Journey Through A Broken Soul - Chapter 05
Jan. 2nd, 2011 02:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyxelestiaTitle: 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
Word Count: 2400
Pairings/Character: Arthur/Merlin, Lancelot
Warnings/Content: Violence, (past) non-con, mental trauma, mentions of slavery
Beta: none
Notes: My computer's been infected and rendered useless...again. Apparently tech guys screwed up last time D:. But, luckily, this was originally written online, anyway, and my mother doesn't use her computer much, anyway, and already knows what I gt up to online - yay open-minded moms!
~*~
Master Post
<< Previous Chapter
Journey Through A Broken Soul, Chapter 05:
Lancelot had finished packing the two horses, settled the monetary affairs with the innkeeper, and finished checking their routes on the map one last time while Merlin and Arthur were getting another horse.
He smiled when he saw them, and the rather nice horse Merlin was leading along, but frowned when he saw Arthur's subdued walked, and the way Merlin was keeping a worried, scrutinizing eye on Arthur.
"Let's go," Arthur said gruffly, mounting Hengroen and waiting, seemingly impatiently, for them.
"Arthur," Merlin said, turning to face Arthur's knee, before looking up at him. "I'm sorry, but not every-"
"Let's go," Arthur repeated.
"We can't save everyone!" Merlin cried out almost helplessly.
Arthur turned his steed away and started walking. "Are you coming or what?" he shouted back.
Merlin looked on helplessly, and Lancelot had to turn Merlin's head away and towards the new horse to get him to mount and join them.
"What happened?" Lancelot asked as soon as they were well on their way. Arthur was riding a few yards ahead, seeming only barely focused on the road ahead of him, his eyes seeing something else entirely.
"...on our way back from the market," Merlin said, shutting his eyes for a moment before opening them again. "We saw...a caravan full of men. They looked...they were obviously headed for a slave market."
Lancelot's blood ran cold at the thought of Arthur having to face that so soon after his rescue.
"How did..."
"He demanded we help them," Merlin said. "The first thing I said was that I wanted to find out first whether they were debtors or criminals...but he said it didn't matter, that they shouldn't be punished by slavery - that nobody should."
Lancelot nodded.
"So you...?"
"He wasn't too happy about what I'd done - enchanted the locks to unlock soon after dark, when the slaver would probably be asleep in the inn, and they could sneak off."
Lancelot looked at Merlin's guilty countenance carefully. "Did you really do it or-"
"Of course I did!" Merlin snapped. "I...I nearly did just lie to him, but...I can't lie to him now, Lancelot, not after everything he's been through...but most of these slaves, they usually are criminals or debtors or something...I don't like it, but freeing them can be just as dangerous as not, and..."
He sighed. "And there's still the look on Arthur's face when he saw them. I swear, he looked like he thought he was in it!"
"...maybe he was," Lancelot said. He was never exactly the philosophical type, but he could read people pretty well. "Maybe, in his mind, he was back in there again, and he had to free them, to free himself. He needed you to rescue him again...and your first reaction..."
Merlin's eyes widened in horror. "He thought I'd rejected him," he whispered, sounding like he was about to vomit at the thought.
Lancelot didn't respond, and Merlin appropriately took that as his meaning.
He shut his eyes and let out a short, small keen that sounded like it was coming out of a drowning pup rather than a tall human, before Merlin suddenly spurred his horse forward and pulled up beside Arthur.
Lancelot respectfully kept his distance.
He didn't hear what they were saying. But he did see frustration and anger on Arthur's face, and desperation on Merlin's. Merlin reached out several times to touch Arthur, but the prince jerked away.
Finally, Merlin said something that cause Arthur to still, only reacting when Hengroen started wandering off the road, and he turned to stare at Merlin. Their slowing down led Lancelot to be caught up to them, enough so that he couldn't avoid not listening to them.
"Merlin," Arthur said, breathing heavily in emotion alone. "That was me, in there!"
"No, you weren't-"
"It was, once," he said. "I was called everything from a thief to a murderer to a debtor to a debtor's son as I was sold over and over again. Half those men didn't deserve it at all, and the other half probably only committed minor crimes, small infractions which don't merit spending the rest of one's life in enslaved!"
"Arthur-"
"No!" Arthur shouted. "Just listen to me, damnit!"
