my [Once and Future] wife

9 BOOKS I PLAN TO READ IN 2026

Thank you @malinaa for tagging me <3

Merlin is distraught. He’s drowning in the afternoon sunlight when Gwen finds him in Gauis’ chambers. She’d come straight from a conversation she’d rather not repeat in so many words, Arthur told me what you said, to find Merlin keeled over in just as much upset.

When Merlin says He won’t listen to me, that day she pled for Gaius’ life at the stake comes up like a fever dream. And of having to leverage her father’s death to do it; less than a year past the day he died, while Gaius hung on the stake like his life was already forfeit. This was something Merlin had not been privy to.

At the time, she’d said Leave Arthur to me and worked a miracle in the last hour. This time she says I’ll do what I can knowing it to be less a miracle than recognizing a pattern in Arthur’s behavior, and purposefully acting on it.

Four years ago her father had ran from the castle dungeons to escape a sentence the only way he knew how, only to be immediately and violently punished for it. The trial had been a formality. Uther had decided on a judgement before Tom’s sentence had even begun. And that forgone conclusion of treason was what had pushed her to be bold, daring to address Uther’s son even as the match for kindling had already been lit. Any chance of intervention on her father’s, Merlin’s father’s behalf, before the seconds ran out forever was worth a try, You did it once before to my father, are you really willing to let it happen again?

And yet here they are… in again.

And what’s worse! Gwen recognizes the wretched look on Merlin’s face. It’s something secondary to losing Gaius so abruptly, something more insidious than knowing the cards that have been dealt were done so malevolently: Shame. Her own words to Merlin the day after Tom’s death echo just as well in this brilliant, sunlit room. The thing I find hardest to bear is that people will always think he was guilty because he tried to escape. I know he was innocent. Now, she’s no longer the only one that understands that specific brand of shame. The one that lingers.

So she’ll work Arthur’s ear. Hold Merlin’s hand if the verdict goes south… But dare to hold her breath that there’s enough second and third chances for the both of them. Out of all people, she knows best how to fight for the dignity of her father’s name; even in the midst of a busy crowd at an execution, even on the throne-room floor knelt in front of a remorseless king, even in the quiet of the morning after to only her best friend. And in the meanwhile, she’ll sit by Merlin’s side as he learns to fight those nameless battles too.