Hi! I'm back. Remember how I said I might want to continue this story? Well, I published the first chapter last week and immediately realized I needed to finish it. I'm not sure how long this story is going to be, but I already have part of the next chapter written up, so keep your eyes peeled! I will probably be updating every Wednesday, but as I am still learning the ropes, that might change.
A HUGE Thank-you to everybody who commented, favorited, and followed! I was never expecting anybody to read this, and you blew me away!
Please enjoy this next installment!
~Ra1n
Previously...
Arthur banished the second thought immediately, hating himself for thinking it. But the first thought stayed. For some reason, the thought that Merlin - brave, stubborn, stupid, powerful Merlin - didn't have the strength to walk out of his own prison made Arthur's stomach clench.
As Arthur watched the sorcerer sob into the floor, things suddenly snapped into perspective.
Arthur had taken everything.
His lungs froze at the realization. He, Arthur Pendragon, had taken Merlin's strength, trust, magic, and life and ripped it away. He had taken gentle Merlin and crippled him into a trembling creature in a stone-dark cell, and because of what? Paranoia? A need to prove to his dead father that he could be king? He didn't know. He only knew he had been so angry, had felt so betrayed and righteous in the shadow of that betrayal.
He hadn't thought, just acted, and now-
Merlin's crying changed patterns. Arthur looked at him, hoping to see him standing but fearing what he would do if he was. Instead, he watched as Merlin twisted himself into hysterics. His sobs were being punctuated by odd, hitching giggles every minute or so. It was unsettling, the way his shoulders shook themselves from tears to laughter to tears again, and Arthur thought back to the collar around Merlin's neck, of the discovery and the fury that had lead them both to where they were now.
"What is this collar for, your highness? ...If I may ask." The jewel smith said, carefully setting a shard of ruby into the iron. "If I know its intended use, I can set stones accordingly- rubies are only the generic option."
"And what do the rubies do?" Arthur asked, morbid intrigue moving his lips for him.
"Slow the blood flow, sire. I assume -as it is an iron collar -that you are intending to subdue a magical creature of some kind? These rubies should aid in that."
Arthur nodded silently in order to avoid correcting the smith's use of the word "creature." If that was what he wanted to call the sorcerer, then so be it. That was an accurate term anyway, for what was a creature but a lower being, one that could not be entirely defined as human?
The jewel smith nodded back. "Well, I do need to know the nature of the beast's magic if I am going to design a collar that will properly subdue it."
Beast, Arthur thought. Beast. He liked that word even better.
"The beast," he said, probing the word with his tongue, "is clever and cunning. It can summon magic with a simple thought, and is extremely adept at slipping away unseen."
He stopped, thought of Merlin on that terrible night, when in the darkness of the woods he slipped away from the camp and summoned the dragon from the sky as Arthur watched unnoticed under the shelter of the trees. He had told himself that dragon calling wasn't strictly forbidden, and that surely Merlin wasn't hiding any other secrets. Still, he found himself vowing to keep watch on the servant.
"It can hide its motives easily, and change nature very quickly."
He thought of the days of watching Merlin from the shadows. Of watching him secretly flash his golden eyes and summon fire, heat water, call light to his hands, even freeze the very fabric of time, all under Arthur's nose, and wondered how he was so stupid to allow another sorcerer so close to his heart.
"It is self-serving and will do everything in its power to keep itself safe."
He thought of the countless magical raids that had barraged the kingdom, and how Merlin had conveniently slipped away during all of them, only to reappear unscathed later on, and shuddered. How many times had Morgause mocked Arthur with knowledge she couldn't possibly possess? How long had that knowledge been coming from Merlin?
"The beast is very dangerous," Arthur concluded, "a threat to Camelot and it's people."
He thought of Morgana. Sweet Morgana. Who had disappeared and come back changed. The guilty look in Merlin's eyes whenever her name was mentioned, the way he seemed so blatantly unafraid and unsurprised when she turned. What had he done to her? How had Arthur not noticed his own manservant destroying the king's beautiful ward?
"Do whatever you can to keep this thing subdued," he ground out, his emotions getting the better of him. He imagined snapping the collar around Merlin's throat and burning him for his crimes against him, against his family, against Camelot.