Lancelot looked around, and said, "Perhaps we should get off the road for this - there will be wagons soon as the market closes and the villagers bring their wares back home, around here."
All three nodded, pulling off, and Arthur thankfully actually used this time to compose his thoughts and himself. But the anger was still on his face when he turned to face Merlin again.
"I was owned, Merlin," Arthur said, hoarsely. "I was turned into a thing, barely an animal, if that, and treated worse than one. That's what would have awaited them, and for the rest of their lives, Merlin. For something stupid like stealing a loaf of bread, or for no reason at all."
"I...I'm sorry," Merlin said. "I didn't-"
"Well now you do," Arthur growled. "Just...next time, when I ask you to help, just one cart, just one batch of men...do it. That not only could've been me, that once was me, and now that I'm in a position to get someone to help them, I'll be damned if I let them continue on in this state!"
With that he abruptly pulled Hengroen back towards the road, and Merlin stood there for several moments on his horse, looking after Arthur with quiet sorrow in his face, his hand reaching out towards Arthur even as he stopped in the middle of the road, exuding impatience without even looking back towards them.
"Come on, Merlin," Lancelot said, one step away from just taking the horse's reins, himself. "We can talk it out, tonight."
"...he won't want to," Merlin said mournfully.
"Then tomorrow night," Lancelot said. "We have plenty of time. For now, we should simply focus on riding forward to Lairg."
Merlin nodded dimly, shutting his eyes one more time, taking a deep breath. Lancelot got the feeling Merlin was trying to rein in his tears.
"You never told me the horse's name, by the way," he said, trying to slowly edge Merlin away from the melancholy trail of thought he was prone to in gloomy moods.
"Llamrei," Merlin said quietly, before spurring his horse on forward, after Arthur.
Lancelot sighed as he looked after the two men. Merlin had told him the things he'd done in Camelot since his last departure from rescuing Gwen. He'd told him how (he thought) Arthur's capture was his fault. And all the things, many terrible things, he'd done in his search for his prince.
Merlin was going to spend this trip caring for Arthur, Lancelot got the feeling he was going to have to help care for Merlin...or help Arthur to do so, because he knows of the bond they share. If anyone is going to help them, it will have to be the other man, himself.
Shaking his head at the task he had before of him, Lancelot spurred his own horse forward, and followed after the two broken men ahead.
~*~
That night, Arthur was silent as they bedded down. Merlin tried desperately to talk to him, but Arthur would reply with only the curtest of words before turning away, if he answered at all. In the end, Merlin gave up and simply sat on his bedroll with his piece of bread and cheese, and stared into the fire as Arthur shifted underneath his blankets.
The silence was tense, until Merlin finally couldn't take it anymore, and crawled over to crouch by Arthur's side, even as Arthur turned away, his back to Merlin as he burrowed under his covers. "I'm sorry," Merlin pleaded. "I didn't...I don't..."
"You didn't think, I know," Arthur said without turning to face Merlin. "No one does. No one ever did. That's the most horrifying part. No one ever thought for us."
Merlin sighed, and reached out, tentatively touching Arthur's shoulder. Arthur jerked away, and Merlin pulled his hand back sharply. Right.
"...I couldn't leave them to that," Arthur said. "Right now...I want to go back and free every slave and end every slave market from here to Orkney! The only thing that's stopping me is that I can't and that I...I need to get back to Camelot."
Merlin sighed. Vaguely, he wondered if slavery would become for Arthur what magic has become for Uther. At least Arthur's goal would apparently involve saving innocent people and killing guilty ones, rather than just killing everyone.
"We can't help everyone, Arthur," Merlin said.
"But what's to stop us from trying?" Arthur demanded, suddenly shooting up, propping himself up on one arm to turn and face Merlin.
Despite the anger on Arthur's face that Merlin knew was directed at him, Merlin couldn't help but also feel a tiny surge of joy somewhere deep in his heart at the familiar righteousness in Arthur's eyes.
"What's the point if we don't try?" Arthur begged.
Merlin bit his lip. "We...we make small sacrifices today so we don't have to make big ones tomorrow."
Arthur stared at him for a long while, before abruptly dropping onto his roll, then crying out when his ribs absorbed that shock, curling up and whimpering in pain.
