AN: As always, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

It's a bright cloudless day with sunlight streaming over every corner of Doria, yet cool autumn breezes are blowing in from the north and chilling the air. Owen shivers and pulls his cloak tighter around himself. Long ago the trees turned from green into shades of red and orange and gold, and now they're breaking free from their branches and drifting to the ground. Owen can flick his hands at them so that they'll rise into the air on a burst of power and flutter gently back down. It makes Mara and Duncan laugh.

"Do it again!" Mara says gleefully, and giggles as Owen makes the leaves dance around her. There's a stick in her hand that she waves, pretending it's herself casting the magic. Owen grins.

"I bet I can bury you in leaves," he says.

"You wouldn't," Mara replies, "There are bugs and worms in there!"

"You wouldn't mind," Says Duncan, lounging against the trunk of a tree, "Your house is full of bugs and worms anyway."

"It is not," Mara says, "My house is just as clean as the castle. Mother said the King could stay there."

"Only because he'd be too busy sleeping to notice," Owen says, laughing.

Mara pouts.

"He wouldn't stay at my house," Duncan says. He brushes his unruly brown hair out of his face, only to have it fall back across his eyes. "It's too full of smoke and stuff from Father's smith."

Another gust of cold wind sweeps through the woods around them, making the leaves jump higher and blow their hair out of their faces. The three of them shiver. Owen is wearing his fur-lined cloak, but Mara and Duncan are wearing dirty wool tunics with holes showing in most places. Mara is frowning at one of those holes now, one of the bigger ones, as it lets in the cold.

"I want to go inside," she declares.

"Me too," Duncan says, "It's cold."

"But we only just got here," Owen protests, "Can't you stay a little longer?"

"It's freezing," Duncan replies, "Besides, don't you have a magic lesson?"

Owen shakes his head.

"She's too busy with King Arthur," he says glumly. Mother, Father, Arthur, and the rest of the Camelot party have been spending every day shut inside the council chambers, so Owen has spent the last week largely ignored by the castle inhabitants.

"Please stay and play a while longer," he says, looking between his friends.

Another gust blows, and an orange leaf that had been in Mara's hair is plucked up and carried away by the wind.

"Sorry Owen," she says, "It's too cold."

Owen sighs.

"We can play tomorrow." Duncan gets up and brushes the dirt and dead grass from his clothing.

"But what am I supposed to do for the rest of the day?"

Mara grimaces apologetically at him and shrugs her shoulders.

"See ya, Owen."

With their arms wrapped around themselves, Mara and Duncan hurry off back towards the houses, gusts of wind and leaves following them out of the woods.

"Bye," Owen says, belatedly, watching them go. He kicks at a stone.

It's cold, yes, but Owen's cloak keeps the wind from touching his skin, so he's quite warm as he stands under the trees just at the edge of the woods, watching his friends disappear into their houses. Mara's mother is outside taking down laundry from a clothesline as it snaps in the wind, and she greet her daughter with a bright smile.

Owen sighs and begins to walk towards the castle, going the long way around the houses so he'll end up at the northern side of the castle, where there are gardens that might hold something that Owen could use to entertain himself. The flowers are all dead by now, but he could always dig up the roots for worms, or look for interesting looking rocks.

He doesn't want to go to the dungeons. Since his last visit he's been afraid to go back, in case the man in the cell starts to yell at him again. Owen had never seen him quite so angry, not even when he'd shown that he could set the man free and chose not to. That guilt and the fear of the man's raving shouts are enough to make his stomach churn. The man in the dungeons was his friend, Owen thought, still is, but he doesn't want to think of his friend that way. He wants his friend to be the man that played pretend with him and held him when he cried, not this frightening thing with bloodshot eyes and spittle flying from his mouth.

As Owen approaches the gardens he sees a figure leaning against the arcade, half obscured by shadow. He's from Camelot, judging by the quality of his chain mail, but Owen can't tell who it is until he's already at the arcade himself. When he gets close enough to see the knight's face, he stops short.

It's King Arthur, hands clasped in front of him and staring out across the dead garden.

