Journey Through A Broken Soul - Chapter 02
Title: Journey Through a Broken Soul
Summary: It has been months since Arthur's capture and disappearance, and Merlin has spent that time looking for him - and finally found. What he found, though, was a broken prince.
Rating: R (may bump up to NC-17 later on, depending on where the story takes me goes)
Word Count: 2700
Pairings/Character: Arthur/Merlin, Lancelot
Warnings/Content: Violence, (past) non-con, mental trauma, mentions of slavery
Beta: none
Notes: Written here for this prompt at kinkme_merlin.
My story's overall geography is based on this map and this map of British kingdoms c.800 - I know it's centuries after the timeline of the show, but they started it, bringing up Mercia and "Cendred's kingdom" (which is Northumbria). Camelot is a small kingdom between Mercia and Northumbria, slightly towards the west. I used this map of the Orkney islands to plan their trips through the Isles, and this one for the cities of the Orkney islands. Later, I will be basing the fic's plans in Fortriu based on this map.
~*~
Master Post
<< Previous Chapter
The next morning, Merlin woke up slowly, blinking in the sunlight to be met with Arthur's blue eyes staring right back at him.
"I'd forgotten how you looked when you slept," Arthur said, softly. He was curled in on himself, slightly, though he had one arm wrapped around his own waist so his hand could cover Merlin's hand...apparently, at some point in the night, Merlin's body, acting on muscle memory, had wrapped an arm around Arthur to pull him close. Arthur didn't seem to mind, so for a few more minutes, Merlin didn't move.
Eventually, he wakened fully to realize Lancelot was moving about around the fire behind him. He had a few branches over a few small logs, and breakfast was warm bread with cheese melted on it.
Arthur's eyes fluttered in delight when he bit in, and Merlin grinned at Lancelot, who smiled, blushing slightly, before digging into his own breakfast.
"So," Lancelot said, unrolling a large map - all of Albion - and laying it on the ground. They'd collected a lot of maps over their journey. "What's the plan going to be?"
All three of them knelt by the map. Arthur ran his fingers around the edge of it, studying the map carefully. But, he made no comment on where they should go, so he and Lancelot did most of the planning.
They had just left Stromness, on the Mainland of Orkney, and were now several miles east of it, and Lancelot put a finger there, saying, "We know where we are..." He placed another finger on the Isle just below the Mainland, Hoy. "And where we need to focus on going, for today."
"I can get us to Hoy, if you don't mind stopping by Graemsay," Merlin said, pointing to the tiny island between the larger of the two. "But we'll need to find a boat from Hoy to mainland Albion."
"Our best bet is to go through Lyness, and get to the Isle Fara," Lancelot said. "I'm not even sure if there are any boats from Hoy to Albion, at least any we can afford that won't kill us on the trip. But from Fara, or the South Walls, we can barter our way onto a ship to Albion. We'll land in Fortriu, and work our way from there."
"Here to the shore of Hoy is about a day," Merlin said, studying the map carefully. "There to Lyness is another, and from there to one of the neighboring Isles is another."
"It should take about four or five days from there to Fortriu," Lancelot said, studying the north-most end of Albion. "So this will take about a week or so."
"And from Fortriu, on?" Merlin asked.
"There are a few port towns in Fortriu where we might land," Lancelot said. "So we won't be able to plan from there until we know our path from Hoy."
Merlin nodded, and with a flick of his fingers, the map was rolled up and put away.
"How are we going to get from here to Hoy?" Arthur asked, almost childlike curiosity in his voice.
"Magic," Merlin said simply.
Arthur gave him an odd look, but nodded, accepting the answer.
In the mean time, Lancelot tended to his own things while Merlin checked over Arthur's injuries again, to be sure before they left. All the sores around his wrists and ankles from the cuffs and shackles were coated in fresh healing salve and re-bandaged. All his bruises had healing oil rubbed into them, and the cuts were tended to carefully. The lashes on Arthur's back were tricky, made trickier by Arthur's two cracked ribs. But both sets of injuries were poulticed and bandaged with utmost care. A few gulps of strong ale and a few drops of a strong, magically enhanced potion for pain, and Arthur was ready to go.
The entire time Merlin was working on him, Arthur's eyes were lazily focused on Lancelot's sword. Lancelot noticed by the time Merlin was helping Arthur dress in his meager clothes.
