A/N: Me sidling in a day late with no excuse other than I completely forgot to post yesterday. Oops. Sorry.

Pain throbbed through Arthur's back, his ribs. Chills shook him. Nausea roiled up in him. He groaned, fighting the urge to vomit.

"What happened?"

"Arthur? How are you feeling?" Merlin asked.

Memory shot through Arthur. He shot up. Agonizing pain stabbed through his ribs and back. He collapsed on the stone floor with a cry. A deep throbbing pain was seated in his right leg. He had tried to escape and failed. His leg had been broken. Normally, that wouldn't be too big of a deal, but Boar had threatened he would never be able to walk properly again. "How…how is my leg?"

Merlin was silent far too long. "They purposefully bound it wrong so it won't heal properly. If it isn't fixed, you won't be able to walk very well until it's rebroken and reset by a skilled physician."

Arthur let his eyes slide closed with a grimace. Boar had done his job well. Even after Arthur recovered, he wouldn't be able to do much. They had properly made a slave out of him. "Maybe when Father gets the ransom note, he'll find a way to rescue us." Even if Father only rescued Arthur, Merlin would be all right. With Arthur gone, Merlin could concede to them, be let out, and come home.

"You've given up," Merlin said. "What happened?"

"I tried to escape," Arthur said. "I barely made it into the courtyard and they destroyed me."

"We will escape. Arthur, we will," Merlin said.

"Always with the jokes, Merlin," Arthur drifted off on a haze of pain, heedless of Merlin's continuing encouragements.


Several weeks passed by miserably. Arthur could barely move, collapsed on the floor of his cell. The guards fed him but took pleasure in taunting him as they did so. They pinned him down and shaved him every couple of days just so he would stay easily recognizable. The better to gloat over his position, of course. A physician cleaned his back once a day with what must have been the most painful concoction he could have chosen. The guards had to pin Arthur down as the physician scrubbed his back with vinegar and alcohol.

Merlin became very familiar with the sound of Arthur's screams.

Merlin was the only thing that kept Arthur sane throughout his healing. After he realized Arthur wasn't up to conversation, he started telling stories. Arthur wanted to protest the stories, as they were akin to the children's fairytales Gaius had told a tiny Arthur before bed, and often featured both the good guys and bad guys using magic. Arthur didn't really care about the magic himself, as he didn't know enough about it to have an opinion, but Father would have his head just for enjoying this. With the condemnation of the guards driving into him, he was left defenseless to the lectures his mind conjured of an angry Uther spewing hatred about magic and disappointment in Arthur for failing him.

But Merlin's magical stories were the only distraction Arthur had from his pain. So he said nothing despite his mind and his father's words tearing him in two.

One day, the physician pronounced his crooked leg healed enough to walk on. Laughing raucously, the guards stuffed him into a shirt and dragged him out of the dungeons once more.

Arthur could only limp along between the guards as he was led throughout the castle. They dragged him into the armory and dumped him next to a long line of dented and scratched-up armor. He sank down on the cool stone with a sigh, rubbing his right shin in hopes to dispel the ache. At least polishing armor was something he could do. It had been one of his duties when he had just been a squire. If they didn't purposefully make this harder, he could accomplish this, biding his time while Father worked on freeing him.

Boar threw polishing tools into Arthur's lap. "All of this better be done by lunchtime, slave."

Arthur gritted his teeth, his face burning. There it was. This could never be done by the noonday meal. He nodded.

"Now what do you say?" Boar asked.

Arthur frowned. What he would like to say was "Get out of my sight," but he couldn't say that.

Boar seized his arm and twisted it behind his back. He spoke into his ear. "You say, 'Yes, master.'"

Arthur shook his head, despite the pain ripping through his arm. "Never."

Boar gestured to the other guard. The guard snaked his arm around Arthur's throat.

"While we would dearly love to keep you around for more lessons, we don't need you around to collect the ransom from Uther, and Camelot can always find a new crown prince," Boar said.

The guard tightened his arm around Arthur's throat. He choked, pulling at the arm with his free hand, but it didn't budge. A burning clawing grew in his chest.

"So either you give in and say, 'Yes, master,' or you die right here, right now," Boar hissed. "No one will know what happened to you. Not your father, not your friends, not your subjects. You will be buried in an unmarked grave, but you will keep your dignity intact. The prince who refused to be a slave."

Darkness flared at the edges of his Arthur's vision. He pushed his feet against the floor, though it did no good. He could die here. Alone. Merlin would wait in the cell for him and he would never come, Father would pay the ransom and never get his son in exchange, Guinevere would wait in the castle courtyard for him to ride in and never see him, Morgana would wait in her bedroom thinking up retorts and never be able to use them. He nodded. He couldn't speak, so that was the only way he could signal Boar he would rather live humiliated than die with dignity.

The guard released Arthur's throat. Arthur gasped in greedily, almost hyperventilating to fill the hollow in his throat and chest.

Boar twisted Arthur's arm up further, squeezing a tiny groan from his throat. "Now what do you say?"

"Yes, master," Arthur panted.

"Very good." Boar released his arm and left the strangely weaponless armory, the other guard following behind him.

Shaking, Arthur cradled his throbbing arm in his lap. Had it been only a few weeks ago that he had laughed at home as Merlin tripped over his own feet? That he had snuck a kiss with Guinevere before training? That Father had praised his industriousness at dinner? That Morgana had teased him for being a brain dead sweaty lunk? Now, he was abused, in pain, alone.

He grabbed the polishing cloth and a greave from the pile next to him and got to work.