Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.pdf

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc (ÓAfter this, therefore because of this.Ô)

Title: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc (ÓAfter this, therefore because of this.Ô)

Author:

Author: Anonymous

Recipient:

derryere

Pairing(s)/Character(s):

derryere

Pairing(s)/Character(s): Merlin/Arthur, Arthur/OFC, Arthur/OMC, Gaius, Uther, Morgana, Gwen,

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Warnings:

Warnings: Underage porn that meets the age requirements in the UK. Action, violence, temporary

character death.

Spoilers:

Spoilers: Blink-and-youÔll-miss-it-spoiler for 2x08, general spoilers for season two.

Rating:

Rating: NC-17

Word Count:

Word Count: 95,000 (wait, you mean this WASNÔT the sign up to do a Big Bang fic!?)

Summary:

Summary: History books would not remember GaiusÔ death precipitating the greatest war Albion

had ever seen. That blame lay entirely with an inexperienced sorcerer and the Prince whom heÔd

betrayed a hundred times over. Future!fic with a time travel twist. Inspired and loosely based on The

Sword in the Stone.

Auth

or's Note: If the length of this fic represents how much I love you derryere, then I must be in the

running as your #1 stalker :D Thank you mods for putting together this wonderful project, and for

your patience with my psychomaniac writing habits. And last but not least, my firstborn goes to J for

being an awesome beta and a supportive ear, for actually finding some redeeming nuggets of plot

among all of my ramblings, and for not killing me when I did a complete 180 on this whole

assignment. YouÔre a better person than I am, thatÔs for sure. Wikipedia was my VERY good friend

during the writing of this story, along with NyxieÔs guide to Old English, plus all the awesome vid-

makers out there that gave me something to watch when I needed inspiration. Did I also mention

this is my first Merlin fic? WHAT A WAY TO BREAK GROUND.

Disclaimer:

or's Note:

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction Ï none of this ever happened. No copyright infringement is

intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-

limit and content of this work.

(Part I)

The great hall of the abandoned church was perpetually damp and susceptible to the northern

winds that were coming through with a fiercer arctic chill the closer it drew to the end of the season.

Great pieces of the roof were missing (wonderful for viewing the stars at night, less so while it was

raining), sections of the walls were crumbling from time and weather, and Merlin often had

difficulty keeping candles alight in the vast room even with the use of magic. A raised dais had been

erected in the center of the main chamber, and Merlin well remembered how difficult it had been to

levitate the slab of granite through one of the holes in the western wall, which was no doubt to

blame for why it was larger now than it had been before heÔd begun redecorating. Upon the stone

platform heÔd erected a crude but sturdy stone archway big enough for a man to pass through; yet

another feat only magic had made possible (how the Romans had built them by hand, Merlin

couldnÔt fathom to guess), and over the past ten months the plain columns had acquired a twisting

design of runic markings, some carved and some painted on the unblemished stone.

It was a bit of a crowning achievement for Merlin, who up until a few years ago hadnÔt seen a single

rune in his life, let alone known of spells that could be spoken as well as written to give them power.

How greatly the wizards of old, in their dusty tomes and the ancient spellbooks heÔd studied

extensively, had underestimated the determination of a man in MerlinÔs position. How soon the

Title:

Author:

Recipient: derryere

Recipient:

Pairing(s)/Character(s):

Warnings:

Spoilers:

Rating:

Word Count:

Summary:

Auth

Author's Note:

Disclaimer:

impossible had become something that could be experimented with, manipulated, checked and

verified and repeated and adapted to progressively more complicated trials (and there was GaiusÔ

influence upon his work), until it had occurred to Merlin quite suddenly one night that heÔd

somehow surpassed his predecessors in both ability and ingenuity, and he was not yet twenty-four

winters this year.

The preparations for his final spell were nearly complete, and Merlin was having a fit of the nerves.

Of course heÔd checked and rechecked everything thrice over already, thrown a few more things

through the arch just to reassure himself that he wouldnÔt come out deformed and possibly dead on

the other side, which had included one very indignant owl that hadnÔt taken kindly to being awoken

so early in the day. But working obsessively over the past year with as few interruptions as possible

seemed to have paid off, and Archimedes only hooted stiffly at him when heÔd reappeared on the

other side, flying off to sleep on one of the rafters of the great hall. Merlin had barred himself from

the hall afterwards, deciding to spontaneously clean the chambers heÔd claimed after taking refuge

in the abandoned church (by hand, no less!), transport every spare scrap of food heÔd had left to

some poor farmerÔs cottage near CamelotÔs borders (with magic, that time), and go over his limited

wardrobe with the kind of critical eye heÔd not had reason to employ for several years, when

appearances had been an important part of everyday life while living at court.