After waving off a concerned-Lancelot, Merlin managed to at least get Arthur to uncurl enough to lift up the shirt and check the bandages. No bleeding, and while Arthur hissed at Merlin's prodding, he didn't seem to have exacerbated any damage to the ribs.
"...I'm sorry..." Merlin said finally, as he pulled down the shirt.
Arthur laughed, dry and joyless.
"It's not like you...you have any control of..." Arthur blinked, as if unsure of himself, before shaking his head.
Merlin ran his hands over the bandages like he did every night, and murmured a slow healing spell, with Arthur fidgeting under the waves of magic but accepting it. Merlin wondered if it was because he trusted Merlin, or if he had simply been that broken from his original capture.
"There," Merlin said.
"Can't you just heal them now?" Arthur asked. "You healed Lance's scraped arm in seconds! It would've taken a week on its own! Can't you do that for my ribs?"
"...yes," Merlin said. "But I would have to knock you unconscious for two days, likely, just from the pain of the healing itself and the aftermath, not to mention the drain on your body's natural energy. And your ribs might not be as strong. Besides, this is still months of healing reduced to less than two weeks!"
Arthur sighed and nodded, before turning on his side and curling up again. Arthur never used to curl up, before.
Merlin reached out to touch Arthur's shoulder one more time.
Arthur tensed up and pulled away.
Merlin crawled back over to his own bedroll and went to sleep.
~*~
Merlin was already awake, having woken up and been unable to go back to sleep, when Arthur started moving in his sleep.
It took him a few moments to notice it, but once he did, he found he couldn't focus on anything else. Arthur was shifting, restless in his dream. The blankets were tangled in his legs, and a moment later, Arthur was moaning in his sleep.
Merlin was up instantly, crawling to Arthur's side, a fierce protectiveness burning in his heart, and with it, a frustrated, helpless rage at Arthur's nightmares.
Arthur started jerking in his sleep, breathing uneven and erratic, his eyes scrunched shut in fear. Surging forward without much thinking, Merlin crouched and wrapped his arms around Arthur, pulling their bodies close.
The effect was startlingly immediate - Arthur calmed down almost instantly.
Sitting more properly, Merlin laid Arthur down so his head was in Merlin's lap, and Merlin was stroking Arthur's hair, like old times, as he stifled an irrational urge to just lash out, no target available for fighting Arthur's night terrors.
After a while, a long while, Arthur slowly groaned awake. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at Merlin with such panic in his eyes, Merlin could swear he felt it in himself.
"Merlin?" he asked, voice small and terrified, and Merlin only tugged Arthur up and close again, wrapping his arms around him.
And they were curled up around each other, Arthur sobbing the fear away, and Merlin uttering sweet, meaningless nonsense into Arthur's ears as they rocked in the wake of their trampled hearts.
"Shh...it's okay...I'm here, now...you're free, now-"
"I'm not-I wasn't...it was...they had me...I just...make it stop!"
"You're safe, now."
"Please, please, please, just make it go away, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop..."
And so on.
Eventually, they stilled, save for Arthur's trembling and Merlin's soothing gestures.
Merlin stayed up that night. Even when Arthur went to sleep, he stayed, never stopping his gentler rubbing motions on Arthur's back, never stilling his lips, pressed against Arthur's forehead as he muttered reassurances throughout the night.
The helpless rage rose again and again in his heart every time Arthur started shifting in his sleep, distressed and agitated. Merlin would shh lowly and calmly and bring Arthur back to a soothing, gentle sleep, each and every time. He rocked back and forth, holding Arthur close to him, mumbling low nonsense in his ear.
By morning, he was exhausted. But Arthur was calm and safe and well-rested, and that was worth it.
~*~
Arthur slowly blinked awake (again), and Merlin smiled as he looked up at him.
"You look terrible," he said bluntly.
Merlin laughed.
~*~
"You shouldn't have stayed up all night," Arthur said over breakfast.
"I understand you care, Merlin, but he is right," Lancelot chipped in.
Merlin sighed, scrubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.
"I value Arthur's sleep more than my own - I can go for a while yet."
This time, Lancelot shared his worried glance with Arthur as the three mounted their horses.
Lancelot shook his head to himself as they set off again. Even though Arthur hadn't completely forgiven Merlin, yet, he still cared for his man.
