Reactions of the many!

“Magic is abhorrent!” The King screamed.

And Merlin, now a dragon, simply stared back.

“And so are you, tyrant King. But the truth far more harsher than our words, sire.” The dragon bowed with a certain sarcasm and certainly didn’t wait for the kings reply before continuing. “If you had not killed all that could have helped you then you wouldn't need to ask a dragon of all things for help, would you? And yet, ironically, here you still come, asking for something you do not deserve. Expecting something that you have deluded yourself into thinking is completely evil. Magic is a tool that some people use for evil, but we wouldn’t be having this conversation over a sword, would we?”

He wasn’t happy.

No, wait, that wasn’t it. No. Though, he still had a problem, and he wasn’t happy. But they were two separate issues.

Was it because he was a sorcerer living in Camelot — a place where if your sneeze somehow sounded magical — you burned? Or was it that he saved the life of a prat with that very magic, who happened to be an arrogant ass of a prince and the son of King Urthur?

No? Huh, he was sure that was it. Merlin huffed at that, rolling his eyes in disdain — even if that wasn’t it — it was still a problem.

A puff of smoke escaped then, and he looked at it like it had burned his very soul.

He wasn’t an idiot — despite what Arthur said — he already knew the answer.

He’s had been turned into a fucking dragon. A dragon who was now trapped and hidden in a space too damn small for a horse, let alone a large winged lizard on ancient magic. But at least the bastard who did if had been kind enough to included horns, fangs and talons.

He was a fully fledged dragon who still had the ability to talk. Shit. This wasn’t going to end well.

Part 1/Edit1 - WIP

Prompt: When Dogmeat becomes old and cannot travel he waits for the Sole Survivor; one day Sole comes home to find Dogmeat is gone OR The Sole Survivor is missing and Dogmeat waits for a friend who is never coming home.

Recommend reading while listening to this.

Spoiler alert: both were hard to write. Love our good boy. ❤️‍🩹

I loved this game growning up, despite knowing it has many flaws. But I like it enough to ask, after replaying it recently. (I have no idea if there is even a fandom for this game) but I’m curious if anyone can answer this statement:

Warning: I know it’s an old game, but spoilers are below!

Prologue:

Are Silent Goodbyes Heard? 

“There’s a limit to how strong you can be, everyone breaks when it comes to isolation because no one is stronger than loneliness, it breaks you beyond repair." - Unknown.

In a water soaked room, cold and alone, the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 writes quickly onto a crumpled bit of paper. She struggles as the pencil is on the verge of breaking, found abandoned like everything else she uses. She tries her best to continue regardless: she breathes heavily with a hint of frustration. For this crumbling soul knows it is so hard to concentrate when you're constantly on guard. Losing track of the simplest of thoughts due the instinct of waiting for trouble to just suddenly appear. It's frightening and it is endless. But it was what life has become for so many.

As goodbyes go - this one was silent - and it was pathetic. But there was nothing else she could do. Her husband was long dead, her son missing for god knows how long. It was all too late. Maybe God did know and if He did, He wasn’t there. Maybe He never was to being with.

She couldn’t possibly know that. She couldn’t possibly blame that on God, nor was humanity without blame. They were blind - their suffering - their own design. God had not pressed the “big red button” after all. Yet were all born after deserving of such pain? Was she? 

If it is not for food then it is for something as basic as water, and it is all so real. Then, after a while, all that could be heard is a silence that could make anyone look up into the darkness and wonder what they had done. In its truth form it is sickening. The sudden quiet haunting the consciences of even the cruellest and most uncaring of people. It creeps through the darkest of places, echoing louder than any mother’s choked sobs for her dying child ever could. There is no warmth as a mother holds her children anymore, just a disturbed comfort. Only anguish; only ever their own silent goodbye’s. 

The old world was all a dream… It was irrelevant - a dream that people now believe needed to be forgotten. The once great dream of this world is forever broken. Dead. The mistakes of the old world were horrific as long as there were survivors around to remember them; and now, the consequences are all too real. 

But truthfully, that world hadn't been so great.

Jealousy would have been the first thing on the Sole Survivors mind, but did they really want to go back for anything other than a husband and a child?

Of course. No hesitation - but even they’d had their problems. Nothing was perfect. 

But it would only be justified if she were not here sharing the exact same reality as every other person left, no matter how. The only difference was that she shouldn't be here. And not just here - but here, as in now. And that's the difference, isn't it. Knowing the world she does now, it almost cripples the soul of any form of hope. Knowing what once was… it’s heartbreaking. But who would believe her? What once was - it was a dream world; forged by corruption and greed. And it finally cracked under the weight of it. 

They’ll never know. They will never feel envy for what they cannot wish for.

I need to forget what I once wished for.

A sudden gut churning bang echoes through the silence, making her jump.

Eyes wide. Now alert, she stood up from his temporary seat. Almost forgetting about her note. Maybe she really did want to forget. Saying goodbye - she never wanted to. It wasn’t just for a world she grew up in, or a husband who fought for that world; it was everything - her whole life.

She couldn’t blame it on an unknown noise either. But the unknown now had her full attention. Gun now in hand; pointing at the source. So many unanswered questions that require her to open the door on the far end of the room. But something seized up her fearless mind and it plagued her heart with enough to make her stop. She had to check his clip, she remembered, and she did, if only for a moment. Her vision of the door blurred at that moment. She panicked and looked back, but it had been enough time to count. Only two left. that voice told her. But her eyes were glued to the source of the noise again; afraid that his distraction would make her too late to react. What if it was Fearls again?! Please… not again. The sole survivor swallowed thickly; her eyes tired and uneasy.

