Four loud, unmistakable sounds tore through the silence of the ruined forest.
The air warped, and four figures appeared at the edge of the destruction.
One of the newcomers, a young woman with golden-blonde hair and bright eyes, stopped cold, her breath catching in her throat.
"...gods" she whispered without realizing she'd said it aloud.
Her gaze snapped downward.
There, on the scorched earth, lay a small boy. His clothes were burnt in places, his skin smudged with soot, his body unnaturally still. The fragile rise and fall of his chest was the only proof that he was alive.
The blonde woman drew her wand and ran to him immediately, dropping to her knees with urgency and fear clear on her face.
"Hold on… hold on…" she murmured, voice trembling as she began casting spell after spell.
Soft lights flickered over Merlin's body, gentle pulses that scanned bone, blood, muscle, and magic itself. Her expression tightened more with each second.
Beside her, another woman moved in quickly, dark hair pinned back, pale skin, sharp eyes. She didn't kneel. She stood, wand lifted, posture tense, scanning the trees like she expected something to strike at any moment.
Meanwhile, the two men didn't go near the boy at first.
One of them was tall and broad-shouldered, his fiery red hair catching the dim firelight as if even darkness struggled to dull it. A short beard framed his jaw, and his eyes were hard, the kind of eyes that had seen war.
He pulled a silver sword from his waist with a clean, controlled motion, the blade gleaming faintly as he began circling the others like a guardian beast protecting its pack.
The other man, with long black hair and a stern face carved from seriousness, slowly drew his wand, dark as midnight, nearly the same shade as his hair. He watched the treeline with quiet, coiled readiness, as if he could feel danger lingering in the air.
And then his eyes caught something near the edge of the scorched ring.
Bodies.
Or what was left of them.
He approached the nearest remains with measured steps, lowering his wand slightly as he took in the sight: a charred skeleton collapsed on the ground, still smoking faintly. The smell was horrific. Not far from it, something metallic lay half-buried in ash.
A circular device. Silver. Intact.
Its surface flashed wildly in green, accompanied by a desperate, constant beeping.
The dark-haired man crouched down, his face tightening with disgust. He picked the device up and turned it in his gloved hand, watching its panicked light.
"…So that's what you are," he muttered under his breath.
Without hesitation, he slipped it into one of the inner pockets of his robes and stood again, turning sharply toward the red-haired man with anger burning behind his eyes.
"For the love of—" he began, voice low but sharp. "If you hadn't gone back for that bloody sword, we could've arrived sooner, Godric. Maybe we could've caught one of them alive, pulled memories, learned where they came from."
The red-haired man turned, offended immediately.
"Oh, don't start," he snapped back. "In case you've forgotten, Salazar, this blade has pulled us out of worse situations than this. It isn't a luxury, it's essential."
The dark-haired man's expression darkened.
"Essential, is it ? Or just something you like to swing around to feel heroic ?"
"Enough."
The black-haired woman's voice cracked like thunder across the ruined clearing.
Both men froze mid-argument and turned their heads.
Her eyes were fierce, shining with fury, and fear.
"This isn't about your pride," she said coldly. "Not tonight."
She stepped closer to the blonde woman and the unconscious boy, lowering herself just enough to look down at Merlin's face.
Then she looked to her companion.
"How is he ?" she asked, voice urgent. "Helga ?"
The blonde woman, still kneeling, still casting careful diagnostic spells, finally paused and looked up.
Her face was pale.
"He has internal injuries," she said quickly. "His body is exhausted, and his magical reserves are… dangerously low. It's extreme depletion. I've never seen it in someone so young."
She swallowed, then added, "Rowena… we have to take him to the castle. Now."
The dark-haired woman, Rowena, nodded instantly, her jaw clenched.
"Is he stable enough to Apparate ?" she asked.
Helga hesitated, eyes flickering back down to Merlin as if she could measure his life by the rise of his chest.
"I don't know," she admitted. "But if we wait any longer… it may not matter whether we take him or not."
The dark-haired man stepped forward at that, his expression grim.
From within his robes, he pulled out a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid. He knelt beside Merlin with surprising gentleness, sliding one arm carefully beneath the boy's neck to lift his head.