"Sire?" Lancelot asking, hesitantly holding out the sword to Arthur.
Merlin watched closely as Arthur took the sword and held it aloft in awe, standing by Hengroen, keeping a hand on the horse's flank for support.
"I...haven't held...held a sword...since the day I was captured," Arthur said, slowly moving the sword through the air.
Merlin's blood froze.
Arthur had been playing with toy swords since before the prince could remember. He was handling the real thing practically still in childhood. All his life, he made a strong point of practicing his sword just a little bit every single day, even if it was only a few minutes in his chambers in between other things he had to do. Practically the only time he never did this was if he was unconscious. Arthur had used a sword nearly every day of his life that he remembered for nearly the last decade. For him to go ten months without even holding a sword...
The bastards who captured Arthur were going to pay dearly for this when Merlin found them.
He looked up in time to see Arthur cry out in frustration when he was forced to lower the sword, still too weak to keep it up for long.
"It's okay-"
"It's not okay!" Arthur shouted, startling Hengroen and whirling to face Merlin, a flash of frustrated anger on his face before it crumbled. "It's not okay," he repeated desperately.
At a slight loss, Merlin took Arthur's free hand in his, trying to think quickly how best to pacify him.
"I..."
They both looked to see Lancelot standing there almost nervously. "I would be willing to train with you, sire...to help you regain your strength."
Arthur grinned, and Merlin shot the knight-errant a grateful look. When Arthur went back to lifting the sword in careful, structured motions - recognizable from the squires' training routine in Camelot - Merlin walked over to Lancelot.
"Thank you," Merlin said sincerely. "I...he..."
Lancelot nodded understandingly, a look of dark speculation crossing his face as the two men watched Arthur peripherally.
"I am not a man to act on anger," Lancelot said. "And I do not take vengeance lightly. But this..." He turned to Merlin. "When you find the people who did this to him, let me know."
Merlin nodded. "I will."
~*~
They packed up and left as soon as Arthur could no longer lift the sword, and made their way quickly to the shore.
When they reached the beach, the horses' hooves skidding on the rocks, Arthur asked, "How is magic going to get us from here to Hoy?"
Merlin smiled, and held out his hand, focusing on the water ahead of them. Soon, a wide strip of water, almost twice as wide as the most traveled roads of Camelot, was simmering, almost glowing, in the bright sunlight, and it was still despite the waves and currents on either side of it. Arthur frowned on confusion as they rode forward.
His eyes blew open in wonder, however, when instead of trotting into the water, the horses kept going on the water.
Turning in the saddle to try and face Merlin, he asked, "You're...we're walking on water?"
"Well, the horses are, but yes, we are," Merlin said. The path would waver somewhat, but it remained solid. It was a bit like riding on a long raft.
"Can I...?"
Merlin pulled the horse to a stop, and got down, standing on the water. It felt like sand, and his feet did sink lightly. But it was never deeper than the soles of his boots, and it would only be like walking through puddles in terms of how wet he got.
Arthur jumped down and took several hesitant steps, before laughing as he ran, ran and ran, all the way to Lancelot's horse several yards ahead.
He stopped, already breathing heavily, eyes shut in content when Merlin caught up to them, Lancelot jumping down with worry as he watched Arthur.
Sensing their worry, he opened his eyes, smiled, and said simply, "I haven't been able to run in a long time, either...I ran down the lengths of a few streets the one time I managed to escape in the first month...but other than that..."
Ten months in tight captivity had severely weakened him. And nine months since he had been able to simply run.
Merlin knew this journey was going to be an exercise in restraint, that he was going to frequently have to stop himself from simply running off to track down the rogue sorcerers who had done this and inflict on them ten times the pain Arthur had suffered since his capture.
They went another mile walking, but then Arthur grew too weak, at which point they rode the rest of the way. The path continued all the way to the Isle Graemsay, where they stopped for lunch. From there, they continued on in the same manner, until they reached Hoy in the late afternoon.
Feeling Arthur's exhaustion, despite having ridden a horse for most of the time, Merlin called a halt to their procession.
"We'll rest here," Merlin declared, once they were on the sands of Hoy's shores. "And continue on tomorrow."
