Waiting 20 Long Years (probably Like An Hour) For My Devoted Husband (ao3) To Return Home From The Trojan

Oh, this is one of my favorite Merlin fic tropes. I'd read (or write, if I had enough time and caffeine) a thousand of fics involving this specific story element and I'd never get bored! I love fics exploring all of the possibilities of god-of-magic Merlin SO MUCH!!

(As my readers on ao3 can probably tell, based on the relative words counts of my Merlin fics. 😅 A certain fic of mine centered around this premise is much longer than the others lol!)

I legit need this fandom to refer to Merlin as “god of magic” more often, I desperately need it.

The sidhe in Avalon, writing this down: jail for Arthur for 1000 years by Emrys's decree, got it!

you STEP on merlin?? you step on his back like a footstool?? jail for arthur!! jail for arthur for one thousand years

Thanks for the tag! <3

Mine was "synonyms for shocked". I spend a lot of time on thesaurus.com lol! I'm always terrified of using the same descriptive word twice in one paragraph. 😅

No pressure tags!

@sugar-coated-prat-dragon, @justaz, @guiltyscarlet, @tansyuduri

last google search, go

um. Tag four people.

what do they make sewer tunnels out of

@ncc1701ohno @affixjoy @the-magpieprince @twinkboimler

I wanna write a really mundane magic reveal.

This has definitely been done before (please send fic recs) but I’m procrastinating and really want to write it.

Literally nothing is happening, Arthur is having a bath, Merlin is tidying up in his chambers one night and everything is basically fine.

Arthur asks Merlin how he manages to always get the bath water perfect and Merlin jokingly says “must be magic” while he’s distracted, Arthur stops and starts thinking about all the fallen tree branches, how his armour is perfect and even if Merlin is late, his food is always hot.

So Arthur realises Merlin is a sorcerer, but not a very good one if all he can do is boring stuff with chores. And if he’s not using magic to defeat all the bandits, it must be because he can’t defeat all the bandits. Not that he’s trying not to die or anything. In fact, the thought of killing Merlin, or of Merlin being punished for his magic, never even crosses his mind.

Arthur shrugs, because Merlin made the joke before, it was just his fault for not noticing it, also his father is still king, so it’s probably for the best that Merlin never said anything, and he tells Merlin to be careful about his magic and to only use it if he’s locked the door.

Merlin’s too shocked by the easy acceptance to panic, so he’s just like: “you’re cool with it?”

And Arthur, oblivious but in love, is just like “well, at least you’re good at something.” Because, sure, Merlin isn’t powerful, but he’s not about to piss off the guy who gives him perfect baths. Then he’s like, “maybe figure out how to lie so my father doesn’t find out about you though. We can figure out the ban once I’m king”

I’m picturing this to be in early/mid season two. Morgana never turns evil, Merlin helps her with her magic because I said so.

So Merlin and Arthur have a while for Arthur getting used to Merlin magically lighting fires, sharpening his sword, adding protection charms to his armour, heating his baths, removing stains from his clothes and even putting them back to being like new if they lost buttons or anything.

Then they go to find the dragonlord, Balinor survives also because I said so.

Merlin tells Arthur Balinor is his father in the inn before they meet him. Arthur is a little worried for Merlin, but ultimately happy for his friend.

Then Merlin uses magic infront of Balinor and Arthur after Merlin told Balinor that he’s his son. Balinor shoves Merlin behind him protectively and Arthur is confused, “why would anyone assume he’d hurt Merlin? It’s Merlin. If anything, he’s more useful as a servant and more honest as a friend since he found out about the magic.”

Balinor is floored by it, and starts treating Arthur a lot better. Arthur gets to ask about pre purge stuff, Balinor tells him a bit about his mother from when her parents visited his when they were kids, then about Ygraine visiting the dragons and how she, Balinor and others in court at the time were friends.

They take him to Ealdor after the dragon is defeated/banished and Arthur looks over at Merlin and realises “oh my god, you summoned the wind.”

And Merlin is like, “yeah? No big deal.”

So Arthur is left wondering why Merlin is downplaying what he thinks is the strongest bit of magic he’s ever done. He comes to the conclusion that Merlin is embarrassed that it was a fluke, he tries to reassure Merlin that he can always practice and learn to do stronger magic like that. Merlin is confused because the wind wasn’t strong magic?

Balinor realises what’s happening and decides he wants nothing to do with it so he stays quiet. (He’s already sensed a lot of power from Merlin, so he knows he’s strong.)

Anyway, they keep going to Ealdor. Merlin still hasn’t caught onto the fact that Arthur thinks he’s a weak sorcerer, Arthur hasn’t caught on to Merlin being strong and just thinks he’s a little bit embarrassed about not being that strong of a sorcerer.

