so we wouldn't have to talk about it. Did you really not—" And then his mouth closes. He blinks. Merlin can almost see the coals inside of Arthur's head producing steam. When he speaks again, his voice is small. "I see now. How things might have occurred differently to you."
Part of Merlin wants to cry, part of him wants to scream, part of him wants to laugh hysterically, and he very bravely and wisely does not do any of that. "So you weren't sending me away. Forever, that is."
"No." There is a similar edge of hysteria to Arthur's voice. "Just until I could make it safe for you again. Until I could bring you back to Camelot."
"You kept track of where I was," Merlin says distantly. "You—" He shakes his head quickly. "Arthur, you didn't— please tell me you didn't tell Uther to torture you rather than reveal where I was— I'm not worth it, why did you, why—"
He stops when he finally catches Arthur's eye. Arthur is looking at him in a way Merlin had only caught in glimpses before, like a beam piercing through the clouds, but now the full force of the sun is shining upon him. "How is it obvious to everyone other than you?" Arthur asks.
Merlin's face shatters, and Arthur is out of his chair, making his way over with apologies, and Merlin hears him saying something about how he assumed, he was wrong, he didn't mean to, and that nothing needs to change. He puts his hand on Merlin's shoulder, and Merlin realizes they are both great idiots, and it is probably better to speak with their actions, rather than words. So he does exactly that.
It is only when Arthur has his breeches half undone that he pauses to speak, as he hikes Arthur's tunic up for better access to his chest. "I do love you too, by the way."
"Glad we got that sorted," Arthur replies, and they tumble into bed, basking in the privilege of an undisturbed exile.
When Arthur is born, he cries for three days straight, and nothing that Gaius or the wet nurse can do will soothe him.
“He misses his mother, sire,” says Gaius—the only one who has dared to mention Queen Ygraine since her passing. Uther stares down at the boy in the crib, his own eyes red-rimmed with grief.
“He’ll have to learn to do without her,” he says.
+
Perhaps that’s where it starts. Without his mother, Arthur is passed from nurse to nursemaid as he grows, and from nursemaid to tutors when he gets old enough. His father is always there, distant but commanding, and Arthur seeks out the scraps of his approval like a rat in a maze, scouring the citadel in search of satiety.
He doesn’t cry anymore. There is always someone who has more need of sorrow, just as there is always someone who has more need of bread, and a prince must learn to think of his people before himself. Instead, he makes the best of what he has. A handshake here. A backslap there. On the day he wins his first real tournament, there is an entire banquet hosted in his honour, and Arthur dines out on his father’s applause for months before the cupboard runs bare.
+
Then, Merlin comes to Camelot.
He has the look of a starveling, all long limbs and bones, but compared to Arthur, Merlin has never known a day of hunger in his life. Arthur hates him at first sight; the way the flesh meets at the juncture of his throat and the base of his thumbs, the teeth-bruised, tender meat of him. Hates the way that Merlin can somehow make him want—not his smiles or his wit or his shining eyes but his generosity, the picture of largess where Arthur has only crumbs.
In this way, love takes him like a famine, never a feast: an insatiable hunger. For every night spent devouring Merlin’s mouth, his hips, his thighs, he spends another morning hungry for more, another day dreading the prospect of starvation. Merlin feeds him with clumsy fingers, portioning off what parts he can, but Arthur wants to consume him utterly; to tear into him with teeth and tongue till there is nothing left, and has to be careful not to take too much. Even in repletion, he never seems to have enough.
+
And then: the magic. Merlin, standing over the body of a man who has tried to kill him, one hand outstretched and the gold still fading from his eyes.
“You’re a sorcerer,” Arthur says. The word tastes like ozone and ashes, like the consequences of his own greed. “You lied to me.”
“Not on purpose,” Merlin says, trying to smile. There’s blood on his teeth, his mouth, a dagger in his shoulder that was aimed at Arthur’s heart. “Things got a little…complicated.”
Arthur should banish him—of course he should. He can learn to do without the strange, small kindnesses doled out like sweetmeats; the unlikely seasoning of truth that flavours Merlin's speech. It will be a slow weaning, but a necessary one; a spiritual fasting.
