Honor By Knight – Gwaine: Burdens of Brotherhood

"It wasn't fair, I tell you," Gwaine whined, sweeping his good arm to usher a few maidens around a pile of rubble. Most of the knights had been detailed for security all over the city including him and Elyan. Arthur wanted to ensure the people of their safety and a strong presence of Camelot soldiers and knights would ensure that. "After all that I'd been through, I deserve that kind of action. I was born to battle dragons."

The only thing Gwaine remembered about that day was waking to the sound of the alarm bells, shouting, screaming, and trying to rise to the occasion to defend the castle from whatever peril was stupid enough to come to Camelot on a day like that day. But the beating he'd received at Morgana's behest from the Southrons to win a few morsels of food for Gaius, Elyan, and himself had done him in. He had broken ribs, a broken nose, bruises and scrapes all over his body. He lost a molar, too, and every muscle still ached. Even his toes screamed for relief and that day, all he could do was remove his socks and roll onto his stomach. There was no way he could have risen from his bed and rescue anyone.

But now he wished he had, even as today it hurt like hades to get into his chain mail with his arm still in a sling like a wounded bird with a clipped wing. Everyone was up in a roar about how the great dragon had swooped into the citadel's courtyard and yanked Morgana off the butcher's block, and how a few sorcerers had penetrated close enough to try and rescue her as well. It must had been total chaos, pandemonium, hell on earth, and he'd missed it. All because his big toe hurt – well – and a few other major parts. But, damn it. All his mates were still talking about the part they'd played in Morgana's great escape with a dragon.

Elyan rolled his eyes as a wagon creaked by and leaned against the scaffolding around the lower town's damaged church. Saws scrapped, hammers pounded, the chatter of people rebuilding all around a welcome distraction to drown out Gwaine's grousing.

"Yeah, well. I met it. Its scales are practically made of steel and it's at least thirty meters tall. Don't forget that it breathes fire and can fly. You still want to do battle with it?"

"Right, no fun allowed when it comes to fire-breathing beasts. Maybe we should stick to pillow fights then?" He shrugged, his smile wide. "It's old. If I can get close enough, I'll find its vulnerable spots, so yeah."

"Merlin trusts it, and Arthur doesn't want any harm to come to the dragons. It's as if they're more important than people."

Gwaine heard traces of disdain in Elyan's voice and swallowed his instincts to press further on the subject. Instead, he joked his concern away. "Best friends forever, I'm sure. They'll be braiding each other's hair next."

Elyan scoffed, raised his eyes to convey his displeasure. "I'm sure they're fast friends."

Gwen's brother had been absent these last few days from the tavern where the knights spent their free time. In fact, he didn't mingle much with them even when they were together, often wandering off by himself or standing away of the group, isolating himself from them.

"Well, its Morgana's prison guard," Gwaine said, dodging a few men hauling water buckets. "At least it'll keep her out of our hair for a time."

"Yeah, for how long? She's supposed to be part of this great plan to unite the kingdoms so she'll be back. If we're not careful, we'll all end up at her mercy again."

A haunted shadow crossed Elyan's face as his hand went to his neck. He'd seen Elyan that a few times lately. Gwaine remembered how lethargic the man had been after being tortured by the witch. Two puncture scars stood out sometimes when he turned his head just so. Gaius had explained that the fangs from the snake pumped cursed venom over and over into Elyan's veins, snapping his will and causing him to break. Gods, if that would ever happen to him, he'd rather die than to live with a betrayal such that Elyan was now living. His friend's eyes came into focus as he pulled out a water skin and took a drink.

"Not if Arthur can help it," Gwaine continued. He scratched his nose, sawdust tickling the insides. "What do you think about his noble plan?"

"Which part?" he snapped, seeming to forget his surroundings, his voice loud enough for those in earshot. "Freeing magic? Using Morgana? Merlin's duality? Or should I say his duplicity?" Elyan had move into Gwaine's space, forcing the knight to recline his upper body. "I have reservations about a great many things."

Gwaine eased Elyan back with a firm hand, keeping his eyes level with his friend. He shifted uncomfortably, his injuries flaring as if a warning. Tales of the Leodegrance misfortunes whispered through the castle halls, the family often cursed by magic for so many nefarious and unjust reasons. He could certainly understand the man's reticence toward it.

"Well, I'm happy for Merlin," Gwaine said, calm in his voice. Elyan clicked his tongue and haughtily leaned against the back of a carpenter's wagon a few meters from the chapel entrance. "I think he deserves to be free."

Elyan scoffed again, his voice accusatory. "You knew he was a sorcerer."

"Shh! Keep your trap shut," Gwaine warned, not bothering to keep the edge from his voice. "It's still a secret matter, remember?"

"All this time, right under our noses …"

"He's harmless." Gwaine lips smoothed into a smile. "Or at least to us. He's helped us in ways that we probably can't imagine, Elyan. Besides, people should be able to live the way they want without prejudice or persecution."

"I didn't hear this kind of tolerance when you were hunting his kind down and slaughtering them." Elyan sneered, his eyelid hooded as if to challenge.

Gwaine's cool smile dropped and he gave his friend a hard stare. "That's a fine thing to say."

Elyan pushed himself off the cart and stepped closer to him. "I'm saying it's hypocritical. You've killed lots of sorcerers, Gwaine. Raided their homes. How many children have you hunted down? And now you want to protect them?"

Gwaine's head cocked sideways as a fist squeezed the hilt of his sword. "Are you looking for a fight, Elyan? Because I'll give you one. I've never harmed children and neither have you. Now if our new orders are to protect sorcerers, then yeah. I will do so." Their gazes locked for what seemed like a long moment to Gwaine before he took a breath, calming the resentment brewing under his skin.

"Look, Elyan. I know things are eating at you. Everyone can tell. Let me be the first to say that I can't begin to understand what's happened to you, with that snake, and Gwen—."

"No, you can't! So don't try!"

Gwaine receded with palms up, stepping back to distance the space between them. He untied his waterskin. "You're right. We've all been touched by magic in one way or another. A lot of people have been hurt, innocent ones like your father-."

"Don't bring my father into this." Elyan's eyes bulged, becoming redder, glassier by the second. "I let him down just as I had Gwen."

Gwaine drank from the waterskin, the taste stale and hot. "I never knew my father so I do know what it was like to not have one. It's like an ever-present emptiness that—"

"I don't care, Gwaine!"

Gwaine's head snapped back from the force of Elyan's voice and the fire in his eyes.

"Let's just do our duty until we get word of Leon's arrival." Elyan shifted his cloak about his neck. "No more talk in the meantime, okay? Your voice is giving me a headache."

"Jupiter's stones!" Gwaine swore, the church bell clanking erratically overhead from repair work. "Whatever you say. I'll just sing instead. Maybe that'll soothe you."

Gwaine crossed the lane and worked that side of the road, now and again casting awkward glances to Elyan, who kept his gaze anywhere but in Gwaine's direction.

He spent the next ten minutes wondering what he could do for his friend. Women and wine were a salve for him. Wine drowned sorrows that no laughter could subdue. Women soothed pains that sometimes ran deep. Still, the younger knight had been through more than most could imagine, and keeping it all in was not a help to him – was not the way to get past it. On cold nights, ghosts of the past could come calling with temptations, forcing him to fight against them.

"Sir Elyan! A word!" Someone called from down the way past piles of debris and Gwaine searched the crowd to see Fredrick approaching their location. They started toward Gwen's body guard, Gwaine all the while keeping Elyan just in his periphery.