merlin drabble: photograph
for @lost-nari, because of the meme prompts she sent me a lot of time ago (the others will come too don’t worry)
series: bbc merlin
pairing: merlin/arthur
AU-ish inspired by Damien? no antichrists included though
(photograph)
Arthur Pendragon is a photographer.
His job is to capture the moment and the emotion; to render eternal what is ethereal, to keep a slice of memory as something permanent without losing the most important thing, the so-called magic of a moment. It hides in the corner of an orphaned child's eye, in the weary slouch of an aged man's shoulders - a man who has saved a lot of lives, sacrificing his days and nights to work with the hurt and the dying -, in the flicker of a strand of a woman's hair as she walks down the street, proud and sure of herself in clicking high heels and red lipstick matched perfectly to a mane of lush black hair.
He plays with colors, and textures, with soft shadows on a model's nude body (the body of a fighter, Arthur thinks unwillingly, even if his model has never fought anyone safe a bar brawl); with small spaces and wide, where out of a huge stadium he focuses on the corner of a football player's smiling mouth as he is about to score a goal. With light and shadow and colour he recreates the smell of forget-me-nots tucked behind the eye of a girl he passes, her brown skin soft as silk and her eyes smiling at him as she slips a delicate hand into the arm of her boyfriend, tall and with an open, smiling face and his hair the most curious colour, not quite blonde and yet not red; with the voices of two friends that walk right behind the couple, one tall and strong to the other's more slender and short (and Arthur knows, he is her brother, but does not know why), linking arms as they walk into a bar for a pint.
Arthur Pendragon is a magician of light and shadow, of making the passing seem eternal, and yet his magic is halted to a stop as he lifts his camera on a busy street and a split second before he presses the shutter he sees the most perfect picture he knows he will ever encounter.
And Merlin just smiles and waves a little hello, blue eyes full of love and hope and past, present, future, and Arthur--
-- Arthur presses the shutter, though he knows this is the only thing he won't have to keep on a photograph to keep it forever.