But there is Merlin, looking up at Arthur with dark eyes that reflect the same monstrous appetite, the shame of wanting something that cannot bear to be wanted, and Arthur is tired of the waste of doing without; of tasting only the bitter and never the sweet. What good is denying oneself if it’s being offered to one freely anyway?
“Don’t,” Merlin rasps, naked and hungry as Arthur has ever seen him, “don’t send me away.”
“I won’t,” Arthur promises—his turn to be generous—and it's worth the years of guilt and avarice for the feast he makes of Merlin’s smile.
They had been riding for 5 hours in silence. 5 hours since Arthur had been exiled, and Merlin had followed him without a word.
5 hours since Merlin had stopped a dagger with magic in front of the court. 5 hours since Uther had ordered Merlin's execution. 5 hours since Arthur had taken the blame instead.
5 hours since Arthur had claimed he had been the one to make the dagger freeze in mid-air.
5 hours since Arthur claimed he'd been practicing magic.
And now they were here.
It was getting almost too dark to see. Merlin couldn't bring himself to say they should stop.
He felt like his whole world had come crashing down.
He had no idea how much worse it must be for Arthur. Arthur who had protected him without a second thought.
Yet he'd taken the blame, rather than let Merlin go to the pyre. He couldn't have even been sure Merlin was loyal. He didn't even have a second to think it through. He just acted.
Even though from the brief microsecond before Arthur had decided on his course of action, Merlin had seen a world of betrayal on his face.
Arthur hadn't known Merlin had magic.
He'd done it anyway. That was who Arthur was. Passion. Acting in the heat of the moment. It was part of what Merlin adored about him, even when it gave him headaches at the same time.
The prince couldn't have known exactly how Uther would react. Was the exile worse than he imagined? Or, gods, did he expect he would have ended up on the pyre himself?
Merlin wondered if he regretted it.
He must.
Arthur had been born a prince, and fought with everything he had to be a good one. It was his life.
And now it was gone.
Merlin wished with everything he had that he could turn back time, to before the feast when Arthur had thrown a sock at his head in anger, and Merlin had burst out laughing at the weakest threat he'd ever received - and Arthur had twitched his lips in response.
What would happen now?
"Let's make camp here, Merlin." Arthur suddenly cut through their silence, making Merlin jump. His voice was sure. Not afraid.
It only made Merlin more confused.
"As you say, Sire." He said unsurely, so unlike his usual self, as he got off his horse.
"Just Arthur. I no longer have that title, after all." Arthur said. He sounded tired, but accepting. Merlin wanted to shake him, ask why the hell he wasn't more upset about this when Merlin was breaking into pieces.
"Arthur. I'm - you can't know how sorry-"
"You saved my life, Merlin." Arthur interrupted him, looking away from his ex-manservant, now purely friend, as he tied his horse to a tree.
"I never wanted this." Merlin trembled. Why wasn't Arthur angry? Could it be... might Arthur actually understand? Even if he didn't know the facts? Might he know Merlin's nature, his loyalty - his love for his prince?
Arthur turned to face him. Even in the darkness, his eyes burned bright with emotion he rarely let show. "I don't regret it, Merlin. Even if you hadn't used it to save me, I could never abide you dying."
Merlin sucked in a deep breath. He felt a tear roll down his cheek. Arthur looked softly at him.
"Ever since you barged your way into my life, it's been you and me. And it always will be. I won't have it any other way." Arthur said, and it sounded like a promise. It sounded even more like an unspoken 'I love you' that Merlin had always longed to hear.
"I'll always be yours, Arthur." Merlin replied, even as another tear escaped, and his heart pounced in his chest.
Arthur smiled. "Then tomorrow you'll tell me everything. Including why on earth you'd come to Camelot in the first place. We'll plan from there. It will be okay, Merlin. I promise."
Arthur’s wrists burn. His head aches; his feet have gone numb.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
Arthur blinks blearily into consciousness, eyes cracking open just enough to settle on a blurry, familiar figure.
“Come on. Rise and shine.”
Arthur tries to raise his fists and rub at his eyes, but he’s bound to the chair. He can’t move an inch.
“Merlin?” He squeezes his eyes shut, hoping his vision will clear. “What happened? Where are we?”
“Cenred’s kingdom,” Merlin says, but his voice isn’t as light as Arthur’s grown accustomed to. He sounds gruff. Stilted.
