A/N: Me again! I know I said I would change the point of view, but while I wrote the chapter, it felt like it was somehow... Wrong to publish it already.
After discussing quite a bit of the overall plot and plans I have concerning my dear tale-changer with my cousin (who is a surprisingly good adviser for fan fictions about a series she hasn't watched), I decided to do it differently.
So, for the next chapter (at least...) we will stay with William and Gwaine and go back to the change of view when it fits better into the storyline. I hope you're not disappointed and enjoy it nonetheless!
Everything will be explained at some point, I promise.
Chapter 4
I followed Gwaine to the cot and sat down, asking a question that had been nagging on me: "How long was I out?"
"A few hours, I guess. You were in here before me."
"Where did they capture you?"
"In the armory. They took the weapons, too, I had no time to secure them. Not that they would help anyone now. I guess the other knights are either dead or taken prisoner, like we are. It is a good thing Merlin could persuade Arthur to leave Camelot."
Gwaine's voice betrayed his too calm face. It was fairly obvious that he was thinking of his friends and worried about their well being.
"Before they took me, I was in the lower town with Sir Leon and Sir Elyan", I told him, "It was apparent even then that the Southrons were outnumbering us, I believe they could have retreated and fled to the forest. It would have been the only sensible thing to do, I guess."
Gwaine snorted, murmuring: "Good thing Elyan was not alone, then" and asked, "So how did they get you?"
"Leon sent me to sound the bell. On my way back I happened to meet Agravaine, Morgana and a bunch of soldiers. Wasn't exciting at all, even though they weren't very polite, I must say."
Neither one of us said something for quite a while. When I risked a glance to the side, I saw that Gwaine had leaned back, his head resting against the brick wall, his eyes closed. I was wondering if he might have fallen asleep. He had, after all, killed two men, less than an hour ago.
The cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding. The knight should have looked fearsome, with blood all over his face and part of his shirt, too, but somehow he didn't.
I remembered something my mentor had explained to me very early after I began my training to become a tale-changer. He showed me a picture of a tapestry on a loom, woven by the fates of ancient Greek mythology: "Whenever we step into another dimension, we disrupt and reweave the threads binding together the stories in this world. Even if we want to prevent change, small things will happen that were not supposed to be. We become a thread in the tapestry ourselves, but we have the wrong color and are not of the same material as the rest are. This is why it is so important that we do not stay longer than necessary..."
The wound on Gwaine's face would be a constant reminder of one of the 'small things' that were already changing because of my presence.
Tearing my gaze away from the knight I tried to stop thinking about these things. None of this was helping.
When I woke up, the torch outside was almost gone out and I could barely see, but it was enough to realize that I was alone. Gwaine was gone and I hadn't noticed anything. Maybe Morgana wanted another fight, but it might as well be that she got him killed because he smiled too much or was not as submissive as she wanted him to be, and I had slept through it all.
Apart from my breathing, the only thing I could hear was the Southroners standing guard talking, but not loud enough to understand anything. There had to be other prisoners in the dungeons, but there was no sound coming from the other cells.
I tried to imagine where Merlin and Arthur would be now, but this only got me worrying if they got away from Camelot at all.
Like this wasn't bad enough yet, I became aware of my hunger and thirst, making everything appear even worse.
I started to count the seconds that went by, just to get an idea how much time had passed, trying not to think of anything but to focus on this one thing I could do. When I reached 4013, I heard steps coming nearer and a strange, almost shuffling noise.
The door of the cell was opened and someone was thrown in. But it was not Gwaine, as I had suspected, but someone else entirely.
"Gaius!" I knelt down by the physician's side and helped him to sit up. Something about him was more than just odd. He stared at nothing, his expression blank, and seemed wholly without will of his own, like he was petrified. I moved my hand in front of his eyes, but there was no reaction at all.
A terrible idea came to my mind. Elyan had been in the lower town with Leon when the Southroners attacked, so he had probably fled to the forest. And Gwaine was captured in the armory, so no one would have stopped Merlin to beg for Gaius to accompany him and Arthur. So maybe...
"Nathair", I whispered, a cold shiver running down my spine.
Gaius kept staring straight onwards, resembling a statue, without blinking or moving.
Torture to the limit of human endurance, Gaius had phrased it. Or would have phrased it, if not for me being here.
What was I supposed to do now? I was not a physician, I knew only little about healing, and this only included wounds caused by weapons, not treating injuries that marred the soul. And I never really had a clue how the Nathair worked, anyway.
But there was at least one thing I could do.
"Come on, Gaius", I said, trying to get him up, off of the ground and onto the cot. It took me some time, but in the end, he was laying down there, staring at the ceiling. Now I was back to guessing what was to be done next.
While I was going through some ideas, none of them very appealing, there was again commotion in the hallway.
Gwaine was back, finally, and he seemed unhurt.
He held up a beaker and a small piece of bread with a more than slightly burned crust: "Look what I've got! She now pays me for killing her soldiers!"
The grin on his face died when he noticed Gaius: "What happened to him?", he asked, handing me both drink and food, and bent over the court physician with a worried expression.
"They tortured him. Maybe he knew where Merlin and Arthur were heading", I said.
Looking at Gwaine, I remembered yet another reason why I hated the Nathair.