They set up camp, and Arthur was asleep as soon as soon as he was laying down on his bedroll.
"Is there anyway you can help him, to give him back his strength?" Lancelot asked quietly as the sun set. They were in the sand, Arthur laid out between them and the fire. "Magically?"
Merlin sighed. "Theoretically? Yes. But it would be temporary, and his body may not react well to it. It would fade, and not only would he not be any better, but if he did nothing to work on his strength in the mean time, he could end up worse off. His best bet is to work to gain it naturally. Magic...it can only go so far. And it fades."
"But your healing spells-"
"Work with the body," Merlin said. "But the body has a fantastic capability to heal on its own. All my magic does is speed up the healing process, and hold him together on the outside in the mean time. The actual healing...that's mostly him."
Lancelot nodded in understanding. "He's...I will help him get better, with my full heart."
Merlin smiled. "Good."
~*~
The next day, they continued on their way. They stopped again in Lyness, getting some warm stew for lunch in an inn, there, and getting some more supplies. Lancelot stayed with Arthur and the horses on the outskirts of town while Merlin bought a proper set of clothes for Arthur, chain mail, and a light sword, along with a new blanket to replace Lancelot's tattered one, and a new traveling cloak for himself.
"...how can you afford that?" Arthur asked in surprise when Merlin set everything out by where they were.
"Odd work while traveling and some money from your father," Merlin said. Two days out of Camelot, when Merlin had been looking for a needle to sew up a tear in his shirt, he'd found the satchel of money in Hengroen's saddlebag. "He gave me some with Hengroen when I left. Along the way, well...when I was far away enough from Camelot, it was safe for me to reveal my magic, at least when I wasn't using my real name. I'd do odd jobs with magic, and...well, with magic, there's a lot I can do, so I got a lot done by trading my service for what I needed." He pointed to the sword and chainmail. "I fixed the blacksmith's anvil for these, and almost a year's worth of broken tools." He pointed to the clothes. "I repaired a spinning wheel." And the blanket, and cloak. "And I cured the shopkeeper's two children of a headcold."
Arthur shook his head ruefully as he studied Merlin, before he frowned as he looked at the sword and chainmail. "What are...?"
"The Northern and Southern Picts were...very tense, on our way here," Lancelot answered. "They likely are at war, by now. The area will be strife with conflict, and war bandits seeking to take advantage of the situation."
"Besides, it's common sense," Merlin said.
"And the sword?" Arthur said.
"How else are you supposed to train?" Merlin asked innocently.
Arthur blinked in surprise, before he choked out a laugh, and started lifting it like before.
~*~
There was a whole series of large rafts from Hoy to Fara, the water fairly calm and still between the two shores, so barter was cheap for that ride, the distance being too long for Merlin to be certain that he could maintain the spell to let them ride the way, themselves. They made it to Fara, but it was dark by then, so they settled in for another night of camping.
But that night...
Merlin frowned as he was woken up in the middle of the night, but it grew into near alarm when he saw Arthur sitting up on his bedroll, his arms wrapped around himself, staring into the nothingness of the forest...terror in his eyes.
"Arthur?" He cried out, panicking. Lancelot, light sleeper that he was, woke up groggily, saw Arthur, and snapped up instantly, hand already gripping the sword beside him.
But then they both noticed that Arthur hadn't responded to either of them.
When Merlin touched his shoulder, though, Arthur reacted.
He screamed and scrambled back several paces, staring at Merlin in fear, whimpering. Whimpering.
"Arthur?" Merlin tried again gently, crouching before the prince as he would a spooked animal or small child. He held out an open hand carefully, a peaceful gesture. "Arthur, it's me, Merlin. You're safe...it was only a dream." Because that must've been what happened, a nightmare.
"N-no," he stammered out, breaths evening out. He kept a wary eye on Merlin and his hand, and Lancelot's protective stance over them both, but didn't come any nearer. "It happened...it was real...it-"
"-was in the past," Merlin murmured soothingly.
Arthur continued to sit there, trembling. His arms, supporting him up, were shaking so bad Merlin was worried he would fall and hurt himself more.
Hurt himself more - that barely seemed possible.
"You're okay," Merlin said. "You're here in camp with me and Lancelot on a port isle. We left that brothel behind days ago."
Arthur shut his eyes, pained by the memories.