He just hoped they could sort this all out soon. They had a long journey ahead of them, and anger grew in the most horrible of ways when left to fester in a person's heart - especially in the hearts as large as those of men like Merlin and Arthur.
This was going to be a long, long journey.
~*~
Next Chapter >>
Master Post
Notes: I will be endeavoring to fix my computer within the next day or so, so please leave a lot of comments for me to get back to! :D
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
Word Count: 2400
Pairings/Character: Arthur/Merlin, Lancelot
Warnings/Content: Violence, (past) non-con, mental trauma, mentions of slavery
Beta: none
Notes: My computer's been infected and rendered useless...again. Apparently tech guys screwed up last time D:. But, luckily, this was originally written online, anyway, and my mother doesn't use her computer much, anyway, and already knows what I gt up to online - yay open-minded moms!
<< Previous Chapter
Journey Through A Broken Soul, Chapter 05:
Lancelot had finished packing the two horses, settled the monetary affairs with the innkeeper, and finished checking their routes on the map one last time while Merlin and Arthur were getting another horse.
He smiled when he saw them, and the rather nice horse Merlin was leading along, but frowned when he saw Arthur's subdued walked, and the way Merlin was keeping a worried, scrutinizing eye on Arthur.
"Let's go," Arthur said gruffly, mounting Hengroen and waiting, seemingly impatiently, for them.
"Arthur," Merlin said, turning to face Arthur's knee, before looking up at him. "I'm sorry, but not every-"
"Let's go," Arthur repeated.
"We can't save everyone!" Merlin cried out almost helplessly.
Arthur turned his steed away and started walking. "Are you coming or what?" he shouted back.
Merlin looked on helplessly, and Lancelot had to turn Merlin's head away and towards the new horse to get him to mount and join them.
"What happened?" Lancelot asked as soon as they were well on their way. Arthur was riding a few yards ahead, seeming only barely focused on the road ahead of him, his eyes seeing something else entirely.
"...on our way back from the market," Merlin said, shutting his eyes for a moment before opening them again. "We saw...a caravan full of men. They looked...they were obviously headed for a slave market."
Lancelot's blood ran cold at the thought of Arthur having to face that so soon after his rescue.
"How did..."
"He demanded we help them," Merlin said. "The first thing I said was that I wanted to find out first whether they were debtors or criminals...but he said it didn't matter, that they shouldn't be punished by slavery - that nobody should."
Lancelot nodded.
"So you...?"
"He wasn't too happy about what I'd done - enchanted the locks to unlock soon after dark, when the slaver would probably be asleep in the inn, and they could sneak off."
Lancelot looked at Merlin's guilty countenance carefully. "Did you really do it or-"
"Of course I did!" Merlin snapped. "I...I nearly did just lie to him, but...I can't lie to him now, Lancelot, not after everything he's been through...but most of these slaves, they usually are criminals or debtors or something...I don't like it, but freeing them can be just as dangerous as not, and..."
He sighed. "And there's still the look on Arthur's face when he saw them. I swear, he looked like he thought he was in it!"
"...maybe he was," Lancelot said. He was never exactly the philosophical type, but he could read people pretty well. "Maybe, in his mind, he was back in there again, and he had to free them, to free himself. He needed you to rescue him again...and your first reaction..."
Merlin's eyes widened in horror. "He thought I'd rejected him," he whispered, sounding like he was about to vomit at the thought.
Lancelot didn't respond, and Merlin appropriately took that as his meaning.
He shut his eyes and let out a short, small keen that sounded like it was coming out of a drowning pup rather than a tall human, before Merlin suddenly spurred his horse forward and pulled up beside Arthur.
Lancelot respectfully kept his distance.
He didn't hear what they were saying. But he did see frustration and anger on Arthur's face, and desperation on Merlin's. Merlin reached out several times to touch Arthur, but the prince jerked away.
Finally, Merlin said something that cause Arthur to still, only reacting when Hengroen started wandering off the road, and he turned to stare at Merlin. Their slowing down led Lancelot to be caught up to them, enough so that he couldn't avoid not listening to them.
"Merlin," Arthur said, breathing heavily in emotion alone. "That was me, in there!"
"No, you weren't-"
"It was, once," he said. "I was called everything from a thief to a murderer to a debtor to a debtor's son as I was sold over and over again. Half those men didn't deserve it at all, and the other half probably only committed minor crimes, small infractions which don't merit spending the rest of one's life in enslaved!"