“Morgause crossed our path. Cast a spell and knocked you out.”
Arthur sputters in disbelief. “She could not have possibly knocked me out.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself, sire.”
As his vision sharpens at last, Arthur realises they’re in Cenred’s throne room. Sconces turn the stone walls a rich orange, and the room smells strongly of sword polish. The throne is empty. Merlin paces before it.
Arthur frowns. “They didn’t tie you up.”
“Not like I’m much of a threat,” Merlin says, half-smiling, but there’s no light in his eyes.
Dread begins to creep into Arthur’s chest.
“Where’s Cenred? Knowing him, I thought he’d take the opportunity to gloat.”
A shadow passes over Merlin’s face, and Arthur watches as his lips lift in a minuscule smirk.
“Dead.”
Arthur’s stomach drops. He grips the chair.
“Morgause killed him?”
“No.”
A moment passes.
“Merlin,” he says slowly, “what’s going on?”
Merlin gets to his feet in a sudden, fluid movement.
“I keep on making mistakes for you,” he says. “I keep hurting people for you.”
Arthur fights to keep his voice steady. “What are you talking about?”
Footsteps echo against stone, and in the millisecond before she rounds the corner, Arthur knows who it will be. He watches the future play out in that breath, and everything he’s brushed aside returns with a vengeance. It hurts. It’s painful.
“All will be explained in due time, dear brother. But first…” Morgana stands before him, hair braided back and a sword at her hip. She lifts her hand, and a scroll of parchment appears out of thin air.
Arthur shouts, surprise and terror pounding in his chest.
“We have a list of demands.”
Merlin sinks into Cenred’s throne. “Get comfortable.”
fill for @merlinmicrofic prompt 'Alchemy', Arthur & Merlin, Teen, no archive warnings (498w)
Arthur stares at the dilapidated storefront. It's hard to believe the man he's been searching for could be living here.
Leon places a warm hand on his shoulder. "There are still two more names."
Arthur carefully does not flinch. He gives Leon a glance. There's a bemused smile lingering on his lips, but all Arthur can see are three arrows sticking out of his chest, his throat slit. Even in his death, he hadn't let go of his sword. A loyal knight to the end.
"Merlin Wyllt could be the one," Arthur says, averting his eyes. The memory is not as easy to shake. "Wait here." He crosses the street and pushes open the door. Surprisingly, it doesn't fall off the hinges.
A floral scent obscures herbs and something acrid. Magic. The insidious power behind alchemy and sorcery.
It had taken everything from Arthur.
And yet it had also given him a chance.
Footsteps creak along the floor and Arthur looks over to see a younger man entering the room. This must be Merlin.
Disappointment curdles inside Arthur's chest—blue eyes.
"Hello. Can I help you, friend?"
"Do you sell healing potions here?" Arthur asks. Even if the eyes don't match, there's still one more thing to check.
"Sure. What can you tell me about the injury?"
"The… injury?"
"Yes," Merlin replies, impatience creeping into his tone. "Size, location, depth, time since occurrence. The weapon used would also be helpful."
Arthur blinks. Every alchemist he's tested so far just gave him a potion and sent him on his way. "Don't you have a standard-grade potion?"
"Standard grade." The alchemist scoffs disdainfully. "Complete nonsense. Every injury and person is unique! How could one potion work the same on two different people?"
Arthur considers his options for a moment, then says, "How about… two inches long, forearm, not cutting through muscle? The timing…"
He pulls out a dagger from his belt and sweeps it across his forearm without hesitation. "Now."
"What the fuck!" the alchemist shrieks. "Why the fuck—" Even as he curses, he pulls out three blue vials and mixes them with practiced familiarity. Merlin shakes it three times and then his eyes flare gold.
Arthur freezes, memories of the battlefield crashing over him. Swords clang against armor. Lightning splits the sky. His blood roars in his ears as Emrys approaches him and pours the liquid over Arthur's forearm. The cut seals without a lingering trace.
But Arthur pays it no mind. He's lost in the sensation of Emrys' magic. It's like the ocean. Wild and fathomless. There is nothing else like it in this world.
"Don't you ever do that again!" the alchemist who will kill him in ten years scolds him hotly.
It would be easy to kill him now.