"Arthur?" Merlin asked again, offering his hand again when Arthur opened his eyes.
He slowly reached out and took Merlin's hand. He squeezed, but did no more.
"...it's like it's still happening," he murmured, before looking up at Merlin, desperation in his eyes. "Why does it feel like it's still happening?"
Merlin sat down in front of Arthur, never letting go of his hand, and even Lancelot sat off by Arthur's side, far enough for Arthur to feel safe while close enough to be reassuring.
"Because it is, but only in your mind, in your dreams," Merlin said. He squeezed Arthur's hand tightly, and he squeezed back even tighter. It was painful, but the look on Arthur's face at the gesture kept him from saying a word.
Arthur nodded gruffly, once, at the words, but otherwise didn't seem reassured.
"You can be scared," Merlin said. "Everyone is."
"I can't," Arthur said, shutting his eyes, terror giving over to fear and frustration. "I'm...I'm the...the Crown Prince...of Camelot. I'm...brave. Always. I'm supposed to be..."
"Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the defiance of it," Merlin said, reaching out and taking Arthur's other hand in his own. "You can be afraid and still be Crown Prince of Camelot."
Arthur closed his eyes, his chest shaking.
"I don't want to terrified of my damn memories!" he cried out. "I...I hate it."
"But it's not going to go away, sire," Lancelot said.
"We're here for you," Merlin said. "Promise, we won't leave."
Arthur slowly looked up through his lashes. "Promise?"
Merlin smiled. "You're stuck with us, I'm afraid."
Arthur smiled, hesitantly, before his face fell flat.
"Arthur?" Merlin asked, worried about the way Arthur wouldn't look at him, the way he swallowed...he was trying to say something.
"I..."
Arthur looked up again. His hands squeezed tight, nearly breaking Merlin's bones.
"I...I'm scared."
Merlin rubbed his thumbs over Arthur's. "I know. I'm here. We're here. We're all here."
Arthur's chest heaved in one single, dry sob, before he finally let himself fall into Merlin's soft embrace.
~*~
Next Chapter >>
Master Post
A/N: Meant to post this tomorrow, but had a bit of a shit day, so I brought it up to today. Remember, comments are ♥!
Summary: It has been months since Arthur's capture and disappearance, and Merlin has spent that time looking for him - and finally found. What he found, though, was a broken prince.
Rating: R (may bump up to NC-17 later on, depending on where the story takes me goes)
Word Count: 2700
Pairings/Character: Arthur/Merlin, Lancelot
Warnings/Content: Violence, (past) non-con, mental trauma, mentions of slavery
Beta: none
Notes: Written here for this prompt at kinkme_merlin.
My story's overall geography is based on this map and this map of British kingdoms c.800 - I know it's centuries after the timeline of the show, but they started it, bringing up Mercia and "Cendred's kingdom" (which is Northumbria). Camelot is a small kingdom between Mercia and Northumbria, slightly towards the west. I used this map of the Orkney islands to plan their trips through the Isles, and this one for the cities of the Orkney islands. Later, I will be basing the fic's plans in Fortriu based on this map.
~*~
Master Post
<< Previous Chapter
The next morning, Merlin woke up slowly, blinking in the sunlight to be met with Arthur's blue eyes staring right back at him.
"I'd forgotten how you looked when you slept," Arthur said, softly. He was curled in on himself, slightly, though he had one arm wrapped around his own waist so his hand could cover Merlin's hand...apparently, at some point in the night, Merlin's body, acting on muscle memory, had wrapped an arm around Arthur to pull him close. Arthur didn't seem to mind, so for a few more minutes, Merlin didn't move.
Eventually, he wakened fully to realize Lancelot was moving about around the fire behind him. He had a few branches over a few small logs, and breakfast was warm bread with cheese melted on it.
Arthur's eyes fluttered in delight when he bit in, and Merlin grinned at Lancelot, who smiled, blushing slightly, before digging into his own breakfast.
"So," Lancelot said, unrolling a large map - all of Albion - and laying it on the ground. They'd collected a lot of maps over their journey. "What's the plan going to be?"
All three of them knelt by the map. Arthur ran his fingers around the edge of it, studying the map carefully. But, he made no comment on where they should go, so he and Lancelot did most of the planning.
