this fandom is a prison
This is why I always envision Merlin becoming a talented artist in the long wait for Arthur to return. Not because he's got a genuine interest in art to begin with or wants to pursue it as a profession (if he's got a job it's doctor or historian) but because he realises he's gonna forget Arthur's face, forget the faces of everyone for Camelot eventually, so he starts drawing them from memory over and over to stop himself forgetting. And he seeks out training so he can better capture their likeness, understand how to capture the bone structure under the skin, closing his eyes and remembering the way Arthur's face felt under his hands, the way it caught the light. It becomes more important once Arthurian art becomes more of a thing, depictions of Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot that aren't true, aren't his versions, and he's terrified that they will get muddled in and confuse his real memories so he just keeps drawing and painting their faces like he can carve the memories into his soul and never forget. He sometimes wakes up in the night terrified that Arthur might return and he won't even recognise him, and he'll go and draw and paint and compare all the versions he's done before until the sun is up. When Arthur finally returns none of the people in Merlin's life think his behaviour is all that strange, no one questions why Merlin is so intense about this guy they've never met before, because this isn't some stranger Merlin has just met, this is his muse, this is the guy who's been staring in Merlin's art for as long as they've known him. There's obviously history there, even if they don't know the details. They all know Arthur on sight, because they've seen Merlin's art, they know without being told this is Merlin's Arthur.