During his search heÔd found a dark smear of dried blood at the hem of his only set of robes, one of

his shirts had been attacked by a rat and was sporting holes along the neck and under the arms, and

his favorite pair of trousers had split the seam along the inner thigh. Merlin was beginning to regret

his careless attitude toward things like having proper fitting clothes or trimming his hair more than

once every six months, especially when appearances would be everything from this point on, down

to the last intact thread on his tunic and the gray hairs he planned to glamour at his temple. Of

course all were easy fixes, simple spells that didnÔt even need words for him to wave his hand and

return the clothing to their normal state. His boots were old but still fit well, and heÔd replaced the

heel not half a year earlier. His neckerchiefs were long gone, absent in favor of the high collared

robe heÔd been gifted by the druids, a symbol of their good-will toward the sorcerer, and it had

survived all of the fighting remarkably intact. Merlin knew that there could be no fault, no detail

unchecked, and certainly no stains soaked into the hem of his clothing; blood, dirt or otherwise.

The blood was not new, and for a brief time that morning it had rested uneasily on MerlinÔs mind

that it had taken him so long to take notice of it. HeÔd been wrapped up in his research to the point

of ignoring the outside world and the kind of personal hygiene that heÔd grown used to taking for

granted (but had still been an adopted habit, one that years spent in the service of a fastidious prince

had wormed into his daily life) . It had been well over a month since heÔd last been in battle against

CamelotÔs forces, a full turn of the moon heÔd been carrying around the blood of some fallen soldier

like a badge of war. It said much for his current state of mind that he was only grateful that heÔd

caught it before his journey, when a year ago, three years ago, such a thing would have turned him

sick at the sight of the reminder of battles gone past.

Merlin had come to the realization a long time ago that out of everyone in this bloody and senseless

war he was probably one of the few, if not the only one, to have any hope left. It was easy to

sympathize with the despair and the anger felt by those that followed the Old Religion, but equally

easy to understand the fear felt by those that marched under the flag of Camelot when did they did

not comprehend the invisible forces they were fighting. And maybe that made him able to stand

outside of the conflict, even if he was one of the few present on the battlefield every time their forces

came to clash Ï heÔd often hoped that it gave him the ability to search for solutions when others

were only devising the next way to destroy the enemy.

There was something to be said for what self-imposed isolation did for his concentration, despite

what rumors it generated of his eccentricity among his allies. Merlin thought heÔd heard them all:

that he sacrificed the blood of virgin women on an altar of brocade and black velvet, that heÔd gone

mad with grief and locked himself away in the churchÔs deepest basement, that heÔd disfigured

himself so horribly in a spell gone wrong that he couldnÔt bear to face the outside world (never mind

that people still saw him, rarely yes, but not to the extent to earn him that kind of gossip), and there

were always those who seemed content to defend his isolation, perhaps hoping that in his absence

he was devising the next great tool in the war, a terrible weapon or a way to defeat the enemy in one

swift blow. In a way the latter were correct, though Merlin was sure that his unconventional

solution would not be well accepted, not when so many were entrenched in the routine of battle and

beating each other bloody and senseless.

It was pure happenstance that heÔd chanced upon the decrepit church almost a year ago, following a

lark and an interesting leyline that heÔd been curious to find out the source of (it also conveniently

took him in the opposite direction of the war council heÔd been ordered to attend). He hadnÔt

minded the lack of a roof in many places or the broken mortar and loose stones that carried the

great and real risk of tumbling loose upon his head, and the place held a certain kind of charm, cold

and old and lonely as it was. Merlin hadnÔt been able to help feeling a deep affinity for the decrepit

ruin and its state of collapsed walls and tumbled towers. Until that point, short of making his camp

on the Isle of the Blessed (already the site of too many skirmishes, ground so blood-soaked and thick

with death that it was a far more appropriate place for the dark magic of necromancy now), the

lines that ran under the ruins were the richest Merlin had found for harnessing the magic of the Old

Religion. It was the perfect place for a warlock to conduct his research.