They had just left Stromness, on the Mainland of Orkney, and were now several miles east of it, and Lancelot put a finger there, saying, "We know where we are..." He placed another finger on the Isle just below the Mainland, Hoy. "And where we need to focus on going, for today."
"I can get us to Hoy, if you don't mind stopping by Graemsay," Merlin said, pointing to the tiny island between the larger of the two. "But we'll need to find a boat from Hoy to mainland Albion."
"Our best bet is to go through Lyness, and get to the Isle Fara," Lancelot said. "I'm not even sure if there are any boats from Hoy to Albion, at least any we can afford that won't kill us on the trip. But from Fara, or the South Walls, we can barter our way onto a ship to Albion. We'll land in Fortriu, and work our way from there."
"Here to the shore of Hoy is about a day," Merlin said, studying the map carefully. "There to Lyness is another, and from there to one of the neighboring Isles is another."
"It should take about four or five days from there to Fortriu," Lancelot said, studying the north-most end of Albion. "So this will take about a week or so."
"And from Fortriu, on?" Merlin asked.
"There are a few port towns in Fortriu where we might land," Lancelot said. "So we won't be able to plan from there until we know our path from Hoy."
Merlin nodded, and with a flick of his fingers, the map was rolled up and put away.
"How are we going to get from here to Hoy?" Arthur asked, almost childlike curiosity in his voice.
"Magic," Merlin said simply.
Arthur gave him an odd look, but nodded, accepting the answer.
In the mean time, Lancelot tended to his own things while Merlin checked over Arthur's injuries again, to be sure before they left. All the sores around his wrists and ankles from the cuffs and shackles were coated in fresh healing salve and re-bandaged. All his bruises had healing oil rubbed into them, and the cuts were tended to carefully. The lashes on Arthur's back were tricky, made trickier by Arthur's two cracked ribs. But both sets of injuries were poulticed and bandaged with utmost care. A few gulps of strong ale and a few drops of a strong, magically enhanced potion for pain, and Arthur was ready to go.
The entire time Merlin was working on him, Arthur's eyes were lazily focused on Lancelot's sword. Lancelot noticed by the time Merlin was helping Arthur dress in his meager clothes.
"Sire?" Lancelot asking, hesitantly holding out the sword to Arthur.
Merlin watched closely as Arthur took the sword and held it aloft in awe, standing by Hengroen, keeping a hand on the horse's flank for support.
"I...haven't held...held a sword...since the day I was captured," Arthur said, slowly moving the sword through the air.
Merlin's blood froze.
Arthur had been playing with toy swords since before the prince could remember. He was handling the real thing practically still in childhood. All his life, he made a strong point of practicing his sword just a little bit every single day, even if it was only a few minutes in his chambers in between other things he had to do. Practically the only time he never did this was if he was unconscious. Arthur had used a sword nearly every day of his life that he remembered for nearly the last decade. For him to go ten months without even holding a sword...
The bastards who captured Arthur were going to pay dearly for this when Merlin found them.
He looked up in time to see Arthur cry out in frustration when he was forced to lower the sword, still too weak to keep it up for long.
"It's okay-"
"It's not okay!" Arthur shouted, startling Hengroen and whirling to face Merlin, a flash of frustrated anger on his face before it crumbled. "It's not okay," he repeated desperately.
At a slight loss, Merlin took Arthur's free hand in his, trying to think quickly how best to pacify him.
"I..."
They both looked to see Lancelot standing there almost nervously. "I would be willing to train with you, sire...to help you regain your strength."
Arthur grinned, and Merlin shot the knight-errant a grateful look. When Arthur went back to lifting the sword in careful, structured motions - recognizable from the squires' training routine in Camelot - Merlin walked over to Lancelot.
"Thank you," Merlin said sincerely. "I...he..."
Lancelot nodded understandingly, a look of dark speculation crossing his face as the two men watched Arthur peripherally.
"I am not a man to act on anger," Lancelot said. "And I do not take vengeance lightly. But this..." He turned to Merlin. "When you find the people who did this to him, let me know."
Merlin nodded. "I will."
~*~
They packed up and left as soon as Arthur could no longer lift the sword, and made their way quickly to the shore.
When they reached the beach, the horses' hooves skidding on the rocks, Arthur asked, "How is magic going to get us from here to Hoy?"