The jewel smith nodded and lifted an amethyst from a pouch still flashing full of flickering stones. "To weaken the mind," he said, and Arthur watched as the purple rock glittered in the dying light of the day.
"G-Guards," Arthur choked out as the memory faded. He needed to make things right, needed to fix things, needed to get that bloody collar off of his neck but there was something bitter caught in his throat, and he swallowed and called again, "Guards!"
Heavy steps thudded down the corridor. Merlin's body tensed, his sobs stopping abruptly as the footsteps got louder. His face turned towards Arthur, stained with grit and tears-
And he was smiling.
Arthur's throat filled again. He took a few steps back.
"R-Running away again, A-Arthur?" Merlin hissed, still on the floor. His bloody teeth glinted behind his lips, but the malice was gone. Tears continued to slide down his cheeks, and his eyes kept darting between Arthur and the corridor, his smile twitching at the edges as the footsteps got louder.
He dropped his gaze to the device still pressed against Merlin's skin.
He had gotten what he wanted in the end.
Of course he had gotten what he wanted. He had gotten to savor the way the metal hissed as it closed around Merlin's windpipe. He had gotten to smile when Merlin let out a feeble noise and sunk to the ground of Arthur's chambers. He had stood motionless as Merlin dropped the breakfast tray and pitcher of wine, as the rubies tainted his blood and the nickel locked his muscles. He had felt triumph as he ordered the sorcerer to the deepest dungeons and he had felt pride every single time a shaking, traumatized guard handed him a report of Merlin's misery.
And now all he wanted was to take everything back.
"GUARDS!" he roared. They weren't moving fast enough, weren't saving Merlin from Arthur's mistakes as quickly as he needed to be saved. "GUARDS!"
The guards scrambled in suddenly, tripping over one another in their haste to make it to the doorway. Something akin to panic suddenly flashed through Merlin's eyes. The eerie smile dropped. Arthur ignored it.
"Guards, please...please escort him to Gaius' chambers," Arthur said. Quickly. God, please just get him out of this cell, was left unspoken.
Arthur realized his mistake the moment the guards seized Merlin's arms.
"N-No-" Merlin gasped, his eyes widening as he was dragged to his feet, "N-No p-please, I-I c-can't- n-no-" he tried to jerk his arms out of the guards' grip, but he was too weak and the guards' hands didn't collar and the torture had done their job, and Merlin came to a quivering halt between them. "Please. Please, please-" he shook his head, new tears streaming down his face, "D-don't-"
"Stop!" Arthur cried over Merlin's pleas, and the guards froze.
They looked at him expectantly. Merlin remained slumped between them, too exhausted to lift his head up.
"Put… put him down." Arthur said carefully.
The guards did as they were told, lowering Merlin back onto the stone floor and releasing his arms. Merlin curled into himself immediately, wrapping his arms around his bony knees and pressing his face into them, softly speaking into his own chest.
In the raw strain of Merlin's murmuring, Arthur knelt.
"Merlin," he said quietly, and, horrified, realized he hadn't called him by his name in weeks; not since he'd ordered his imprisonment and interrogation.
Merlin didn't respond to his name. Had anybody called him by his name since he'd been locked down here? Instead, he pulled his knees in tighter and continued whispering. He flicked a furtive glance at Arthur, then back to his bony knees, the syllables coming faster as Arthur leaned a little to hear them.
"L-leave me alone. Not again. Not again. I'm n-not... I-I don't kn-know- anything. I p-promise, I promise," he was saying, and Arthur's fears were confirmed.
He cursed. What was he thinking? The guards had been in charge of torturing the man for the last few weeks, and Arthur had just called them in and ordered them to drag him away. The destination didn't matter; Merlin's fractured mind was unable to see the difference between now, when guards and orders meant salvation, and the day of his arrest, when orders and the very same guards meant a cell with questions and pain. And why would he? It had been the same for weeks: wake him up, strap him down, interrogate him into unconsciousness, repeat.
Merlin continued rocking, whispering his innocence into his cupped hands.
"Merlin, can you look at me?"