Then they get to Ealdor, everything is great for about two days until it starts down-pouring. Enough rain to flood the village and everyone is worried because Cenred or Lot(?)(I don’t remember when Cenred dies in canon) isn’t going to do anything because he just doesn’t care so their fields will flood and they’ll starve and not be able to afford taxes.

Arthur tries to reassure Merlin that it’s okay, but Merlin just hums. He asks Arthur if they can still lie and say they were on a hunting trip if he does something about the rain, Arthur tells him he shouldn’t push himself or anything, but Merlin says he won’t and Arthur trusts him so it’s fine. Merlin then goes outside and casually stops the rain, clearing the clouds and moving the rainwater into the river.

Arthur is shook.

Then he’s got to realise that Merlin is powerful, but again he never lied about it so he can’t really get mad, so he decides it’s better to just be shocked and carry on as usual until he gets used to the idea that Merlin is stronger than he looks.

There’s also a little bit of a bi panic in there somewhere because Arthur definitely has a thing for competency. We all saw his crushes on Gwen, Merlin, Lancelot, Mithian if she wasn’t just the wrong person for him, I’m pretty sure Percival too. There’s definitely others I haven’t noticed or forgot about. You get the idea though.

He sees Merlin being good at Magic and is suddenly very confused by the feelings he’s too emotionally stunted to recognise. Even if it’s just small things, Merlin is good at something and ‘what the hell happened to the bumbling idiot who forgot to hand him his sword the first day? What? Huh?’

Then after he accepts Merlin is really good at magic, he decides: “great! He can train with me now! :D” and he drags Merlin out of Camelot to spar which is basically just Merlin teaching Arthur how to defend himself against magical attacks. Arthur thinks he’s helping Merlin to protect himself because ‘if all he can do is wind that’s hardly an offensive attack so he needs more help mastering that. And considering no one else knows, it’s my responsibility to make sure he’s safe if he ever needs it.’

Merlin is just glad to be accepted and that Arthur is willing to learn how to protect himself against the numerous magical attacks every week so he lets Arthur think whatever he wants about why they’re sparring.

But yeah, there’s minimal trauma, it’s not a big deal and they get the happily ever after they deserved.

This is hilarious! What might be even funnier is if returned!Arthur (or even canon era Arthur post magic reveal), can always see through Merlin's disguises, such that Merlin, no matter what form he takes, always looks like the young man that Arthur knows.

So people around them see Arthur flirting with and crushing hard on this old man, and they think he has a weird kink or maybe is in some sort of sugar baby situation, while Arthur has absolutely no clue that Merlin looks like an old man to everyone else! 😆

Broke: They had to have Dolma as an old lady because a young woman would have been too recognizable for Arthur, who regularly clocks Merlin’s disguises through his eyes alone.

Woke: They had to have Dolma as an old lady because a young woman would have sent Morgana Pendragon barreling out of her bog to make an introduction to the pretty new sorceress in town.

Bespoke: Gwaine was not allowed to meet Dolma as an old lady because he would have flirted with her on sight and Merlin would have gone with it.

Day 13 (officially day 15): Grimoire

This is a bit rushed, cause I am severely lacking in time right now, but whatever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also if I’m not replying to comments, my apologies. I’ve tried, but it doesn’t seem to work a lot of the time. I’ll reply as soon as it works again.

A visual representation of what my mind looks like when I'm writing Merlin fics:

(Someone needs to take photoshop away from me at this point.)

Brining this one back for funsies because I'm thinking about the finale again and the whole butterfly symbolism always fucks me up.

A random thought on the ending of Merlin (since it haunts me all the time): there are many species of butterflies that are known to feed on corpses for nutrients. Merlin's main symbol in the finale, the symbol of his own self-acceptance and reclaiming himself from the claws of destiny, was a bright blue butterfly, a symbol of death and rebirth.

The image of it is striking for me: Merlin, symbolized by the butterfly, finally accepting himself, only for those same butterflies to turn around and feed on Arthur's corpse while waiting for Arthur himself to be reborn.

I'm insane about this show, if you couldn't already tell.

Uther when Gwen goes missing: "Who cares? She's just a servant. There's hundreds of others."

Uther when Merlin goes missing: "I must hunt and purchase an identical copy of Merlin for my son."

(When the family pets go missing)

*Through happy tears at seeing someone rec my fic* A bit of shameless self promotion here, but I worked hard on those chapter titles and end notes!

Thank you so much OP! ❤️❤️

Hello Merlin fandom I have a fic rec and it’s amazing