Merlin smiled, and held out his hand, focusing on the water ahead of them. Soon, a wide strip of water, almost twice as wide as the most traveled roads of Camelot, was simmering, almost glowing, in the bright sunlight, and it was still despite the waves and currents on either side of it. Arthur frowned on confusion as they rode forward.
His eyes blew open in wonder, however, when instead of trotting into the water, the horses kept going on the water.
Turning in the saddle to try and face Merlin, he asked, "You're...we're walking on water?"
"Well, the horses are, but yes, we are," Merlin said. The path would waver somewhat, but it remained solid. It was a bit like riding on a long raft.
"Can I...?"
Merlin pulled the horse to a stop, and got down, standing on the water. It felt like sand, and his feet did sink lightly. But it was never deeper than the soles of his boots, and it would only be like walking through puddles in terms of how wet he got.
Arthur jumped down and took several hesitant steps, before laughing as he ran, ran and ran, all the way to Lancelot's horse several yards ahead.
He stopped, already breathing heavily, eyes shut in content when Merlin caught up to them, Lancelot jumping down with worry as he watched Arthur.
Sensing their worry, he opened his eyes, smiled, and said simply, "I haven't been able to run in a long time, either...I ran down the lengths of a few streets the one time I managed to escape in the first month...but other than that..."
Ten months in tight captivity had severely weakened him. And nine months since he had been able to simply run.
Merlin knew this journey was going to be an exercise in restraint, that he was going to frequently have to stop himself from simply running off to track down the rogue sorcerers who had done this and inflict on them ten times the pain Arthur had suffered since his capture.
They went another mile walking, but then Arthur grew too weak, at which point they rode the rest of the way. The path continued all the way to the Isle Graemsay, where they stopped for lunch. From there, they continued on in the same manner, until they reached Hoy in the late afternoon.
Feeling Arthur's exhaustion, despite having ridden a horse for most of the time, Merlin called a halt to their procession.
"We'll rest here," Merlin declared, once they were on the sands of Hoy's shores. "And continue on tomorrow."
They set up camp, and Arthur was asleep as soon as soon as he was laying down on his bedroll.
"Is there anyway you can help him, to give him back his strength?" Lancelot asked quietly as the sun set. They were in the sand, Arthur laid out between them and the fire. "Magically?"
Merlin sighed. "Theoretically? Yes. But it would be temporary, and his body may not react well to it. It would fade, and not only would he not be any better, but if he did nothing to work on his strength in the mean time, he could end up worse off. His best bet is to work to gain it naturally. Magic...it can only go so far. And it fades."
"But your healing spells-"
"Work with the body," Merlin said. "But the body has a fantastic capability to heal on its own. All my magic does is speed up the healing process, and hold him together on the outside in the mean time. The actual healing...that's mostly him."
Lancelot nodded in understanding. "He's...I will help him get better, with my full heart."
Merlin smiled. "Good."
~*~
The next day, they continued on their way. They stopped again in Lyness, getting some warm stew for lunch in an inn, there, and getting some more supplies. Lancelot stayed with Arthur and the horses on the outskirts of town while Merlin bought a proper set of clothes for Arthur, chain mail, and a light sword, along with a new blanket to replace Lancelot's tattered one, and a new traveling cloak for himself.
"...how can you afford that?" Arthur asked in surprise when Merlin set everything out by where they were.
"Odd work while traveling and some money from your father," Merlin said. Two days out of Camelot, when Merlin had been looking for a needle to sew up a tear in his shirt, he'd found the satchel of money in Hengroen's saddlebag. "He gave me some with Hengroen when I left. Along the way, well...when I was far away enough from Camelot, it was safe for me to reveal my magic, at least when I wasn't using my real name. I'd do odd jobs with magic, and...well, with magic, there's a lot I can do, so I got a lot done by trading my service for what I needed." He pointed to the sword and chainmail. "I fixed the blacksmith's anvil for these, and almost a year's worth of broken tools." He pointed to the clothes. "I repaired a spinning wheel." And the blanket, and cloak. "And I cured the shopkeeper's two children of a headcold."
Arthur shook his head ruefully as he studied Merlin, before he frowned as he looked at the sword and chainmail. "What are...?"