Merlin shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, "I d-don't k-know about the p-plans. I-I told y-you. I t-told y-you."
The plans.
The plans.
"Sire, the raids-" Leon's voice echoed in Arthur's mind.
The memory came faster than the others, and Arthur wanted them to stop even as he convinced himself that he deserved the torture of reliving them.
"-the raids are increasing as we speak. She is readying an army, sire. She heard of Merlin's imprisonment, and she will attack." Leon's face was carefully neutral as he relayed the news.
Merlin had been in the dungeons for a week and a half, and Morgana was preparing an army.
"Does she intend to get her traitor back?" Arthur asked.
Leon shook his head slowly. "Your charade worked, sire. She believes him dead. All of Camelot does. The pyre was very convincing."
Arthur felt a little pride in that. A single announcement at dawn, a pig's carcass, a blazing pyre in the middle of the night, and Merlin was easily considered dead to the kingdom's people. He had hoped the false news would reach Morgause and Morgana -if they believed their rat was dead, they wouldn't worry about rescuing him-and then Arthur could interrogate Merlin about their plans without the threat of them barging in hanging over his head.
The only problem was, Merlin had so far denied knowing any of their plans. And now Morgana was preparing an army.
"How many days until she reaches the castle?"
"A fortnight, sire. Maybe a little more."
"Please tell the guards to move on to the next step of the interrogation. I want something out of the sorcerer before she arrives."
"Yes, sire." Leon said, shuffling away.
It was only four days later that the head guard had approached Arthur.
It was only four days later that he was told the methods weren't working.
It was only four days later that Arthur had told them to get more creative.
But it was four weeks before Arthur had found out the truth:
There had never been any fucking plans.
"I know, Merlin." Arthur said, pulling himself back into the present. Merlin needed help now. "And I'm not asking you about any plans."
"D-don't h-have a-any."
"I know." He tried to keep his voice soft while catching his eyes, but Merlin's gaze kept sliding away, following invisible patterns through the air and rolling from the guards' hands, to Arthur's hands, to their heavy boots, and back to his own broken fingers.
"Can you please look at me?"
Merlin shook his head. Arthur shuffled forward a few more inches.
"Yes, you can. I need you to." This time Merlin didn't even shake his head. He just closed his eyes even tighter. Arthur took a deep breath, sending the guards a pleading look. They hung back. The older one was shaking his head slowly, guilt lining his brow.
It takes a lot to break a man like this, Arthur read in the guard's face, who was looking Merlin over and cataloging the damage done, no doubt remembering every cry of innocence each mark had forced out of the boy's throat. Arthur had read the initial reports. He knew that Merlin had talked back the first week, shouted the second, begged the third, cried the fourth, and whimpered his way through the fifth. He'd stopped reading midway through the fifth.
The guards hadn't had that option.
"God dammit, Merlin," he muttered, his tone softening again, "I'm not going to hurt you."
No response.
He looked around the cell in defeat, taking in the chair and the boot-prints smeared through the blood on the floor.
Oh.
Oh.
The guards.
"Guards," he said, and they rose to attention. "Please exit the cell and stand outside the door."
They looked only too happy to leave, and Arthur followed them halfway. Standing in the doorway, he could see his friend without being too close.
He looked awfully small in the cell alone.
For a few moments, nothing happened. Merlin remained in his tight ball, shivering. The older guard made a small noise in his throat, and Arthur looked down the hall to see him standing very still a few feet away, watching through the bars.
"He…" the guard began, but then stopped. He shook his head and turned towards the bars again.
Arthur opened his mouth to ask him to continue, when the whispering from within the cell suddenly stopped. Both men whipped their heads towards the silence.
Merlin was uncurling, his breathing slowing as he glanced around the now-empty cell. He placed his hands on the floor and scooted towards the nearest wall, avoiding the chair and the broken ropes in the center. He winced as he lifted his hands from the stone and studied them. A few of his fingernails were missing -more creativity, Arthur thought numbly -and his fingers had started to bleed.
Groaning, Merlin shoved his broken hands into his lap and leaned against the wall. Arthur took his chance, and carefully opened the door to the cell again.
Merlin's eyes slivered open.