"A single lie discovered is enough to create doubt in every truth expressed."

-Bram Stoker

The trial by combat was a sacred and ancient law, with stringent practices. One ignored such traditions at their own peril. It was, historically speaking, in the best interests of even the most bloodthirsty tyrant to obey such laws. At least publically. To do otherwise, and to be caught, was to invite enemies to one's doorstep. Tradition was a sacred thing in the Five Kingdoms, and flouting it would sow seeds of doubt, even among one's allies.

The burial rights of a slain champion would normally fall to whichever kingdom that champion had stood for. This practice acted as a safeguard against the ill-treatment of a defeated champion's body. Honoring the dead, in turn, sets a broader precedent for the treatment of one's own corpse should you someday fall into the hands of an enemy.

At his request— Queen Morcant, the woman who had so effectively weaponized these very traditions against Camelot, broke from them. Not that he had any intention of ever making it known. After the battlefield had been cleared; she relinquished Morgana's body to Arthur.

Gwen had cleaned and prepared Morgana for burial, alone, after she and Gaius had finished with… their other charge. And in the hours before that first dawn, after he'd slunk away from the knight's vigil, Arthur had carried his half-sister's body on horseback into the forest.

He'd traveled through the deepest shadows; riding until he was certain none who would seek to desecrate her body in vengeance for her evils would ever find her. And there, he had buried her.

Morgana Pendragon was laid to rest tucked in a split among the gnarled roots of an ancient oak tree. The last of its leaves had seemed to whisper in the sorrow of all that had been lost to them as he worked, pushing his already taxed body to the brink of collapse. Finally, staggering, he'd marked the site with a cairn.

Kneeling there, burning lungs billowing after the long exertion, a cold part of him had thought this was what Morgana deserved for her pride. For taking dark magic into her soul. He hated her for the pain she had inflicted on their family, on their kingdom. There was another part, though, one that echoed with the lost laughter of their shared childhood. One which had never forgotten the woman he knew had loved him and Gwen more than anything. And that part pitied her.

Standing, he'd taken a long draft of water from the skin on his hip before pouring out a portion over the freshly turned earth. Arthur hadn't looked back as he'd ridden away, returning to camp only a few hours after dawn. The sleepless night and emotional weight of burying the sister who had desired nothing more than to butcher him before his people, surprisingly, had done little for Arthur's state of mind.

Feeling as though training weights were wrapped around each limb, Arthur woodenly followed Gwen in spending that first day doing their due diligence as monarchs.

The sound of the rustling, dry leaves from that great oak he'd labored beneath seemed to fill his ears as he moved from pavilion to pavilion, dutifully thanking each noble lord present for their loyalty and swift aid. Along with that came promises of feasts, of celebratory hunts, of Arthur personally evaluating this son or that nephew for potential knighthood.

Mostly, for Arthur, it meant making sure he was seen as much as possible. He knew his people needed reassurance that he was safe, whole, and strong. They needed to see he hadn't been diminished by his imprisonment, that he remained a capable leader. As demanded, he played the part well. The true carnage of his emotions and thoughts remained locked away, muffled by the rustling of the oak tree.

Nobody had ever asked about his injured hand. Arthur never volunteered the information, only allowing his wife to treat the split skin. He'd fractured his hand before, and he knew those familiar injuries, too, would heal with time.

He managed to endure a full day in camp after the duel, finally setting out on the sunrise of the second morning. Separating from the main body of the camp under the guise of getting the King back for proper medical attention; the retinue around Arthur was as small as he could negotiate without blatantly ignoring the demands of his advisors.

