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mobycotton · 8 months

Text

elaborating on this

1. arriving in the ‘new world’

- Arthur would be exhausted, both physically and mentally, and fighting not to get overwhelmed by the strange things all around him. He would isolate himself in a ‘safe place’ where, even though things are just as weird, it’s on a smaller scale and at least he can focus in on one thing that’s still familiar to him. He would take things in little by little, learn to accept that there are some things (and many of them) that he cant comprehend now, and maybe he never will, but freaking out won’t help his situation.

2. communication

- as a bilingual person, who entered the UK before I could speak a word of english, I relied on my one parent who was fluent in order to be understood, and with my large family, we fought for the attention to be translate, and translated to. Arthur would be relying on Merlin to do the same for him, but navigating the modern world takes energy and attention already, and so Merlin clarifies that he can’t explain everything as it appears, and Arthur will just have to pick what’s most pressing.

- Merlin was present as the language around him changed in real time. He understands it, is fluent in it, the new language feels more natural to think and speak in then the old one. This is a difficulty he needs to process as much as Arthur. It takes a few seconds to compose a response in his head to every one of Arthur’s questions, and then even longer to translate it in his head. Arthur still picks out inconsistencies in his speech and accent, he feels like the one thing he recognises is still changed, almost beyond recognition.

3. discomfort

- Arthur realises he is a burden. More so than he used to be. At least before, they understood each other. He could stand up for himself, didn’t need to be escorted around like a lost puppy. That’s how he feels. Even worse, Merlin’s responsibilities are doubled now, and paired with Merlin’s new life, the balance is almost impossible. On top of his job, his life outside of work and his home, he must make sacrifices in order to care for Arthur. Arthur feels guilty, wishes that he could be as competent as he once was, but what is there to do except learn?

- food. When I first moved, I was a child, barely comfortable with the small range of foods I grew up with, which were served at just about any house I visited. When I moved, a whole new range of foods was laid out before me, and I was overwhelmed. I didn’t like most of the things that young children go crazy for, but I was lucky not to have any allergies, and in a few years my diet changed to incorporate both foods from home and from my new home. Arthur won’t be as lucky. His medieval metabolism can only handle a few things, and even medicine might be dangerous. merlin sticks to a few safe foods from before - bread, cooked meat, vegetables, and milk. he makes these every day until Arthur is strong enough to experiment with new food, little by little, and build up any immunities he can, and identify any intolerances.

- sleep. Moving abruptly from a very rural place, where the whole street is dark and silent after sunset, all of a sudden to a place where cars are still running at midnight and streetlights cast light even through thick dark curtains, was a shock. I couldn’t sleep well for weeks, and it took a lot of time to adjust. So, going from one night sleeping in the silent castle in Camelot, all of a sudden to a busy city, would be almost impossible. It’s not only the light, and the noise, but overwhelmingly the feeling of everything moving, shaking with a constant vibration at all hours. It feels like an earthquake, deep below the earth, and every time a door closes it’s like the walls are shaking. Every footstep is like the floor is falling out from under him.

4. grief.

- I knew, when I moved countries, that there was no going back. even holidays wouldn’t be the same. I was supposed to become a different person, there was no stopping it. Missing out on my old friends growing up hurt, even when I was still young. It felt like grief in a way, knowing that I was robbed of so many experiences with the people I loved. But I had to learn to accept it, and let the new country foster my grief and my sense of loss. Arthur would be dealing with the same thing - feeling robbed of a happier life with the people he loved, and then losing them all at once. While they were still comfortably dead, though, he was thrust into a completely foreign life, almost alone. At least they died together. He had the worst fate of them all.

5. learning

- ending on a happier note. I moved when I was 8. I couldn’t read that well, even in my own language, after merely a year in school. My parents made me spend a summer reading, translating, and transcribing children’s books, the kind that english kids used to learn to read and speak at much younger stages. I felt silly doing them, writing out infantile rhymes for hours every day, but I came out of it able to read harder books, and in the end my reading age was higher than almost every other child in my class. The easiest thing to do was translating fairy tales and stories I recognised from my old language, it helped me identify words and phrases in both languages. Arthur figures out that this is a great help as well. Merlin finds him translations of original arthurian tales and legends, and keeps them side by side with the modern english versions. He switches between them for hours a day until he can at least read well in modern english. He feels silly celebrating such accomplishments, wielding simple, childish writing exercises, but progress has to be made.

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