The door clicked shut behind Levi, and for a flickering moment, Merlin couldn't move.
He touched his lips. They still felt warm.
That had been unexpected.
Not the kiss—no, he'd hoped for something—but the way it left his stomach coiled tight with heat. The way, just for a second, he felt it. Hunger. The thing he'd always wondered about when he first realized who he was. What he was.
Incubus.
That word had always sounded like a threat, like a promise made by someone who didn't care who paid the price. Even if he knew he wasn't the normal incubus usually depicted in myths, the beings of lust and sex. He still was supposed to be the one who fed from dreams and emotions—the strongest, the better.
He had never craved the things he was told to crave. Not before he entered the military or after. Not really. He liked beauty, intimacy, and connection. But there was no need or want. Not in the consuming way his kind was known for.
But now?
His fingers curled against his palm.
He wanted.
And that scared him a little. Not because it felt wrong, but because it felt… right.
He exhaled slowly, rolled his shoulders, then fastened his cloak around his neck. He slipped out of the room, face calm, heart still galloping in his chest.
By the time he reached the courtyard, the other Survey Corps members were lined up, horses ready, eyes focused.
Levi stood at the front, perfectly still. He didn't acknowledge him, but he didn't have to. Merlin could feel the tension rolling off him, that quiet thread of embarrassment tucked into his otherwise stoic posture.
It made Merlin smile.
He took his place beside Petra. She glanced at him once, and her expression brightened.
"You're smiling," she said, nudging him with her shoulder. "That's a relief. Usually when you smile before an expedition, it means everything will go well."
From the other side, Oluo snorted. "Rumors, Petra. Just because he's not gloomy doesn't mean we can slack off. We still have to be alert."
Gunther chuckled, tone gentler. "It's still reassuring. You've got to admit—since Merlin joined, the difficulty of the expeditions always lines up with his moods."
Merlin raised an eyebrow, a little amused. "Really now?"
That was all Petra needed. She immediately launched into a series of "theories," complete with dramatic gestures.
"Okay, hear me out," she whispered, like it was classified. "Expedition 50? You were humming the whole morning. We only ran into two titans. Expedition 53? You were pacing and grumbling under your breath—we had three injuries and an abnormal. And that one where you made tea for everyone? Literally nothing happened."
"I make tea for everyone all the time."
"Yes, but that time you shared from your own stack. Big difference."
Merlin rolled his eyes, but the warmth in his chest spread slowly.
They didn't know what he was. Not really. Only Erwin, Levi, Hange, and—probably—Moblit knew what kind of creature rode beside them. What kind of quiet enchantments lay woven into the stitching of their cloaks. What subtle runes lingered in their boots for balance, what soft pulses of emotional steadiness floated like dust in the wind around them.
They didn't know. They just… trusted and he cherished that.
But.
His smile faded slightly. Last night, he hadn't dreamed of the expedition. Nothing. Not even static. Just about Trost, about a possible future he didn't know when it will happen. Which meant—
He didn't know what was coming.
For the first time in a long while, he would be riding blind. No premonition and no shape in the shadows. No threads to trace or paths to predict.
Well, crap.
He tugged his gloves tighter and squared his shoulders.
"All the more reason to stay alert today," he murmured, mostly to himself.
Beside him, Petra caught his tone and frowned slightly. "Everything okay?"
Merlin gave her a reassuring smile. "Perfectly. I'm just realizing today might be interesting."
She blinked. "That's not ominous at all."
He laughed, quiet and airy, and looked ahead toward Levi.
If something was coming, then fine. He'd face it like everything else—with a smile, a blade, and whatever magic he could summon without blowing his cover to half the regiment.
He was Merlin, after all. He wasn't born to be afraid.
.
They were a third of the way to their destination, three hours away from Trost. The sunlight filtered through the canopy of thick trees above, golden and dappled, casting flickering patterns across the dirt path as hooves thudded steadily against the earth. Birds sang as they were not deep into Titan territory, not yet. Everyone was more or less calm for the moment, still focused on their surroundings, but steady.
