I'm imagining university lecturer Merlin. He's not too far along in the aging cycle - he tends to live a life from around 20 or 25 to around 80 or 90 or so, depending on how much he wants to do or how attached he is to wherever he's staying, then moves away and returns to the beginning again.
He's in his 50s now, maybe early 60s. His hair is salt and pepper and he's got lines on his face, but his mobility is still pretty good. He's a doctor of history right now - he thought it might be fun to reminisce in his old age for a while, and it's always a good time to mess with historians when you're an immortal.
His students and colleagues know he's a little bit... off. He's eccentric. It's fun to eavesdrop on their strange and wonderful theories about why he is the way he is, why he has such strong opinions on the most obscure historical areas. Why he never dates and hasn't married, what the ancient-looking medallion he wears could mean.
He gives them new crumbs from time to time. It's not as though it matters if someone comes to the correct conclusions, nobody would believe it. The crumbs aren't always intentional, either. Sometimes he drinks too much, runs his fingers over body-warm metal and remembers the hills and valleys that used to adorn the sigil before his touch erased them over centuries of gentle, pining caresses.
Merlin has told many people that his heart belongs to a man who went where he can't follow. They know he's waiting for his soul to return. They just don't know how long he's been alone.
He's heard people say his husband is fighting a war somewhere far away. His colleagues have argued, thinking they're out of earshot, about whether the man is dead or imprisoned somewhere or if he left him by choice.
Some pity him, others try to convince him to move on. He won't. He can't. He waits.
It's been so long now, he can hardly remember the face, the voice he longs for. He can't recall the exact shade of his hair when the sun hit him just right beneath a canopy of trees. The sound of his laugh echoes and warps until he can't be sure of the tone or timbre anymore.
He goes on. He lives. His students sometimes, albeit jokingly, suggest supernatural theories. That the man he loves is a mythological being, untouchable. Some of them joke that he's in love with King Arthur himself, with the way he talks about the mythos in lectures.
He's teaching a seminar, like any other day. His crows feet crinkle as he pokes fun at disproven theories. His hair, more silver than black, falls in his face and he pushes it back.
Something inside him burns.
His class are distracted, they start pointing out the window, several of them moving to look at a man in costume crossing the campus.
Merlin feels a pull, like a tether attached to his soul, a leash guiding him back towards...
He must make some sort of noise, as some of his students turn to look at him, concern crossing their faces as he stumbles out of the room. He mumbles some sort of empty platitude as he half-trips half-runs out of the building.
His students still watch from the window, he's sure of it, as he allows himself to be drawn towards the man outside.
The man is standing motionless in the middle of the grass. Merlin is helpless against his pull.
His movements slow, he staggers to the figure. Rusted armour gleams in the sunlight, clouds seeming to part only to bathe the man in a golden glow.
Merlin falls to his knees. He doesn't notice his hair darkening, his skin becoming tight and youthful.
The man cradles his jaw and draws him up from the ground on shaking legs.
"Merlin." The man beams, adoringly.
"Arthur." Merlin rasps in disbelief. He falls, then, entrusting his entire self into Arthur's arms. He's shaking. He feels faint. He's crying.
Some of his colleagues and students have gathered behind him, standing at the entrance of the history building and watching the scene unfold.
He can't process this. Everything goes dark.
Arthur is concerned for a moment, then he laughs, murmuring how after all this time Merlin is still such a girl's petticoat.
He sweeps him into his arms and asks if there are chambers where Merlin can rest.
He's very confused when nobody understands him, and he doesn't understand them.
He needs to send someone to fetch the others, his knights and friends are waiting at the campus gate, protecting excalibur as they couldn't bring their weaponry onto the premises without cause.
Someone gestures to him, beckoning him to follow and he does. He's unarmed, but Merlin trusted these people. He trusts Merlin.
He's taken to a room with strange metal contraptions atop wooden surfaces. There are cushioned benches, wide enough for three or more men. He sets Merlin down on one, resting the man's head on his own thigh.
He idly pets through Merlin's hair - soft and clean, moreso than he remembers it being back in Camelot. He thinks he likes it.