"Arthur-"
"No!" Arthur shouted. "Just listen to me, damnit!"
Lancelot looked around, and said, "Perhaps we should get off the road for this - there will be wagons soon as the market closes and the villagers bring their wares back home, around here."
All three nodded, pulling off, and Arthur thankfully actually used this time to compose his thoughts and himself. But the anger was still on his face when he turned to face Merlin again.
"I was owned, Merlin," Arthur said, hoarsely. "I was turned into a thing, barely an animal, if that, and treated worse than one. That's what would have awaited them, and for the rest of their lives, Merlin. For something stupid like stealing a loaf of bread, or for no reason at all."
"I...I'm sorry," Merlin said. "I didn't-"
"Well now you do," Arthur growled. "Just...next time, when I ask you to help, just one cart, just one batch of men...do it. That not only could've been me, that once was me, and now that I'm in a position to get someone to help them, I'll be damned if I let them continue on in this state!"
With that he abruptly pulled Hengroen back towards the road, and Merlin stood there for several moments on his horse, looking after Arthur with quiet sorrow in his face, his hand reaching out towards Arthur even as he stopped in the middle of the road, exuding impatience without even looking back towards them.
"Come on, Merlin," Lancelot said, one step away from just taking the horse's reins, himself. "We can talk it out, tonight."
"...he won't want to," Merlin said mournfully.
"Then tomorrow night," Lancelot said. "We have plenty of time. For now, we should simply focus on riding forward to Lairg."
Merlin nodded dimly, shutting his eyes one more time, taking a deep breath. Lancelot got the feeling Merlin was trying to rein in his tears.
"You never told me the horse's name, by the way," he said, trying to slowly edge Merlin away from the melancholy trail of thought he was prone to in gloomy moods.
"Llamrei," Merlin said quietly, before spurring his horse on forward, after Arthur.
Lancelot sighed as he looked after the two men. Merlin had told him the things he'd done in Camelot since his last departure from rescuing Gwen. He'd told him how (he thought) Arthur's capture was his fault. And all the things, many terrible things, he'd done in his search for his prince.
Merlin was going to spend this trip caring for Arthur, Lancelot got the feeling he was going to have to help care for Merlin...or help Arthur to do so, because he knows of the bond they share. If anyone is going to help them, it will have to be the other man, himself.
Shaking his head at the task he had before of him, Lancelot spurred his own horse forward, and followed after the two broken men ahead.
That night, Arthur was silent as they bedded down. Merlin tried desperately to talk to him, but Arthur would reply with only the curtest of words before turning away, if he answered at all. In the end, Merlin gave up and simply sat on his bedroll with his piece of bread and cheese, and stared into the fire as Arthur shifted underneath his blankets.
The silence was tense, until Merlin finally couldn't take it anymore, and crawled over to crouch by Arthur's side, even as Arthur turned away, his back to Merlin as he burrowed under his covers. "I'm sorry," Merlin pleaded. "I didn't...I don't..."
"You didn't think, I know," Arthur said without turning to face Merlin. "No one does. No one ever did. That's the most horrifying part. No one ever thought for us."
Merlin sighed, and reached out, tentatively touching Arthur's shoulder. Arthur jerked away, and Merlin pulled his hand back sharply. Right.
"...I couldn't leave them to that," Arthur said. "Right now...I want to go back and free every slave and end every slave market from here to Orkney! The only thing that's stopping me is that I can't and that I...I need to get back to Camelot."
Merlin sighed. Vaguely, he wondered if slavery would become for Arthur what magic has become for Uther. At least Arthur's goal would apparently involve saving innocent people and killing guilty ones, rather than just killing everyone.
"We can't help everyone, Arthur," Merlin said.
"But what's to stop us from trying?" Arthur demanded, suddenly shooting up, propping himself up on one arm to turn and face Merlin.
Despite the anger on Arthur's face that Merlin knew was directed at him, Merlin couldn't help but also feel a tiny surge of joy somewhere deep in his heart at the familiar righteousness in Arthur's eyes.
"What's the point if we don't try?" Arthur begged.
Merlin bit his lip. "We...we make small sacrifices today so we don't have to make big ones tomorrow."