Merlin had spent a long time pondering the problem of the conflict, for years after all-out war was

declared between Camelot and the supporters of the Old Religion, and in all honesty heÔd probably

begun even before that as well. Things had been strained for months before heÔd fled Camelot,

tension escalating between Uther and the sudden resurgence of magic aimed at toppling him off his

throne and taking the kingdom with it, and the attacks had increased with a rapidity that implied

something more cunning and more organized was at work. At its worst, Merlin felt like a week

couldnÔt go by without someone or something attempting to cause mischief in Camelot, and those

ranged from the kind of annoying spells that might cause the entire court to behave like five year old

children, or to violent attempts on both Uther and ArthurÔs lives that Merlin had been forced to step

in and prevent at the last second with greater and greater risk of exposing his own secret.

It was inevitable, really, that he would be discovered eventually.

The fall out of that event had been horrible, and on reflection Merlin knew that heÔd never truly

realized just how far the extent of retribution would extend once the truth of his identity became

known. He hadnÔt run far away, stupidly, not at first, some part of him still hopeful that things

would turn out better than GaiusÔ dire predictions and warnings, that Uther might be more

reasonable in the light of Merlin having saved ArthurÔs life yet again, that Arthur would accept

Merlin and his magic and the deeds he had done in the princeÔs name.

But nothing had turned out all right. Gaius had been arrested and tried for harboring a magic user,

for allowing a sorcerer to enter UtherÔs court and practice his forbidden art right under the kingÔs

nose. GaiusÔ quarters were ransacked, his property confiscated, and upon the same pyre that fell all

of the old physicianÔs worldly possessions, careworn books and carefully collected medicines and

precious keepsakes, the man was lashed to a stake and burned in the central courtyard for all of

Camelot to witness. Merlin, hiding in the nearby woods and trying to avoid capture, had only risked

returning to the city after seeing the column of ominous smoke rising from the castle, drawn by a

numb pain in his breastbone that left no room to speculate or fear for the worst. It seemed

appropriate that a sudden storm had blanketed the castle and surrounding town that night,

releasing a deluge that turned the streets to muddy rivers and washed clear every bit of soot that still

stained the flagstone courtyard.

History books would not remember GaiusÔ death precipitating the greatest war Albion had ever seen.

That blame lay entirely with an inexperienced sorcerer and the Prince whom heÔd betrayed a

hundred times over. That fateful night, while rain sheeted with ferocious grief against CamelotÔs

glass windows, Merlin had snuck into ArthurÔs chambers, soaking wet and torn from the inside,

hoping to find solace with the man heÔd come to consider a friend. A man who had looked upon

Merlin with such cold hate that Merlin had known, knew immediately then and there that as deeply

as heÔd loved Arthur and been loyal to him, the exposure of the truth had destroyed them in a way

he could not have foreseen. Arthur had changed like a sudden glacial wind, bittered by the betrayal

of his trust in Merlin, twisted by the lies Merlin had told with good intentions while unaware of how

much they were damning his own cause. And therein lay MerlinÔs greatest guilt, that in his blind

fumbling and awkward missteps through court life and attempting to save ArthurÔs life, that heÔd

naively thought that Arthur could grow up with Uther as a father and in that castle and with that

much malevolent magic around him and not come to hate magic.

Arthur had drawn a sword on him that horrible night, his rage and his pain so clear on his face that

Merlin had stood dumbly by, numb with shock, not even flinching as the sword arced through the

air. He still bore the scar of that encounter, a long thin line that traveled from his shoulder down his

arm, not a killing blow but perhaps only so because Arthur was too blind with fury to aim clearly

for MerlinÔs head. Merlin hadnÔt stuck around to find out, and heÔd disappeared as quickly as

possible into the night, bleeding and cold and sick with the knowledge thatÔd lost his purpose, his

friends, and nearly everything he cared for in the world.

They were dark memories of a time when Merlin had been nave enough to dismiss the

consequences of his actions, had been ignorant enough to think that he was saving a kingdom from

ruin each time he nodded and held his tongue when magic was proclaimed to be manipulative and

the root of evil. HeÔd thought he was saving Arthur by preventing him from killing his father in cold

blood, by swearing on his life that Arthur had been wrong to trust magic, to question his fatherÔs

beliefs. Whatever tolerance and faint hope of battling prejudice Arthur had fostered on his own,

they had been swept away by MerlinÔs own actions, stamped down and snuffed out by his silence

and the trust heÔd abused each time heÔd shied away from the truth. And in just two years at ArthurÔs

side, Merlin had successfully sown the seeds of hate and mistrust that his father had failed to do for

all of the twenty years prior.