She waited for a second bang but nothing came of it. After what seemed like a lifetime, she lowered her stance a little, slowly sitting back down - but never taking her eyes off that door - the gun now rested upon her shaking knee. Her whole body was now shaking from the tiredness of constant adrenaline.

She could hear his heart pounding in the now uneven silence, reminding her she was still alive. That was something at least. In the grand scheme of things however, it was nothing. 

It’s two more bullets than yesterday. But that didn’t help her festering anxiety. Her chest rose and fell faster than it should. It was bruised from a recent injury and so her breaths were short, pained. 

Maybe there’s nothing there after all... And yet, she knew better than most that wasn’t a good enough excuse to let her guard down. And yet she also knew that the imagination could run wild in conditions like this. It just couldn’t decide what side it was on; coming at the wrong possible times and then failing her at the times she needed it the most.

After nuclear war… the possibilities were endless. Anything could come through that door, at any time. She needed a disration - company - trust. Yet all she had was a drip of water that fell onto the water soaked floor. Its splashing sound on contact was the only thing that could be heard between her uneven breaths. It was like a clock, every few seconds it would happen again. It didn't help the already crude tension, and if the sole survivor looked for a source, she didn’t find none.

She finally let her guard down, and her anxiety did eventually begin to ease. But it would never leave her mind truly alone. It wasn’t just because she was paranoid - it was about survival. As brave as she tried to be - it all came down to not wanting to die. She was alone in a dark, abandoned house. There were of course worse places to die but this wasn’t how she planned to go out. 

Maybe, that's what it was all about. She was a woman out of time - she wasn’t supposed to be here at all - let alone die here. She should have died centuries ago. In a bed maybe, surrounded by a loving family in some home or, at the very least, a normal vault with no cryo pods - with her husband and son. Not alone in some long dead, empty home that had long ago stopped being a home.

But if she was to have a choice in the matter she would damn well fight for it, even now.

Another sound echoed from somewhere deep in the house and she knew she needed to leave soon. The noise wasn’t the only problem: the dampness had embedded itself into the old, unprotected decrepit floorboards and walls and the smell was almost unbearable. So she quickly went back to his note, remembering its importance Picking the pencil back up; knowing her time was short. No more time for stalling goodbyes anymore. And although she should have done this months ago, this was the best she could do.

She quickly scribbled at the bottom: I was once known as a wife and a mother, and I write this for the person I will become, for the man I once loved, because he deserved the world. --- Goodbye Nate. I may become a different woman; a woman you cannot love and maybe, I already was that. I never had the heart to ask. 

I say this here and now - forever written - incase I never find that courage, because you deserve better. You don’t deserve to be forgotten. 

Once finished, she looked around - weary. Still tired; and extremely cold. The full weight of those words rested upon her shoulders. Guilt trickled from within and it gripped itself around her throat and chest. She now had a decision to make. But she was frightened she would never be able to let go… . Regardless of her feelings towards it, it was time for their final goodbye. There would never be time for another. She wished for a happier one.

Goodbye, my love. 

She then left. She didn’t even look back at what she’d left behind. 

Left on that table was all that remained of his old world: a holotag, a wedding ring and her final goodbye to the man she had to leave behind… Their goodbye, like so many others, had been silent. Forced. Unfair.

For the third time in three days Shepherd was asleep in the co-pilot's chair, still refusing to sleep in the far more “comfortable” loft quarters Cerberus had built for her. Her head rested against its arm rest, her body uncomfortably bent to accomplish this. Though she seemed too out of it to care.

This was the only place this happened—feeling nowhere else was safe enough to sleep, trusting no one other than the pilot next to her to keep her safe in this now all Cerberus crew. She’d said so herself and even now Joker still felt the tightness in his chest from her rare admission.

Because even though he’d got her killed, she still trusted him like that? It made no fucking sense to him, and his snarky humour surfaced quickly. It was the only thing he could think of doing, because Shepherd didn’t need to hear about his stupid feelings.

And yeah, he’d noticed the hurt in her eyes, even though it was gone in an instant. He couldn’t stop seeing it either. And a part of him was so close to just telling her everything from the last two years—just so the regret would go away.

Yeah, I’m already enough of a fucking asshole thank you very much, he reminded himself, like he needed to.

They recovered quickly, they always had and now it was clear they probably always would. That was evident when she still walked over to the chair next to him, curling up against the leather seat, facing him.

They just talked until the pull of sleep was too much to bear, even for her, and he let her go.

And her pilots’ actions betrayed his words, because there he stayed—closing the cockpit off—shielding her from the universes’ bullshit when she was too tired to do it herself.

And for him, it allowed him to show her what his words could not, that he was fucking worried—that he loved her. He had never loved anything more than this insane woman that lay next to him, that's for sure.

He'd never tell her. He didn’t deserve that kind of happiness, like she’d ever feel the same.

Alright, he didn’t want that kind of rejection either. He didn’t know which was worse if he was being honest. So this moment simply allowed him to be grateful for the silence; grateful for her company after two years of wanting nothing more.

Grateful he didn’t have to make a deal with death just to see her again.

Long after putting his blanket over her sleeping form and ordering the AI to stay quiet did he allow himself to return to the Normandy’s console. If she trusted only him, then he’d keep anyone but Dr. Chakwas away.