As soon as Owen realizes who he's looking at he wants to turn around, but the sound of his boots scuffing on the stone causes Arthur to snap his head around.

Their eyes meet for a second in which Owen tries to figure out Arthur's expression. There's a crease in his brow and a slight frown in his lips, but his eyes don't have the kind of coldness that Owen was expecting. Instead there's interest there, as though Owen is a bear who ran into the garden and Arthur hasn't decided how to react. It makes Owen feel out of place, under the King of Camelot's gaze, even though it should be Arthur who is out of place here in Doria.

Arthur, King of Camelot, slayer of giants, doesn't take his eyes off of Owen, and he suddenly feels fear prickling along his neck like the legs of spiders, so he averts his own gaze to the ground and makes to leave.

He hasn't even turned around when Arthur calls out to him.

"Prince Owen."

Owen snaps his eyes to meet Arthur's again.

"Yes, sir?"

Arthur opens his mouth, then pauses, as though he has no idea what he wants to say. Then, inexplicably, he smiles.

"I wanted to say hello," he says, "And apologize to you."

"Apologize?" Owen echoes, confused.

"For our first meeting," Arthur says, "I'm afraid I wasn't a very warm guest towards you that first day." The smile is still on his face, and it makes him look much less like a slayer of giants. Owen wishes that Arthur would smile more often, even if this one looks a little bit forced.

"It had been a long journey from Camelot and I was very tired."

"It's no problem, my lord," Owen says politely, "I understand."

"I'm glad."

Silence follows. Arthur looks at Owen and Owen stares back, unsure of what he's supposed to say next. How does one speak to the king of a great kingdom?

"Did you really slay a giant?" Owen blurts out. He can't help himself; Arthur is wearing an elaborate sword strapped to his belt that's probably big enough to slay a mighty giant.

The question startles a laugh out of Arthur.

"A giant? Where did you hear that?"

"Mother told me," Owen says, "She said you went to see the giant on top of a mountain made of fire and smote him with your sword."

Arthur laughs again, tossing his head back. Owen feels his face burn, wondering if he's made a fool of himself, or of Mother.

"Well?" he asks, "Did you?"

"Oh, no," Arthur says, sobering a little, "No, I've never even seen a giant. I don't know that there are any in Camelot."

"Mother said you did."

Arthur shrugged. "Perhaps she heard it from someone else. Bards do like to romanticize things. Or the knights, you should talk to Sir Gwaine sometime-"

"Talk to me about what?"

Both turn at the sound of a new voice belonging to a man in Camelot armor walking towards them. It's one of the two knights who had accompanied Arthur up the steps when they first arrived, the one with the long brown hair who winked at Owen.

Arthur grins.

"Oh nothing. On second thought, Owen, don't talk to this man, he'll tell you nothing but lies."

"Whether you choose to believe what I tell you is none of my business," Sir Gwaine says.

"Come on, in all the years I've known you I haven't heard you tell a word of truth."

"Exaggeration doesn't make me a liar, does it? What do you think, Owen?"

Owen looks between the men looking down at him, unsure of what to do, but they're both smiling at him and it seems genuine, so Owen decides he can let his guard down a bit.

"I think it makes you a prat, sir."

He says it with a smile, but suddenly they both stiffen at his words. Arthur's face freezes, then begins a slow fade, and Owen's mind reels back to wonder what he did wrong.

Sir Gwaine clears his throat and addresses his king.

"Sire, Lady Beatrix asked to see you, she thinks she's found an attack route that will work."

"Of course," Arthur says, "I'll be there straight away, I was only stepping out to get some air anyway. It was good to talk to you, Owen," Arthur says, talking to Owen again, smile back in place, "You seem like a fine lad. Doria's in good hands, I think."

He reaches out a gloved hand to ruffle Owen's hair, leaving Owen perplexed. Arthur gives him a final nod, then one to Sir Gwaine, then heads off in the direction of the council chambers.

"What happened?" Owen asks once Arthur is out of sight.

"Nothing, really," Gwaine replies, "You said something that reminded him of something else, that's all."

"What did I say?"

Gwaine grimaces.

"It doesn't matter, really."

Owen peers down the arches of the arcade at the corner Arthur just turned.