It looked to be a normal expedition until Merlin felt it. There was nothing drastic, not a shift in the wind. There was no sound unlike others, but there was magic. For the first time since he awoke, there was something magical occurring, one that was not his own. It rippled through the atmosphere like a scream held in the throat of the world.
His breath caught—no, snapped—like something inside him recognized the resonance, the call in the air. Not a song. Not a whisper. A crack.
He didn't see the lightning, didn't hear the thunder. But he felt it. Felt the air pull inward like lungs gasping in terror.
Something had descended from the sky, power filled with purpose. There was someone, more than one, transforming into a titan of their own volition. It wasn't wrong, per se. However, it felt like a divinity, or something close to it, offering the change.
He thought of Shiganshina, of the aftermath he saw when he appeared, what he heard from others, about two abnormal Titans being the cause of it. And he thought of his dream as he yanked the reins of his horse back too hard. It reared with a distressed whine, hooves stomping into the earth. Several heads turned toward him—Petra closest, calling out in surprise. Gunther, behind him, tried to slow his own horse.
But Merlin didn't care.
He stood among the soldiers, who were now looking at him curiously. He widened his eyes, heart racing as he looked back to where they came.
Trost.
The dream—the one he'd ignored because it hadn't shown him enough, hadn't told him when—the vision of stone cracking like eggshells, of blood, of a boy with sea-green eyes and a scream that broke the sky—It was now.
"Levi! Hange!"
His shout rang like a bell through the forest.
That, if nothing else, made everyone else look.
Levi, at the front with Hange, turned fast. His brows furrowed the second he saw Merlin's expression. Hange blinked at him, startled.
"We have to go back!" Merlin yelled, desperation tearing into his voice like claws. "Now! Back to Trost!"
He didn't wait for approval. Or strategy. Or questions. He was already turning, heels digging into his horse's sides, shouting an apology to the animal even as he forced it into a gallop.
Not fast enough.
He could feel it in the air. That kind of fear. That kind of pain. Something had happened. And if he didn't get there now—they'd be too late.
Not again. He didn't want it to be like Shiganshina. He didn't want to be late. The moment the trees cleared enough for it, Merlin did something reckless. He threw the reins loose and launched himself from the saddle. The horse shrieked in alarm, but he didn't fall.
He rose.
Flowers bloomed beneath his feet in midair—pale lavender and white, petals wide and luminous, only there for an instant before vanishing into mist. He used them as footholds, pushing himself forward again and again, faster than any horse could run. The wind whipped through his cloak, his braid unraveling behind him in a ribbon of silver and violet.
The magic flared around him, wild and bright. Not hidden. Not muted.
But he didn't care he would be seen. Because he was not the Merlin of legend. He was not Avalon's prisoner. He was himself, a dream-born man with power in his hands and a promise in his chest.
And he—he would not stand by and watch a city fall.
.
The top of the wall should have felt secure, but when Merlin landed—his boots kissing stone with a softness at odds with the chaos below—he found no command, no action. Just silence. Raw, wide-eyed terror.
Soldiers stood frozen, weapons loose in limp hands. Some crouched behind cannons they hadn't even fired. Others stared blankly over the wall, as if their minds had fled the battlefield before their bodies could follow.
He could feel it—fear heavy as lead in their bones. Their hearts pulsed like drumbeats muffled by dread. Many had stopped thinking. Some had stopped hoping.
And below… Trost bled.
Smoke coiled through the air like choking hands. Screams echoed not just in the air—but in the fabric of reality, like it did whenever a genocide was about to happen and humanity lost hope. He felt them even from those who had already died. Not just pain. Not just grief.
Despair.
Merlin walked forward. His Survey Corps' cloak snapped behind him like a banner in windless air. He didn't look at the soldiers. Didn't speak.
He didn't have time. Because something in him—something old—had risen and it remembered.
He drew his staff in one fluid motion, pulled it from his hidden pocket space—wrought of shadow and silverlight, its curve a twist of starlight captured in iron. The moment his hand closed around it, power rushed up his arm, into his chest, his lungs—
He opened his mouth and chanted,
"From between dream and dawn, where fate unwinds—
Let the breath of Avalon veil the world once more…
Come, blessed field, guardian bough—
Return to me.
The Garden of Avalon."
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