"Hold him steady," he instructed calmly.
Helga obeyed immediately, hands hovering close, ready to stop anything that looked wrong.
The man tipped the vial and poured the potion slowly into Merlin's mouth, guiding it down his throat.
For a moment… nothing happened.
Then Merlin's breathing changed. It became steadier. Less shallow.
His chest rose more evenly.
But even so, he remained frighteningly limp, his face still pale beneath the soot.
The man rose with a grim look and spoke quietly.
"He's not safe yet," he said. "But he'll survive the jump. If we move quickly."
Rowena didn't waste a second.
"Then we move," she said, sharp and commanding.
The red-haired man stepped in close, sword still in hand, eyes sweeping the forest one last time.
The dark-haired man tucked the stolen device deeper into his robes.
Helga gathered her skirt, then looked down at Merlin again, her eyes softening with worry.
The dark-haired man bent and lifted Merlin carefully into his arms, holding him as if he weighed nothing at all, yet treating him as if he were made of glass.
"Now," he said, voice cold with urgency. "Fast."
Wands angled. Breath held.
And then…
CRACK ! 4x
They vanished.
Leaving behind only a ruined clearing, scorched earth, fallen trees, the smell of burned magic…
And the remains of men who had thought a child would be an easy kill on a cold, damp night.
—----
Merlin's mind was drowning.
Images crashed into him in waves, sharp, violent, impossible to hold onto. He couldn't tell if he was dreaming, remembering, or being forced to watch something that wasn't his.
He heard screaming. Not one voice. Thousands.
As if an entire world was crying out in agony at the same time, men, women, children, layered over each other until it became a single, endless sound of suffering that made his stomach twist.
Then the darkness itself moved.
It gathered, thickened, and took shape.
A gigantic monster formed out of shadow, so large it made the world around it feel small. Four massive eyes, white and glowing, stared out from its face, unblinking. Its presence carried death, pure and inevitable, like the silence after a massacre.
But beneath that… there was something else. Melancholy, fear.
Like the creature wasn't only destruction, it was sorrow wearing the skin of a nightmare.
The visions shifted again.
Now Merlin saw a bald man with strange tattoos carved across his scalp, symbols that looked like runes, twisted and unfamiliar.
The man wore white robes, arms spread wide like a priest welcoming a congregation.
And he was laughing but not a normal laugh.
It was high, loud, unsteady… the laugh of someone who had lost their mind and loved it.
In front of him, buildings burned in roaring red flames. Entire homes were swallowed by fire. People ran through the streets screaming, their clothes igniting, their skin blistering and melting before Merlin's horrified eyes.
The man only laughed harder.
His mouth foamed with saliva, spittle spraying from his lips as he drank in the destruction like it was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted.
Merlin tried to scream. But the sound got stuck in his throat.
Then, he tore awake.
His eyes flew open, and he sucked in a desperate breath, drenched in cold sweat. Light stabbed into his vision so sharply it made his eyes water.
He blinked rapidly, pain blooming behind his skull.
His body felt wrong, heavy, weak, aching in places he couldn't even name. But beneath that pain was something else.
Softness.
He was lying on something comfortable. Not hay.
Not feathers. A real mattress.
Merlin swallowed hard and turned his head to the side, moving carefully because every motion sent a dull ache through his neck and spine.
His surroundings came into view. He was in an infirmary.
Rustic, but clean, far cleaner than anything in his village. The room was wide and long, and tall glass windows lined both sides, letting in streams of natural daylight. Dust motes drifted lazily through the sunbeams.
There were twelve beds in the room, neatly arranged, most of them empty. The sheets were pale and smooth, the pillows plump.
Nearby shelves were filled with strange liquids in glass bottles, some clear, some cloudy, some glowing faintly, some bubbling as if alive.
Along another wall, there were books stacked and organized, their spines stamped with titles Merlin couldn't fully read, written in unfamiliar, old-fashioned lettering.
Merlin stared at it all, breathing slowly, trying to understand.
His heart began to race again.
'Where am I…?'
He swallowed, throat dry.
His voice came out as barely more than a whisper.
"…Where am I now ?"