A/N It's here! The last installment (sounds professional :3 ) of the After the Crystal Cave trilogy! This is by far my favorite story I've wrote and just the type I would read! :D It proves that much by the face half of it has been written already and plot bunnies are running hywire with it and has made it longer then I originally thought! :D You will be having regular updates (for once!) as I'm really enjoying it.
WARNINGS: warnings will be placed at the beginning of each chapter depending what it has in. The story so far includes: slight description of floggings, very slight description of rape but it isn't description of the actual rape (i know it doesn't make sense. Blame Plot Bunnies!) Depression. That's all there is, for now. It's on a T rating and I'll keep it that way but I think it might wobble on the edge of M at some point. You've been warned!
Disclaimer: don't own-BBC does. Slight inspiration at the start by the story: The Princely Slave by LazurasRising248 Great story so I suggest a read although it's dark. :/Enjoy.
"Arthur. You have to eat something and get some rest." Gwen said firmly but gently as the Prince paced the guest chambers that he had been occupying for the past two months.
"I can't Gwen! Not until he's been found and is safe!" Arthur said, for what seemed like the millionth time in the past couple of months. He might be exhausted but he has no appetite and can't sleep. If he does allow himself to take a few hours rest, he's plagued by nightmares, nightmares that he wakes up screaming from. Gwen just eyed him, sympathetically. They were all feeling the weight of their missing friend but none so much as the Prince. Gwen had never seen him like this, no-one has. It's got everyone worried but no matter how many times anyone's tried to get him to look after himself, if only for a moment, they have all failed. Uther's even put him in a cell for a night just to try and get him to eat and sleep but even that didn't work. He just stared out of the bars from the back of the cell, not seeing anything. Everyday he's been riding out trying to find him but comes back even more broken and desperate then before. He's been sending patrol after patrol out to find him and everyone just follows silently now, there's no more reasoning. Everyone close to the Prince has now become worried about the blonde as well as their lost friend. They have to be strong and hide their own anguish when in the company of the blonde because how else will he have got through the past two months? They dread to think what he'd do if they let it slip. He's already blamed them for not wanting their friend back, presumed that they believed he was dead and this was the first two weeks. No-one believed that. They all knew how powerful their friend can be but now it had reached two months, doubts were leaking through. What if his only strength had been cut off? There was no way he'd survive unless they want him alive.
Arthur stopped pacing under Gwen's constant gaze. He flopped down on the bed and screamed into the pillow. Gwen is one of the only people who he lets see him like this. There is only the 'Round Table' Knights, Morgana, his father, Gaius and Gwen who are allowed but even then he scolds himself for being weak in front of them even with their reassurance that he isn't.
He can see that they are all trying hard to cope and he has told them to back off of him, to go grieve but they won't listen. They all say they're worried about him but even when he says he's fine, they don't believe him. Then again, he knows he isn't fine. It feels like part of him has been ripped out, cut into many pieces and left to burn in a blazing fire. That was how it was for the first month. It was true then. Coming to the end of the second month, it now feels like the parts have turned to ash, he can't feel anything but he still see's everything from the edges of the fire. He goes through the motions of being swept up but falling from the bristles of the brush. Falling even further every time. Falling away from the many different parts of himself until they're scattered anywhere and everywhere and they can't get back together. The most important part of him, the part that holds his senses, that part is somewhere far away but is calling out, somehow, for Arthur. Once Arthur can regain that part, he can rebuild himself. He will never give up on it. That part… is Merlin.
A/N what do you think? I am really proud of that last paragraph :D Please review and I'll maybe put up the second chapter since this is short ;) x