He gestures for a quill and parchment to be fetched, and after some confusion one of the young people brings a stack of thin, white sheets bound together with some sort of glue, and a strange rod. He looks at them in confusion and the boy who brought it huffs and presses the rod to the topmost sheet, scribbling with it for a moment before turning the sheet-stack to face Arthur. Somehow the rod creates marks with no ink. Perhaps it is magic, perhaps there is some hidden trick. It bears resemblance to a reed pen, and Arthur knows he can make do.
The scribbles mean very little to Arthur. It looks almost like English, like something a peasant might write. The handwriting is terrible and the spelling leaves something to be desired, but it's almost familiar. He can make out the letters, but he's uncertain what the boy is trying to convey.
He takes the sheet-stack and magic reed pen, and writes a missive to the friends waiting off-campus.
When he is done he wonders how he might convey to these strange foreigners(? are they foreign? has English changed so much since he last walked the Earth that it is hardly recognisable to him?) what is to be done with it.
An older woman stares at the page, her eyes widening. She says something to the boy with the sheet-stack, and the room goes quiet.
Some of those present start bickering, Arthur isn't sure what about. He has no idea what a 'prank' is but they seem to be saying that word a lot.
The older woman tears his missive from the stack and pulls out a small metal bar from her breeches. After prodding at the bar several times she smiles brightly, a little disbelieving.
She takes the magic reed pen and sheet-stack and writes for a while. She is slow and methodical, seemingly very careful with her handwriting. She hands the sheet-stack back to Arthur, who raises his brows when he sees she has written in plain English. Strange that she cannot speak in such a plain and clear manner, but he's known those who could not or would not speak in the past.
"Do you understand this?" She had written. "Is this a jest? Who do you write for?"
Her spelling isn't entirely perfect, her handwriting is sloppy and her grammar is stilted, but it makes sense.
"My friends are at the gates. Please take them my letter and allow them safe passage. They mean no harm, but we do not wish to disarm ourselves and risk later difficulties recovering our arms. A secure armoury would be welcomed if we must give up our swords within your lands."
The woman reads his reply, occasionally tapping on the metal bar. She hands his earlier missive to a girl standing by the door and sends her away.
Merlin stirs in his lap and none of the others in the room matter anymore.
[Thinking about a full story where Merlin lives for centuries, age cycling and moving frequently to hide his immortality.
He does a lot of different jobs to keep things interesting, but he never dates. Never falls in love.
He wears Ygrain's sigil, wears it down to a smooth disk with a thousand loving touches.
He becomes a university scholar a few times, but this time he's chosen history (because it's hilarious to tell people they're wrong sometimes and hear the outlandish theories, plus half the department have a historical figure or two they talk about as if they know them personally, so it's not as if he stands out).
Arthur shows up to campus one day, the rest of the round table and Morgana and everyone is waiting at the gates because they don't speak modern English, they speak Old English, so they can't explain why they can't let Excalibur out of their sight into unknown hands. So the security guards think they're playing silly buggars and make them wait.
Arthur goes in alone and Merlin becomes 30 years younger before the eyes of his students and colleagues... and promptly passes tf out because suddenly Arthur's here after like 1000 years of bupkis and how tf is he supposed to process that on 3 hours sleep and 5 cups of coffee?
And Arthur trying to communicate with these modern people but he doesn't really speak the language. But they're!!! Historians!!!! So at least one of the professors is semi-fluent in old English, at least reading and maybe writing it if not speaking it.
I'm imagining most of the resurrected were in or around Camelot (where they died/were buried) and had to make their way to the lake on pure instinct (ft shenanigans of interacting with the general populace and witnessing Modern ThingsTM), and they congregated there with Arthur, and they all went off together on a quest to find Merlin in this strange world.
And now Merlin has to handle this somehow. All his friends and enemies and loves and regrets. Showed up. And they are NOT hip with the times. And he just magically transformed in front of a fuckton of people who he cannot explain this to. And now they think it's an elaborate prank but also it can't be a prank because how would you even orchestrate something like this? And yeah shenanigans.]
Thank you to this post for convincing me to post this from my drafts!
vaporwave
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
gracieabrams
gamechangershow