"Doesn't he like children?"

Gwaine doesn't say anything to that. When Owen looks at him, he sees Gwaine studying him in the same way Arthur was, with that crease between the brows.

"He does," Gwaine says finally, "Or, he did, but he mostly avoids them these days."

"Why?"

"Long story."

"Can I hear it?"

"You know, Arthur was right," Gwaine says, "You probably shouldn't listen to me."

"But I want to hear the story!"

Gwaine raises an eyebrow.

"It's not a story for children."

"Tell me the story," Owen says with a pout, then as an afterthought, "please."

"I don't think-"

"Pleeeeeeease?"

"It's not a nice story. I don't think your mother would approve."

Owen draws himself up.

"Mother says I shouldn't turn away from scary things because one day I will have to face even worse things when I'm king."

"Jesus, does she really?"

Owen nods. Both of Gwaine's eyebrows are high up on his head, but Owen stubbornly stares him down until finally the knight sighs.

"It was a while ago," he begins, and Owen breaks out into a victorious grin and settles in to listen. "Eight or nine years, I don't remember. Arthur had only been king for a few years, but things were going pretty well. He was married to a man named Merlin and had a baby named Gareth."

"He was married to a man?" Owen asks. "How did they have a baby?"

"Merlin was a sorcerer, his magic found a way."

"But how-"

"Magic," Gwaine says firmly, "Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, Arthur was married, had a child, and he was happier than anyone had ever seen him."

"So what happened?"

"They were lost," Gwaine says, "One day they went out and never came back."

"Merlin and the baby?"

Gwaine nods.

"Merlin didn't like that the baby was spending so much time inside the castle. He thought babies should spend as much time as possible outside in the sunlight and weather and whatnot, so one day he took little Prince Gareth for a horse ride in the woods without an escort. Arthur had to stay inside to deal with politics."

"They can't have just disappeared," Owen says.

"No, they didn't. They were kidnapped. A peasant saw the whole thing."

"Really?"

"Yes. He was too far away to do anything except shout for help, so by the time we knights arrived they were already gone. Couldn't find them anywhere in the woods, somehow. Must have concealed themselves."

Sir Gwaine's face changed as he told the story, and now his face is set in a grim sort of seriousness, a fierce contrast to the casual ease with which he held himself earlier.

"We still don't know why they did it, if they didn't ask for ransom. Merlin was a peasant and a sorcerer, so maybe someone didn't like that he was on the throne. But we can never know for sure."

"What did Arthur do when he found out?" Owen asks, thinking of the hard-faced King Arthur he'd known and trying to imagine a time when he wasn't always this way. He's only known him for a week, of course, but today is the first time Owen has seen Arthur smile. It seems impossible that there was ever a time when that brief glimpse of a happy man was the way he'd once been.

"He raged," Gwaine says, "Sent out every knight and guard and peasant he came across to search, then hopped on a horse himself. He barely had time to pack himself some food before he was riding off into the woods."

"Did you search?"

"Oh yes," Gwaine nods, "I was one of the first to go looking. Merlin and I had been close friends for a long time, before he and Arthur were even lovers."

"Wow."

"Yeah. He was a good friend to me." Gwaine's eyes have a sad look in them.

"Did you ever find them? Merlin and the baby Gareth?" Owen asks quietly.

There's a short pause.

"No," Gwaine says, "We never found anything. No ransom note, not even any dead bodies.

"Arthur went back to Camelot," Gwaine goes on before Owen has a chance to respond to that, "He knew he couldn't spend forever searching. But he was always out there."

"What does that mean?"

"He was always thinking about his family," Gwaine says, "He'd go out for weeks at a time to search. He'd appoint someone to act as regent in his place while he was gone, but it was never as good as having the king himself. He always had to come back, though, because some of the surrounding kingdoms weren't happy that Camelot knights were entering their land without their permission. Arthur always had to come back or risk war. But he tore apart any land he could get his hands on. When he wasn't searching, he was in the castle thinking of different ways he could track his family down. He was obsessed."

In his mind's eye Owen saw Arthur in some unfamiliar castle, hunched over a desk piled with maps, studying them by candle light with mad, bloodshot eyes. No wonder he looks so tired.