But… his power had been enough to win Morgana the crown and war. She had found him first then, but now Arthur has reached him first. He won't squander this chance.
This time, the crown will be his.
The 2026 WIP Big Bang & WIP Reverse Bang Is Open For Sign-Ups!
Welcome to a new round! This is the thirteenth year we've hosted the WIP Big Bang, which is for finishing fic and getting art to go with it, and introducing the third year we've had the WIP Reverse Bang, which is for finishing artwork and getting fic to go with it. All fandoms/ratings/ships are welcome, including original works!
Please read our FAQ before signing up.
Schedule
All times are by 11:59pm PST. Convert time zones.
Big Bang/Reverse Bang Sign-ups- April 1st - June 1st
Big Bang/Reverse Bang Check In #1- May 22nd - May 29th
Big Bang/Reverse Bang Check In #2- June 15th - June 22nd
Big Bang/Reverse Bang Snippets Due- July 1st - July 11th
Big Bang Art Claims/Reverse Bang Fic Claims- July 17th - August 14th
Big Bang/Reverse Bang Check In #3- July 22nd - July 29th
Big Bang/Reverse Bang Posting Claims- August 23rd - September 1st
Big Bang/Reverse Bang Check In #4- August 31st - September 7th
Official Big Bang/Reverse Bang Postings- September 8th - November 30th
Emergency Big Bang/Reverse Bang Postings- December 1st - December 31st
Technically, they were not his woods, but Merlin felt authorised to recognise them as such since he had never seen anyone else in them for as long as he had lived there in the little hut, hidden in their verdant depths.
But now there was a man. Quite possibly a dead one.
He was not exactly hard to miss. Even covered in as much mud and muck as he was, the red cloak stuck out like a violent spot against the tranquillity of the green wood. He looked like the river had had its savage way with him and upon tasting only sweat and blood and steel spat him back out.
Merlin had only gone in the moonlight to scavenge in the undergrowth for mushrooms, and had not expected there to be an unmoving mass of cloak and mail prone on the river’s bank, but now he supposed he was expected to deal with it. The lump himself didn’t seem to be doing anything about it.
Upon first sight of the ragged figure, Merlin’s heart had come up into his throat. There was no mistaking the blazing red cape, nor the fine golden dragon stitched into its fabric. Merlin set down his foraging basket, fingers trembling. It wasn’t him. It wouldn’t be him. He went to him.
When Merlin turned the cold body over, his heart nearly came out of him, along with the contents of his stomach. Despite his many years as a recluse, Merlin had wits enough to know it was considered inappropriate to vomit on the unsuspecting or unconscious, and swallowed it back down with his heart.
“Arthur.”
His voice cracked around the name like a lake frozen over; one misplaced foot, one treacherous step to his doom. It would soon be Arthur’s unless he acted quickly. There was a hole in his mail and in his abdomen, dripping dark and unrepentant all over the forest floor, which did not deserve it.
Merlin drank in the pale, sweating face—so ghostly in the moonlight and still so beautiful that it ached in him. There were lines between his brows and in the corners of his eyes that hadn’t been there when Merlin had last seen him; he wanted to trace his finger over them, map out each and every wrinkle that he hadn’t been there to witness, or be the cause of.
There was a roiling in him now, equal parts fear and anger. If Arthur hadn’t been actively dying, Merlin would have shaken him. He wanted to grab him and yell, “This is so like you, you great lumbering arse! You exiled me! You told me not to come back! And now you show up in my woods expecting me to save your life?! I should leave you to the foxes.”
But of course, he did not. Instead, he pressed his hand to Arthur’s wound to slow the blood’s incessant spread. And when Arthur groaned and choked out Merlin’s name around a bubble of bloody spittle, Merlin hushed him.
“Knew you’d—you’d find me.”
Nine years. Nine long years of solitude and shame and grief and homesickness and he’d not seen hide nor hair of Arthur in all that time. And now he was here, in Merlin’s woods, with his stupid lovely face and his stupid mortal wound and his stupid faith in Merlin to be there.
“Don’t talk.”
The corner of Arthur’s lips lifted. “All this time and you still haven’t learned.”
“I know, I know. You give the orders, right?”