Behind them, they left Camelot's army to pack up and make their way home. For some, that would mean returning to the city, for others, returning to their own fiefdoms and lands. Even now, nearly a day free of the suffocating camp and the necessary tedious politics, Arthur experienced no relief. If anything— their absence highlighted where they had been acting as welcome distractions. He was particularly sensitive to Guinevere's emotions, the weight of loss hanging heavily about her shoulders like an ill-fitted suit of armor. She was no stranger to sorrow and bear it she did. From the way his wife's gaze lingered when she thought he wasn't looking, she was worried. No doubt she wanted to talk about it. Merlin's death was not only Arthur's to bear, he knew. Yet, as much as he wanted to comfort her, he couldn't. He already felt nearly overwhelmed by the resonance in his sips of her grief from mere proximity. If he opened himself up to it, if they talked about what had happened, he knew his own emotions would rise in recognition of hers. Guinevere seemed to understand he wasn't ready and spoke of it only in gentle touches and the way she didn't ask him about the nightmares that ravaged him at night.

Arthur's attention was drawn like a loadstone to the dour court physician. All spirit seemed to have drained from Gaius, who greeted every attempt at a conversation from the hovering Knights with a vacant stare. Nevertheless, Percival appeared to have taken it upon himself to see to him. With the patience of a mother tending her babe, the brawny knight made sure the old man was both eating and drinking.

Did you know this entire time, Gaius?

Even more of a weight, perhaps, was the cart Gaius drove. The place where Merlin's body rested wrapped, protected, concealed.

Arthur had been unable to face the shell the young man had so recently inhabited. A panicked sensation seized his organs and attempted to use them like a climbing hook to crawl up his throat anytime his eyes had so much as drifted near the cart. So, he kept a deliberate distance. Among the silent mourners mingled those oblivious to the deeper currents, and Arthur maneuvered to place them as a wall between himself and the truth he couldn't confront.

He hadn't known the person who lay in that cart. They were a stranger, wearing the face and the life of the man he thought he'd known. The knowledge festered like a hole in his stomach, leaking acid through his body. Arthur was numb and distant and angry and near tears all at once. He wanted to rage and flee and scream insults and beg forgiveness... But the person all that emotion was directed towards would never hear him.

The land passed below their horse's hooves, and he hardly felt it, no more than he felt the passing of days. His body moved across rocks and streams and sand, but his mind wasn't there— it was back on the battlefield with a ghost.

"I pledge my fealty, my life, to this purpose."

Several days into their trip, someone laid a hand on his arm drawing him out of the turmoil. Arthur had drifted from the group to sit atop a nearby hillock overlooking the campsite. Turning, he found a familiar weary face. Annoyance stabbed through him.

"I don't need a tender, Leon."

"I'm not offering. I've got enough to deal with, with Gwaine right now. Any moment I half expect him to lay face down in a puddle and just give up."

Lowering himself to the ground beside Arthur, Leon pulled out a dark brown bottle. Uncorking the top, he took several long pulls of a strong-smelling liquid before offering it to Arthur.

Accepting it with a raised eyebrow Arthur took a swallow. He immediately regretted it when the taste of oak and smoke burned his mouth, slipping down his throat to scorch his insides. He brought the bottle to his whiskey-numbed lips for a second, long pull.

They sat in companionable silence for a time, the fire of the spirit anchoring Arthur in the present more than anything else had. Passing the container back and forth they watched the simple camp go up for the night below them. Completed, it was a huddle of around a dozen tents in all. Impractical compared to the quick and practical way Arthur usually preferred to travel but he'd offered no protest.

"It's okay to be angry."

Arthur froze, bottle halfway to his lips. "What?"

"At Merlin, I mean. I know I've been."

Shame flooded through Arthur, flushing his cheeks with heat beyond the warmth of the whiskey. Planting the bottle in the grassy hillock he stood.

"I've had enough. And I think you've had too much."

"Look, you don't need to talk to me about it. Just… My father was a real piece of work. And something I learned the hard way when he died was you don't have to forgive someone before you let yourself mourn them."

The words rang in Arthur's ears as he stormed away, the sensation of fire still twisting in his esophagus, moderately unsteady on his feet.

Gwen sighed, biting her lip and twisting her fingers together as her feet worried a new path down the center of the campsite. The sun had dipped below the tree line, and still, Arthur hadn't returned.

