of myth and magic

The clematis blooms had nearly consumed Merlin's throat when he returned to Arthur's chambers. Petals soft like velvet, purple-red when Merlin coughed them into his scarf. He didn't speak when he entered, but Arthur was long used to Merlin not formally announcing his presence.

Arthur's shoulders were hunched at his desk where he sat veritably buried in parchment. "Is all ready for Princess Lynette's arrival?" His eyes flickered up, satisfied by Merlin's shaky nod. "Good. It's important our kingdom be presented well. Her support as an ally is the stability Camelot needs. Especially…"

Arthur didn't finish the sentence, but Merlin did in his mind. Especially after Camelot was thrown upside down in the effort to legalize magic. An effort Arthur was forced to undertake to save Merlin from the axe.

Everything that was happening was Merlin's fault, and he could never forget it.

Arthur stood and began pacing around the room. "I don't want to show her the armory first. Sends a bad sign. Perhaps the gardens? No, that's too leisurely, she'll think me idle. What about…."

The heady fragrance of flowers was all Merlin could sense, in his nose, in his lips, in his throat. Twinning vines that curled their way up his diaphragm, growing taller every time the princess' arrival was discussed.

"Merlin?"

Merlin startled. Arthur looked at him, but trying to guess at the expression on his face was like peering through stained glass. “Are you alright?”

Merlin forced a reed-thin voice out through the petals. “Fine.”

The furrow in Arthur’s brow carved deeper. “I… I know things have been changing. But you’ve seemed amiss ever since we began preparing for Lynette’s arrival.” Arthur hesitated. “Is… is there something you wish to tell me?”

Want me. Choose me. Love me. 

But in the end the flowers did not choke Merlin, his own cowardice did. He shook his head. “Nothing, sire.” 

Arthur’s face dropped like a stone cast in the water, but he turned away before Merlin could watch the ripples left in its wake. “Very well. You are dismissed.” 

a special thanks to @haloud for helping put together this plot bunny

tw: off-screen attempted sexual assault

It was with no small amount of satisfaction that Arthur returned from Whitespire two days earlier than expected. The assignment to check on Camelot's northernmost outpost mid-January had been a punishment in all but name, and Arthur was happy to have it over with. All for daring to suggest during a council meeting that if Camelot's knights raided their subjects' homes searching for evidence of sorcery and found none, perhaps they could compensate the damage to property and means of livelihood. Mouths were fed with spinning wheels and yokes, after all. And when Arthur had dared argue the point instead of silencing at the first sign of his father's displeasure, well. He was shortly ordered thereafter to ride out to Whitespire, and anyone he took along would be punished as if they had directly defied the king.

But now that was past him and Arthur sighed with exhaustion as he entered his chambers, not caring that he tracked sleet inside. His cloak was soaked, his fingers numb from the winter storm that raged outside. Just short of a blizzard, but not by much.

A sharp bang made Arthur jump, and he turned to see Merlin burst into his chambers and close the door quickly behind him. Excellent, this saved Arthur the trouble of finding him. Merlin made the best fires, with the kind of warmth that filled the entire room, and if Arthur was lucky he could convince Merlin to indulge with him in a different kind of warmth as well. "Perfect timing Merlin, I'm freezing—"

Merlin startled like a frightened rabbit. He spun and pressed himself against the door, fingers splayed flat against the wood. His lips parted, but no sound came out save breathless pants.

Arthur took him in. His tunic was wrinkled, torn along the neckline, and the scrap of fabric Merlin called a neckerchief was conspicuously absent. On that pale neck Arthur saw a mark of familiar red, for he knew all too well the way Merlin's skin quickly turned pink when laved at with lips and teeth. But the most damning evidence was the way Merlin's wide eyes trembled with a fear Arthur had never seen him bear before.

His blood turned as cold as the howling winds outside.

And it also doesn't make logistical sense, because we see Rieka whipped as a child for showing fear that she'll be hurt (circular), so clearly children aren't exempt from the Code. Are babies? If a two year old Scorpio falls and scrapes their knee, are they executed if they start crying? Also, does no one realize that not displaying emotion is not the same thing as not feeling emotion, which seems to be the important element here to using Zodiac Turning powers? You'd think that the neurodivergent author who intended the Code in part as a commentary on neurodiversity would get that!!!!

All of this to say that I am so fascinated with why Milo insists on having the Code in his book, when it clearly creates more problems than it solves. I think it's because he clearly wants to write a story about a person being silenced and oppressed, and their expression of emotion is where they derive power (see all his tags about this is a book about female rage, oppressive religious governments, and neurodivergency). Which sure, that's a common relatable premise. But then Scorpios should be the lowest class, not the fucking leaders!!! Scorpios should be feared for their potential of Zodiac Turning and strictly regulated and oppressed because of it!

(Not to mention that still doesn't solve the problems of how are you supposed to stop people from feeling emotions entirely, not just not expressing them... maybe if Scorpios were constantly medicated or sedated? Maybe their power is not sourced from feeling emotions, but a certain language or ritual that was stolen from them? But no, then it couldn't be about hashtag female rage.)

so like maybe i am just missing something major but i do not understand the resistance to the idea that all the dark worlds were created by kris??? like post chapter five with asgore's monologue people seem to be jumping to really convoluted theories, wheras i think toby meant for us to understand it quite simply:

we know kris created the chapter 3, 4, and 5 dark worlds, we see them do it. we don't see kris create the chapter 2 dark world, but they sure do leave in the middle of the night to do something with their knife.

i think the vital piece of information comes from chapter 4, where for the first time we see confirmed someone else make a dark world: susie. her dark world has a different color palette than kris', and ralsei explains that dark worlds take on the intent of their creator (or something along those lines-- i couldn't find the exact phrasing while writing this post, so if someone could please drop it i'd be much obliged)

but apart from susie's dark world, every single dark world has had a consistent color palette for the gang's main outfits. making it look visually different for susie's i think is pointing us directly to the fact that all the other dark worlds have been made by the same person.

part one ︱part two

The shrill scream of Arthur's ringtone woke him up. He was still half-blind with sleep when he reached over and fumbled for his phone. "Hello?"