Arthur coughed, and more blood stained his lips. “Not for much longer, I don’t think.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Merlin said quickly. “You’re not going to die. I won’t let you.” Arthur did not have to know about the foxes. “And you’re not allowed to, okay? I don’t give a troll’s saggy tit if you’re the king; I’ve got a decade of bothering you to make up for and you’re not getting out of it that easily. Alright?”
Arthur’s eyes were full of starlight. For a moment he looked so far away, Merlin wasn’t sure he’d heard him. Then, “You’re—keeping me alive just so you can annoy me to death?”
Kickstarting “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI”
My next book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, will be out in about a month – and (once again) Amazon's monopoly audiobook platform refuses to carry it, and so (once again) I'm pre-selling the audio, ebook and print edition in a Kickstarter campaign that proves that DRM-free isn't just the right way to reach an audience, it's also the best way to reach them:
Reverse Centaur is a book about the realpolitik and the political economy of AI, written by a tech critic (me!) who is sick to the back teeth of hearing about AI. Central to the book's thesis:
The AI bubble is part of a lineage of pump-and-dump swindles created by monopolists who are desperate to convince investors that they can continue to grow even after they've saturated their markets:
The workers who say that their jobs are worse and the things they produce are much worse as a result of AI are correct; but the workers who say their work is much better thanks to AI are also correct. This only seems like a riddle until you understand that the most important fact about any technology (including AI) isn't what it does, but who it does it for and who it does it to:
When a boss fires a worker and gives their jobs to an AI, it usually means that they don't care if that job is done well, which is why customer service jobs are being handed over to AI:
Bosses also love firing coders and replacing them with AI – first, because bosses are really angry about the decades when tech workers were in short supply and bosses had to pretend to like them, and second, because if you're selling AI as a way to replace workers, what better way to convince a potential customer than to fire the workers your own company depends upon? (All that said, the coders who are excited about their new AI coding tools have a point – when a worker is in charge of their work and thus when and how they use a tool, we should defer to their own experience):
Artists are also a favorite target of AI bosses, which is weird, because the wages of creative workers add up to a total that rounds to zero when compared with the unimaginably large sums AI companies will have to take in if they are to pay back the trillions they've spent to date (let alone the trillions more they're proposing to spend in the near term). All of this raises a foundational question: can AI "art" ever be good? (Spoiler: probably not):
Media companies say they have the answer to the AI art question: they'll create (or assert) a copyright that lets them control AI training. This is an incredibly transparent ruse: media companies are artists' class enemies, and if we get a new right to control AI training, our bosses will demand that we sign it away to them as part of their non-negotiable, one-sided standard contracts:
For creative workers, the answer to these new would-be tech bosses isn't asserting a new right that will be expropriated by the old media bosses who've been ripping us off forever. Our salvation lies in leaning into the US Copyright Office's interpretation that holds that AI-generated works can't be copyrighted, because copyright is only for human creations. That means that the only way our bosses can get a copyright over the things they want to sell is to pay us to make them:
Many of the seemingly urgent AI questions that people won't shut up about are distractions, because they assume that AI will lastingly infiltrate every part of our society. In reality, the AI companies are losing unimaginable amounts and have no path to profitability:
Despite AI's manifest unsuitability to do jobs that should exist, bosses keep firing people and replacing them with chatbots that do their jobs very badly. This allows bosses to indulge their solipsistic fantasy of a world without people, in which customers, workers and suppliers are statistical artifacts and bosses are unitary geniuses who simply imagine a product or service and then it is delivered, without any ego-shattering confrontations with people who know how to do things:
This is catastrophic, and not just for the parties involved today. The AI bubble will pop, and when it does, the chatbots that do these jobs (badly) will be switched off. Meanwhile, the workers those chatbots replaced will have retrained, retired, or become "discouraged." No one will be around to do those (necessary) jobs. AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our civilization and our descendants will be digging it out for generations:
The real existential AI threat isn't that we'll accidentally teach the word-guessing program so many words that it awakens and becomes a vengeful god. The real risk is that when the bubble bursts we'll indulge the ruling class's reflex to austerity, and that this will continue the decades of mass economic traumatization that makes people into easy marks for fascists:
