For the wip ask game, i’m very intrigued by Kill Your Darlings 👀 tell me more
Thankyou so much for this ask ! <3
Kill Your Darlings - I'm just really fond of this one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Because the Merlin series finale was basically one giant crime against its fanbase (seriously, who does that 😭), I set out to write an Arthur-gets-reincarned fic, with a twist. That he must pass through multiple stages of reincarnation until he finally scrubs clean all his old karma and ultimately reaches human form, going all the way from a lower life form (dude starts out as a literal tree) progressing upwards through increasingly sentient and intelligent animals. This happens because Merlin decides to try and hurry along Arthur's prophesied second coming, and turns to the magic of the Eastern religions (drawing upon some Hindu and Buddhist beliefs regarding the cycles of life and rebirth and the gradual erasing of bad karma).
This is complete black comedy, because Merlin realises that the quicker Arthur dies in each reincarnation, the quicker he can progress upwards through the life stages. And the only one who knows enough to consistently and painlessly kill Arthur for his own good, is Merlin. (That's where the title comes from).
Merlin wrestles with the prospect of having to watch Arthur die again and again, by his own hand, and realises that he simply can't kill Arthur over and over again– which means he's now stuck caring for the prat, who is at various points of time: an acorn, a toad, a fish, and a bird, amongst other creatures.
Naturally, shenanigans ensue.
"Couldn't have been a dandelion, now could you ? Or a nice yellow daffodil, or a daisy ! Happy and pretty one season, and then dead come winter ! Or, or ! You could have been a juicy turnip, although we both know that adjective doesn't fit that particular piece of flora," Merlin wrinkled his nose, "or a big, fluffy cabbage, like I've been calling you all these years ! But oh no, you in all your soul's great dollopheaded wisdom, had to pick the one bit of vegetation which is a symbol of longevity !" Merlin grunted as he dug the soft earth.
"Atleast if you'd been a carrot, I could've cooked you up in my stew," he tells the acorn mournfully. (Merlin would never admit it to Arthur's scaly acorn face, but he's secretly glad that Arthur is not, ultimately, a carrot, or a turnip, or a cabbage, for that matter. He wouldn't have had the heart to cook him up after all, and the alternatives of either feeding Arthur to some lucky old donkey or leaving his friend to turn old and dry and mouldy would have been just sad.)
"I swear," Merlin tells Arthur the Acorn as he waters the planted patch of ground with Avalon lake water and sprinkles some nice, stinky fertilizer for Arthur's little seedy soul to snack on, "it's like you're overcompensating for dying young or something. Nothing to be embarrassed about really, the average lifespan was around thirty, and if one could pull that off, they had a pretty good chance of making it to fifty. Heaven knows Uther outlived his welcome," he muttered. "'Course, this was an average person mind you, and not a being of as profound prattishness and foolhardy heroics as your erstwhile majesty."
Merlin wipes his streaming eyes and sniffly nose on his sleeve. He tells himself it's just the mould dug up from planting Arthur.