"Arthur?" The whisper was high, breathy. "S-sorry, I— I forgot what time it was, I d-didn't want to wake you, sorry—"

Arthur blinked, yanking the phone away from his ear to check the contact name. He remembered, now, there was only one person's contact that would ring through at all hours. Lit up underneath the numbers reading 2:27 AM, was Merlin.

Adrenaline shot through Arthur, chasing away all fatigue. "What's wrong? Where are you?"

Like instinct, so many terrible visions shot through Arthur's mind. Merlin, trapped on some clandestine mission and bleeding out from an injury, Merlin, about to walk into a fatal operation he had been ordered to undertake, Merlin, hurt so horrifically that he could do nothing but call out for help—

"I-I'm at my flat," Merlin said. "I'm fine. I just- it just won't stop— it won't stop it won't go away I don't know what to do—"

"Baby, you're not making any sense," Arthur quickly said, fighting to keep his voice even and calm. He was already to his feet, mindlessly throwing the light on, grabbing whatever clothes he could find. "Breathe for me, tell me what's wrong."

Merlin's spoke next in a rush, like he was forcing everything out on the same exhale. "I just needed it so bad it's been so loud in my head, so loud, and I know you asked for space and I didn't want to bother you so I couldn't— but Gwaine said it wouldn't be wrong— that you said we were taking a break— and it just wouldn't stop, and I just wanted, not to be with someone, just to submit, to make all the noise stop. So I-I— I went back to Knights."

A cold chill twisted in Arthur's stomach as he took in Merlin's words. Merlin had done a scene with someone. But Arthur knew he had no right to the way those words made him feel ill, for he was the one that said he did not know if he could continue this path with Merlin, that he couldn't face being around someone that had lied to him so completely. That he would reach out when he was ready to see Merlin, not the other way around.

And, most cruelly, when Arthur felt sick with fear from the depth of the deception, what he had seen Merlin do, that Merlin should not wait for him.

But none of that mattered now. Merlin had done a scene with someone else, and now he was calling Arthur in the middle of the night, voice trembling with panic. Arthur's free hand curled into a fist. "Did they hurt you? Did you safeword?"

Arthur knew Knights prided itself on high standards and a zero-tolerance policy, but he still wasn't able to relax until the next words tumbled from Merlin. "N-no, no, I didn't, he did. I t-told him to keep going, but," Merlin's voice hitched. "He said he could tell I wasn't into it. Gave me his number and told me to call him to figure something out that worked for the both of us."

Arthur ignored the sick twist of his gut at the knowledge that Merlin had caught the attention of a dom who was clearly interested. Merlin's strangled sentences, his trembling voice, all of that spoke to a drop. But why was he alone if he had done a scene, why was he dropping so horribly— "Did he give you any aftercare?"

A pause. Then quieter, because even in this state Merlin knew he had broken the rules. "I didn't let him."

Arthur couldn't hold back his curse, and then a second later he heard Merlin let out another sob. "I'm sorry— I know— but I couldn't— I didn't want him, just you—"

"It's okay," Arthur quickly soothed. "It's okay."

He dragged a hand over his face. Merlin had called him, Merlin wanted no one but him, Merlin needed him. Against the totality of it all, Arthur found that he could not give a fuck that Merlin had lied to him.

"Baby, I'm going to come over now, alright?" Arthur said, gentle. "If you don't want me to, I need you to tell me. Take a breath and think about it for a moment."

He heard Merlin's shuddered breath, uneven, but deep. Arthur waited, chest aching with pride that Merlin still trusted him enough to listen, even now. His heart hammered as he waited for Merlin's response.

"…please," Merlin whispered.

part 1 ︱part two

For all of Uther's lectures that Arthur was his sole heir to an energy empire and thus a prime candidate for a nine-figure ransom, Arthur had never taken his warnings seriously. Much less after the explosive fight last Christmas and subsequent loss of contact. Arthur had a job as a personal trainer, was going to school at nights to become a physical therapist, and the only indication of the exorbitant wealth that remained in his name were the quarterly trust statements that still reliably arrived via Royal Mail.

Fate was mocking Arthur. For his hubris, he now listened to his kidnappers consider if they should cut off his ear.

"Daddy still hasn't responded to the ransom request," one of them snarled. It was hard for Arthur to focus his vision with a swollen eye. "The deadline was two hours ago."

"He doesn't think we're serious," other man responded. He twirled a serrated blade in his hand. "Let's send him a present with our new demands."

They turned to Arthur, and he had not yet been beaten enough to be numb. "Don't," he choked out, useless. One hand gripped his hair, yanking his head back. The blade pressed against his cheek, and Arthur squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw.

He could be brave. He would not scream, and he would not beg, and surely his boyfriend (if he ever saw him again) would still find Arthur acceptably handsome even maimed—