But when the AI bubble pops, that won't be the end of AI – it will be the end of the bubble. When the AI bubble pops, we'll have mountains of GPUs at fire-sale prices, skilled workers liberated from the imperative to help their bosses promote their stock swindle, and open source models that will yield tremendous dividends to anyone who sets out to optimize them:
As you can see from the links above, I developed The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI in the same way that I developed Enshittification: in public, through a series of essays, which I periodically synthesized into major, widely shared speeches:
It's a method that's let me produce a string of international bestsellers, published by some of the largest publishers in the world. Nevertheless, Amazon refuses to carry my audiobooks:
That's because I have an iron-clad requirement that my work be sold in open formats, without the "digital rights management" that blocks you from moving the books you bought on Amazon to someone else's apps. Digital rights management (DRM) enjoys bizarre legal protections so that it's a felony for me to give you the tools you need to move the books I wrote out of an Amazon app and into a competitor's app:
What's more, these outrageous legal rights extend around the world, because the US Trade Representative spent decades bullying America's trading partners into passing laws that criminalize the act of fixing the defects in America's tech exports, which is why farmers can't fix their John Deere tractors, hospitals can't fix their Medtronic ventilators, and no one can sell you an app that stops Apple and Google from spying on your phone:
Amazon's Audible controls 90% (!) of the audiobook market, and they will not sell any book unless they can permanently lock it to their platform. That means that every time a writer sells you an audiobook on Audible, they create a "switching cost" that stops you from leaving Audible for a competitor. Not only is this fundamentally unjust, it's also terrible for creators: if our audiences can't leave Amazon, then we can't leave Amazon either, which means Amazon can (and does!) steal millions of dollars from writers without losing our business:
Which is where these Kickstarter campaigns come in. Whenever I sell a new book to a publisher, I arrange to make my own independent audiobook for it, which I sell everywhere except the platforms that have mandatory DRM: Audible, Apple and Audiobooks.com. There are some very good DRM-free audiobook stores, notably Libro.fm and Downpour.com (Google Play also sells audiobooks without DRM). But most people have never heard of these, so it wasn't until I started pre-selling my audiobooks on Kickstarter that I was able to make my stubborn refusal to sell out to Audible into a paying proposition. My agent tells me that if I'd sold out to Audible, I'd have paid off my mortgage and I'd be able to give my kid a full ride through a fancy US college. I don't make that kind of money from these Kickstarters, but they do very well nevertheless, and they're a critical part of my family's finances.
You can pre-order print copies of Reverse Centaur, as well as DRM-free ebooks and audiobooks (narrated by me!) for Reverse Centaur and Enshittification. Normally, I offer custom-signed copies of the print books, but Enshittification was so successful that I haven't stopped touring it and I'm in a new city every couple of days, so there's no way I can reliably get into a warehouse to sign the latest batch of orders. Instead, I'll be posting the contact details for every bookstore that's hosting me on my tours (US in June, UK in September) and you can order signed copies from them, which I'll personalize after my events there so they can ship them to you.
I've also decided to raise money for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), the nonprofit I've worked at for nearly 25 years. EFF is the oldest, best and most effective tech rights organization in the world, and its mission has only gotten more important over the years. EFF's outreach folks are offering a special membership package for backers of the Kickstarter, which includes an EFF hat and stickers, as well as an Enshittification pin and two Enshittification stickers:
It came out great (as always!), thanks to the terrific direction of Gabrielle De Cuir of Skyboat Media and editing from Wryneck Studios' John Taylor Williams. Gabrielle's directed all my audiobooks since 2017, and John's been mastering my podcasts since 2006 (!!), so we constitute a very well-oiled machine.
Working out my ideas in public allows me to produce my Pluralistic newsletter, and with it, a large volume of free, high-quality work that's licensed under a generous Creative Commons license that lets anyone reproduce, translate, redistribute and even sell my articles. If you've enjoyed that work, I hope you'll consider backing the campaign! Selling books is how I pay the bills and keep the lights on, and as ever, this is the only way you can get a major publisher's ebooks and audiobooks with no DRM and no "terms of service." These are truly ebooks and audiobooks that you own. You can sell them, give them away, or lend them out – so long as you don't violate copyright law, we're all cool:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube
they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!
i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies
The parking attendant paused by the double-length bay. Intended for mobile homes and cars with trailers, it was currently occupied by a sleeping dragon.
No parts of it extended beyond the lines, and the paper ticket was clearly displayed, impaled on a horn.