"He never found them," Owen says, because the answer is obvious. Gwaine shakes his head.

"Never. There was never even a trace."

"So what did he do?"

"He had to give up," Gwaine says simply. "It took all of us knights to convince him, but finally he agreed that Merlin and Gareth had probably been killed. Camelot was falling apart without his attention. He had no choice. So he held a funeral and moved on."

"I thought Camelot was the strongest kingdom ever," Owen says. He's heard enough stories about King Arthur and his glittering Camelot to know that much.

"It was, and it is now, but it almost fell to ruin."

"Sir Daniel went to Camelot," Owen tells Gwaine, "He's one of Mother's knights. He went to Camelot once and says it's the most beautiful kingdom he's ever seen except for Doria."

Gwaine smiles, a bit forced.

"It is beautiful there," He says. "It's beautiful here too."

"Will Arthur be able to save us?"

"I think so," Gwaine says. "Arthur knows what he's doing."

Owen is quiet for a moment.

"How old are you, Owen?" Gwaine asks.

"Eight years old," Owen answers. Gwaine nods.

"That's why Arthur avoids you, I think," he says, "You're the same age Prince Gareth would be if he were alive. It's painful for him."

Owen frowns.

"You've got black hair and blue eyes, just like Merlin did," Gwaine points around Owen's face, "Plus you've got big ears."

Owen automatically reaches up to touch his ears.

"They're not that big."

"Not as big as Merlin's were, but still big."

Owen pouts.

"Mother has black hair and blue eyes."

"So she does," Gwaine says. "I'm only saying that you remind Arthur of his family, alright?"

"Alright."

"He doesn't hate you."

Owen shrugs. It certainly didn't seem like Arthur hated him just now, but he thinks that if he were in the same situation he certainly wouldn't like anyone who reminded him so much of his past.

Somewhere a church bell rings, and Gwaine sighs.

"I should be getting back to those meetings. Don't tell anyone I told you this story, or Arthur will have my head on a stick."

"I won't, sir."

Gwaine smiles and ruffles Owen's hair just like Arthur did, then walks away.

Alone again, Owen looks around for something to do. He had come here looking for something to do in the garden, but now, looking at all the dead flowers and grass blowing in the autumn wind, it seems there's nothing to do here. It's bleak and colorless, just dull browns and grays.

For lack of anything interesting to do, Owen heads in the direction of the dungeons. He thinks of King Arthur as he goes.

He feels sorry for him now. If Owen lost his family he's sure he wouldn't be able to cope. Mother is everything to him, and so is Father, even if he sleeps a lot. Then there's Mara and Duncan, who are his family in a sense. Owen hates it when they're not allowed to play together. He can't imagine what he would do if they disappeared from him without a trace.

But perhaps that's what all kings do. All kings suffer losses, Mother has told him before. Owen probably will too. It's the mark of a good king to react well to loss, to pick himself up and put his kingdom before his grief. Otherwise what's the point of him?

When he reaches the bottom of the dungeons he braces himself. He has no idea what he'll find when he reaches the man's cell, from the way he left him a week ago.

"Hello?" Owen calls out tentatively. There's no answering clink of chains this time. "I'm back. I'm sorry I haven't visited." The circle of light from his torch approaches the man's cell, and still there's no sound except for Owen's own footsteps and breathing. There's no candle light, his candle must have run out of wick. Owen should bring him a new one later.

"I don't have any honey cakes for you this time, I'm sorry. I'll bring some next time, if you want."

Owen reaches the cell and holds his torch high to look inside, and gasps at what he sees.

Everything that Owen has given the man over the last year has been destroyed. Pages from books lie strewn about, piled on top of broken pottery that must be the dishes Owen brought him once. Straw covers everything else, even reaching the floor outside of the cell, from inside of the pillow Owen brought him. Nowhere is there an uncluttered spot.

In the center of it all is a hunched back, lit by the light from Owen's torch. It's the man curled up with his arms and legs clutched tightly to himself, quivering as if suffering from a bad dream.

"Um," Owen says, "Are you alright?"

The man doesn't respond.