"The Northern and Southern Picts were...very tense, on our way here," Lancelot answered. "They likely are at war, by now. The area will be strife with conflict, and war bandits seeking to take advantage of the situation."
"Besides, it's common sense," Merlin said.
"And the sword?" Arthur said.
"How else are you supposed to train?" Merlin asked innocently.
Arthur blinked in surprise, before he choked out a laugh, and started lifting it like before.
~*~
There was a whole series of large rafts from Hoy to Fara, the water fairly calm and still between the two shores, so barter was cheap for that ride, the distance being too long for Merlin to be certain that he could maintain the spell to let them ride the way, themselves. They made it to Fara, but it was dark by then, so they settled in for another night of camping.
But that night...
Merlin frowned as he was woken up in the middle of the night, but it grew into near alarm when he saw Arthur sitting up on his bedroll, his arms wrapped around himself, staring into the nothingness of the forest...terror in his eyes.
"Arthur?" He cried out, panicking. Lancelot, light sleeper that he was, woke up groggily, saw Arthur, and snapped up instantly, hand already gripping the sword beside him.
But then they both noticed that Arthur hadn't responded to either of them.
When Merlin touched his shoulder, though, Arthur reacted.
He screamed and scrambled back several paces, staring at Merlin in fear, whimpering. Whimpering.
"Arthur?" Merlin tried again gently, crouching before the prince as he would a spooked animal or small child. He held out an open hand carefully, a peaceful gesture. "Arthur, it's me, Merlin. You're safe...it was only a dream." Because that must've been what happened, a nightmare.
"N-no," he stammered out, breaths evening out. He kept a wary eye on Merlin and his hand, and Lancelot's protective stance over them both, but didn't come any nearer. "It happened...it was real...it-"
"-was in the past," Merlin murmured soothingly.
Arthur continued to sit there, trembling. His arms, supporting him up, were shaking so bad Merlin was worried he would fall and hurt himself more.
Hurt himself more - that barely seemed possible.
"You're okay," Merlin said. "You're here in camp with me and Lancelot on a port isle. We left that brothel behind days ago."
Arthur shut his eyes, pained by the memories.
"Arthur?" Merlin asked again, offering his hand again when Arthur opened his eyes.
He slowly reached out and took Merlin's hand. He squeezed, but did no more.
"...it's like it's still happening," he murmured, before looking up at Merlin, desperation in his eyes. "Why does it feel like it's still happening?"
Merlin sat down in front of Arthur, never letting go of his hand, and even Lancelot sat off by Arthur's side, far enough for Arthur to feel safe while close enough to be reassuring.
"Because it is, but only in your mind, in your dreams," Merlin said. He squeezed Arthur's hand tightly, and he squeezed back even tighter. It was painful, but the look on Arthur's face at the gesture kept him from saying a word.
Arthur nodded gruffly, once, at the words, but otherwise didn't seem reassured.
"You can be scared," Merlin said. "Everyone is."
"I can't," Arthur said, shutting his eyes, terror giving over to fear and frustration. "I'm...I'm the...the Crown Prince...of Camelot. I'm...brave. Always. I'm supposed to be..."
"Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the defiance of it," Merlin said, reaching out and taking Arthur's other hand in his own. "You can be afraid and still be Crown Prince of Camelot."
Arthur closed his eyes, his chest shaking.
"I don't want to terrified of my damn memories!" he cried out. "I...I hate it."
"But it's not going to go away, sire," Lancelot said.
"We're here for you," Merlin said. "Promise, we won't leave."
Arthur slowly looked up through his lashes. "Promise?"
Merlin smiled. "You're stuck with us, I'm afraid."
Arthur smiled, hesitantly, before his face fell flat.
"Arthur?" Merlin asked, worried about the way Arthur wouldn't look at him, the way he swallowed...he was trying to say something.
"I..."
Arthur looked up again. His hands squeezed tight, nearly breaking Merlin's bones.
"I...I'm scared."
Merlin rubbed his thumbs over Arthur's. "I know. I'm here. We're here. We're all here."
Arthur's chest heaved in one single, dry sob, before he finally let himself fall into Merlin's soft embrace.
~*~
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A/N: Meant to post this tomorrow, but had a bit of a shit day, so I brought it up to today. Remember, comments are ♥!