It was his most bitter regret, and the guilt that had always gnawed away at him little by little had

transformed into an all-consuming remorse, a hollow ache that grew ever larger the more he saw

the world around him suffer for his actions. With every battle fought, every life lost, every village

razed for attempting to protect one of its own, every solider that fell and every suspect child that was

ripped from its motherÔs skirts, Merlin knew that he had failed in his destiny, and that the cost of

that failure was higher than any price heÔd been prepared to pay. And perhaps the shame had made

him desperate, had given him a reason to look beyond conventional spells or battle tactics, but

Merlin had realized somewhere along the way that the fault was his to correct, and that the world

would be broken if he did not act to change its fate.

The war that would come to be waged between Camelot and the supporters of the Old Religion had

not begun immediately after MerlinÔs departure, but Merlin only knew this because it was what he

was told by those that watched it unfold. Somehow, despite blood loss and no sense of direction, heÔd

managed to stumble into one of the Druid camps, half-dead and ill with grief. There heÔd spent

feverish nights battle his own demons, wishing he had died at ArthurÔs hand, sure that death would

be more merciful than living with the memory of GaiusÔ burning, of Arthur striking him down in

cold hate, of knowing that heÔd completely messed everything up. MerlinÔs depression had made his

road to mending that much longer and more difficult, and in retrospect the DruidÔs willingness to

leave him to his own recovery became clear when heÔd realized how completely their attention had

been diverted elsewhere.

Merlin doesnÔt know exactly when it begun, but sometime between his escape from Camelot and

healing from his wound, the armies of Uther Pendragon, led by the Prince Arthur, had begun to

mobilize once more, marching on villages and through forest encampments, searching ruthlessly for

any signs of magic, of anyone suspicious of having ties to the old ways or harboring sympathies for

sorcerers and witches. It was one of the worst kept secrets that the Druids had established scattered

camps in the forests of Ascetir, and Merlin only has hazy memories of being transported abruptly

and frequently with the rest of the camp as they fled farther into the forest, dodging the persistent

hunting parties of soldiers bent on finding their whereabouts.

There had been lots of narrow misses in the beginning, the Druids relying more on their intimate

knowledge of the forest and their ability to disappear within it, rather than turning their magic on

the soldiers to defend themselves. It had been nearly two decades since UtherÔs last purge, and no

one seemed to want to believe that this was a repeat of the most terrible period in their history; that

another massacre could be happening so soon after hundreds, thousands of lives had already been

lost. But the confrontations grew more frequent, more dangerous, and when Merlin was well

enough to lend his aid he did what he could, caught up in the same thrall of fear and confusion that

kept them on the run and up through restless nights. His instinctual magic was nothing like what

the Druids were familiar with, and rather than turning to fight, Merlin employed his abilities to

breaking down the camp in a matter of seconds, to creating fog banks that obscured their trail and

distracted their pursuers, and locating safe shelters for the refugees as they were chased across the

mountainside. He became a pariah, a mysterious power in their midst that earned him respect and

maybe even a little fear, looked to for guidance and yet clearly not one of their own. Those who

knew he came from Camelot gave him wide berth, and those that didnÔt seemed to wonder why he

did not use his magic to fight, to decide the battle and end their terror.

Merlin hadnÔt asked or wanted to be a leader of any sort, too depressed to do little more than give his

magic free reign to help speed their escapes, too shaken by the events that had forced him to leave

Camelot in the first place. HeÔd shied away from any efforts they might have made to beseech his

help to a greater degree, and several times had even contemplated abandoning the camp to give

their pursuers a more interesting trail to follow without risking the lives of the peaceful druids. It

was sorely belated when he finally realized that the trackers that were chasing them were not solely

after Merlin, but part of a much larger force that was sweeping across Albion with the intent to

purge and destroy.

It happened quite suddenly, the change from being part of a group on the run to being part of an

organized army sworn to stand in opposition against King Uther and Prince ArthurÔs plans for

genocide. TheyÔd been running for weeks when the messenger came, a druid under the cover of

darkness covered in tribal tattoos that mapped his loyalty for all to see. He told them of the atrocities

being wrought across the kingdom, how the number of dead were rising rapidly, how those who

used magic, those who were suspected, and those who only wanted to protect their loved ones were

being murdered alike. He told them of a meeting place and of a leader that was urging every camp,

every tribe and every magic user to come to his side and aide him in battle.

TheyÔd gone of course, Merlin tagging along more for lack of anywhere else to go. He was magic, as

they all were, but the truth was that his loyalties still sat with the man who wanted him dead. Merlin

felt more personal guilt for each death than anyone else, but pledging to fight against Arthur, to

standing opposite from him on the field of battle, to aiding in plotting the downfall of Camelot and

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