She'd been uncertain how to touch the cloud of grief hanging so densely over him. Her husband was a pot on a slow boil— angry since the moment he'd returned. Trying to grieve, but with no idea how. She sensed he wanted to take out his emotions on what had hurt him, but he had no direction. There was no easy answer. There was no simple truth. In place of an enemy to face, there were only ghosts; of his father, of Morgana, and of Merlin.

On her own account, she'd found swift acceptance of the reality of Merlin's magic. Rather than bringing her conflict, it merely cast understanding over previously unexplained events. Gaius's ongoing stories in the private moments of their travels filled in many holes she'd wondered at for years. She'd always known pieces were missing, she just hadn't guessed Merlin would have the answers. Enemies flung away without explanation, openings for escape appearing in the nick of time, an old man caught slipping an enchanted bag under Arthur's pillow on the eve before her own scheduled execution. Even her father mysteriously recovering from certain death. Gwen's eyes grew damp at this last memory; such a gesture encompassed Merlin's nature perfectly. She wished she'd had a chance to thank him.

While weary of magic and those who wielded it, she didn't share Arthur's hatred. She'd seen good people both hurt by magic and also hurt by the hatred and persecution of magic. Either way, people got hurt. In such a conflict… wasn't the true threat the darkness every human heart was capable of? No, his magic troubled Gwen very little. It was Merlin's death that pulled her into turmoil, and the role she had played in it. Though she hadn't known Dragoon's true identity; he'd fought Morgana on her command. She'd sent her dearest friend to his death.

Dashing away the heat of tears with the back of one hand, Gwen nodded to Elyan, on watch by the fire. She ducked into her and Arthur's tent, only to find the inside pitch black. That was odd, a servant should have lit the lamps at nightfall.

Fetching an already glowing lamp from outside Gwen entered a second time. Her stomach lurched into her throat as the light nearly slipped from her hand. The sudden illumination of the interior revealed a motionless figure, sitting on the bedroll. Her panicking mind took a long moment to finally recognize Arthur.

Spine curling forward in relief one hand went to her chest. The breath that had been compacted in her lungs releasing. "Arthur? Why are you sitting in the dark, where have you been? I thought-"

"Why?"

Pausing, she hovered near the door, uncertain what he was asking. "What do you mean?"

But he said nothing else. Instead, her husband looked to her, and on seeing the oceans welling behind his eyes she knew. Striding across the room she dropped to her knees, reaching for his hand. The scent of strong spirits on his breath and the glaze to his eyes only deepened her concern. "You remember how he… was" she said, struggling to name Merlin dead. To speak of him in the past tense.

Arthur laughed, harshly, his voice brimming with bitterness. "No, I don't. I only remember what I believed him to be. All of that was a lie."

"Perhaps," she allowed, "Or perhaps it was also just more of the whole truth."

"No. No that can't… it can't." Her husband's voice carried the faintest slur, legible but with a rounded or drawn-out syllable here and there.

Reaching out to touch his face, he jerked away from her hand, angry. Gwen knew she shouldn't take it personally. Still, it hurt, and she fought not to show it. "Why not? What is it you're afraid of?"

"You can't understand!"

Chest aching, Gwen searched for the right words. She took a slow, deep breath. "No, I can't. But I can sit with you while you go through whatever you need to."

She raised her hands towards him, silently, saying no more—a quiet offer of companionship. The gentleness of her unassuming support, free of expectation, broke him where a confrontation never could have.

Slumping forward against her, he wept. The tears carried the momentum of the last week, finally bursting free as his wall of righteous anger collapsed. "I didn't know him, he never let me. And now I never can!"

Stroking his hair, Gwen blinked back tears. The sight of her husband's pain wound through her like it was her own.

Eventually, his tears dried up, transitioning into deep and steady breathing. She was beginning to wonder if he'd fallen asleep when Arthur offered a confession. One which Gwen knew echoed up from the depths of a broken heart.

"If he was truly everything he appeared to be— then what I've lost is immeasurable. And all I feel is the fool."