"Are you alright?" Owen asks again. This time the man twitches once, and again more violently, so much that it makes his chains rattle. In a series of jerky movements he turns himself over to face Owen.

He's got something tightly in his hands, pressed closely to his chest. It's the ball Owen gave him the first day they met.

"What's wrong?" Owen asks, "Why did you break everything?"

The man shudders, coughs, and suddenly his eyes fly open.

Owen jumps back.

The man's eyes aren't the blue Owen is used to. This time there's gold in them, swirling and flickering like a dying candle beneath the white film. They flare up and fade back to blue, until the man gives another violent twitch and they flicker golden again.

It's magic, Owen knows, but how on earth did the man in the dungeon manage to get it? Mother said that Owen is the only person in all of Doria with magic.

There's a groan, and a whimper, accompanied by more twitching and flickering of gold.

"You have magic," Owen whispers.

The man groans miserably in response.

"Is it hurting you?"

The man groans louder at that, so loud Owen has to cover his ears and wonders how nobody else in the castle can hear. It's the kind of sound that Owen's heard coming from the physician's room, when people with diseases that turn their insides to mush have to get a limb cut off. It's a sound of absolute pain.

Owen has no idea what to do.

The man cries out again.

"Your eyes…"

They flicker gold, then fade to blue. The groans fade into whimpers.

"Ah," the man groans, "Ah, uh, Ahhh...uhh…..uh…"

"I don't understand."

"Oweh," the man says, breathy and desperate, "Oweh."

"That's me," Owen says, taking one tentative step forward, "I'm here."

"Oweh."

"Yes?"

The man spasms and clutches his head.

"Ahhhhh!"

"What do you need?" Owen cries. "I can't bring you a physician but...what do you need?"

The man whimpers. He screws his eyes shut and lies still, finally, clutching at his head. The silence is so great that Owen thinks the man might have died.

Then the man lifts one shaking hand off the top of his head, pieces of scraggly hair sticking to it, and reaches it towards Owen. The chain looks heavy around his wrist, thick and sturdy, rusted in places. His fingernails are cracked and bloody and completely torn off in one spot, though Owen is sure his fingersnails were completely intact the last time he was here, if a little dirty.

"What do you need?"

The man whimpers and extends his arm until it's stops just behind the bars separating them. His eyes open. They're blue now, but they're filled with tears, wild and pained, and Owen almost can't bear to look at them.

Owen reaches out his own hand between the bars. The man curls his fingers around Owen's and holds on tight. A shudder runs through him.

"Are you going to be alright?" Owen asks, adjusting his grip to be more comfortable. The man grunts, still panting and shaking, but his eyes are blue again.

"Do you need me to get you anything?" Owen asks in a whisper. The man squeezes Owen's hand harder in response, and Owen gets the message loud and clear: Stay with me.

Owen thinks of King Arthur and his devastation at being left all alone, without even knowing where his family went. At least he had knights and a kingdom to keep him company as he mourned. Whatever happened to this man, Owen thinks, he's had no one ever since.

"I won't leave you," Owen promises.

The man's eyes fall shut. His grip remains locked around Owen's hand. Owen rests his arm on the bars and lets the man clutch at it.

The ball that the man had been clutching rolled away when he clutched at his head, and now it bumps gently against the bottom most bars of the cell. Owen pokes at it with his free hand.

"Want to hear a story?" Owen asks, now that it seems the man has calmed down from whatever fit he was having. The man doesn't respond.

"Mother told me. It's not true, apparently, but it's still a nice story. It's about King Arthur."

The man only lies there and clutches Owen's hand.

"What happened was, Arthur was bored sitting at court all day and wanted to have some fun. So one day he heard about a giant living in a far off land and decided to go and fight with it."

And so Owen tells the story, adding some things like dragons and pretty maidens and a daring voyage across the sea, just to make it more interesting. His voice falls into a rhythm, washing over the cell and echoing around the stone of the dungeons. He tells the story of Arthur and holds the man's hand until he thinks the man has fallen asleep, when his shudders have calmed and his whimpers have quieted. After that, he sits cross-legged on the floor and holds the man's hand.