A/N: Another short one but important stuff happens in this one!
He spent a week sleeping with the pigs. He was practically coated with mud. He could barely stay upright, his energy almost gone, but at least his jaw seemed to be healing properly.
"Arthur!" Merlin darted to the bars as Boar threw Arthur into his cell. "I thought they'd gone and killed you."
Arthur shook his head. He sank to his knees. "They're not actually ransoming me. They took Father's money but aren't releasing me."
Merlin drew in a sharp breath. "Arthur, I'm so sorry." He sank to his knees, burying his face in his hands. "This is all my fault. I could have escaped, I should have found some way to drag you with me, I could have found some spell to…to lighten you or something or kill them all or…something. I could have helped you escape and I didn't and now you're suffering and it's all my fault."
"Spell?" Arthur murmured.
"I have magic," Merlin said. "I'm a sorcerer. I thought you were dead and I didn't get to tell you, and you're my best friend so it's not fair that you'd never know, and it's all my fault you're still here because I should have done something, and I can't even weaken these magic-restraining cuffs, and…"
Arthur reached through the bars and laid his hand on Merlin's shoulder, too tired to be angry, too tired to feel betrayed. Father would hate this, but Arthur would never see Father again, and Arthur had been wrestling with the ethics of magic for a while. He couldn't lose his only remaining friend. "I'm glad you're here with me, Merlin, even if you do have magic."
He curled up on the floor, slowly eating the dinner he was brought, as Merlin told likely embellished tales of the magic he'd done in Camelot.
Arthur may be nothing to all the people in the courtyard or up in the castle, but he wasn't nothing to Merlin. It was a small thing, but it was really, really big, too.
"Slave! Come take care of this fine gentleman's horse!" Boar called.
Arthur shuffled over through the fine layer of snow coating the cobblestones and grabbed the horse's reins. Occasional visitors came to the castle, but they all either ignored Arthur or delighted in his misfortune. At least the horse wouldn't laugh at him.
"Mate, I've still got—my stuff's still on the horse," the male visitor said.
"I'll carry it back to you, master," Arthur mumbled. His jaw had healed completely, but the habit he'd developed in the meantime was hard to break. No one cared to hear him speak anyway, so he didn't see the point in speaking up.
The horse clopped behind him into the stables.
"You don't need to do that, mate, it's my stuff, I'd rather handle it myself." The visitor followed Arthur into the stables.
Arthur pulled the horse into an empty stall, not bothering to look up at the visitor. "I can get it, master." The work was the only thing he had left. If he was sent back to the cage, he would go insane.
"No, no, it's not—" the visitor started.
Arthur unstrapped a saddlebag. A pair of hands tugged the saddlebag away from him.
"Give me my bag!" the visitor said.
Arthur cringed away, waiting for a blow as a payment for disobedience. When it didn't come, he glanced up at the visitor.
"Gwaine?"
A/N: Now you guys know why I was so specific at the beginning that this was set after Gwaine but before The Crystal Cave. If I'm going to shoehorn in a Morgana redemption, it has to be before The Crystal Cave, which I count as the point of no return, but I needed Gwaine in this!