Arthur stared at him for a long while, before abruptly dropping onto his roll, then crying out when his ribs absorbed that shock, curling up and whimpering in pain.
After waving off a concerned-Lancelot, Merlin managed to at least get Arthur to uncurl enough to lift up the shirt and check the bandages. No bleeding, and while Arthur hissed at Merlin's prodding, he didn't seem to have exacerbated any damage to the ribs.
"...I'm sorry..." Merlin said finally, as he pulled down the shirt.
Arthur laughed, dry and joyless.
"It's not like you...you have any control of..." Arthur blinked, as if unsure of himself, before shaking his head.
Merlin ran his hands over the bandages like he did every night, and murmured a slow healing spell, with Arthur fidgeting under the waves of magic but accepting it. Merlin wondered if it was because he trusted Merlin, or if he had simply been that broken from his original capture.
"There," Merlin said.
"Can't you just heal them now?" Arthur asked. "You healed Lance's scraped arm in seconds! It would've taken a week on its own! Can't you do that for my ribs?"
"...yes," Merlin said. "But I would have to knock you unconscious for two days, likely, just from the pain of the healing itself and the aftermath, not to mention the drain on your body's natural energy. And your ribs might not be as strong. Besides, this is still months of healing reduced to less than two weeks!"
Arthur sighed and nodded, before turning on his side and curling up again. Arthur never used to curl up, before.
Merlin reached out to touch Arthur's shoulder one more time.
Arthur tensed up and pulled away.
Merlin crawled back over to his own bedroll and went to sleep.
Merlin was already awake, having woken up and been unable to go back to sleep, when Arthur started moving in his sleep.
It took him a few moments to notice it, but once he did, he found he couldn't focus on anything else. Arthur was shifting, restless in his dream. The blankets were tangled in his legs, and a moment later, Arthur was moaning in his sleep.
Merlin was up instantly, crawling to Arthur's side, a fierce protectiveness burning in his heart, and with it, a frustrated, helpless rage at Arthur's nightmares.
Arthur started jerking in his sleep, breathing uneven and erratic, his eyes scrunched shut in fear. Surging forward without much thinking, Merlin crouched and wrapped his arms around Arthur, pulling their bodies close.
The effect was startlingly immediate - Arthur calmed down almost instantly.
Sitting more properly, Merlin laid Arthur down so his head was in Merlin's lap, and Merlin was stroking Arthur's hair, like old times, as he stifled an irrational urge to just lash out, no target available for fighting Arthur's night terrors.
After a while, a long while, Arthur slowly groaned awake. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at Merlin with such panic in his eyes, Merlin could swear he felt it in himself.
"Merlin?" he asked, voice small and terrified, and Merlin only tugged Arthur up and close again, wrapping his arms around him.
And they were curled up around each other, Arthur sobbing the fear away, and Merlin uttering sweet, meaningless nonsense into Arthur's ears as they rocked in the wake of their trampled hearts.
"Shh...it's okay...I'm here, now...you're free, now-"
"I'm not-I wasn't...it was...they had me...I just...make it stop!"
"You're safe, now."
"Please, please, please, just make it go away, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop..."
And so on.
Eventually, they stilled, save for Arthur's trembling and Merlin's soothing gestures.
Merlin stayed up that night. Even when Arthur went to sleep, he stayed, never stopping his gentler rubbing motions on Arthur's back, never stilling his lips, pressed against Arthur's forehead as he muttered reassurances throughout the night.
The helpless rage rose again and again in his heart every time Arthur started shifting in his sleep, distressed and agitated. Merlin would shh lowly and calmly and bring Arthur back to a soothing, gentle sleep, each and every time. He rocked back and forth, holding Arthur close to him, mumbling low nonsense in his ear.
By morning, he was exhausted. But Arthur was calm and safe and well-rested, and that was worth it.
Arthur slowly blinked awake (again), and Merlin smiled as he looked up at him.
"You look terrible," he said bluntly.
Merlin laughed.
"You shouldn't have stayed up all night," Arthur said over breakfast.
"I understand you care, Merlin, but he is right," Lancelot chipped in.
Merlin sighed, scrubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.
"I value Arthur's sleep more than my own - I can go for a while yet."
This time, Lancelot shared his worried glance with Arthur as the three mounted their horses.
Lancelot shook his head to himself as they set off again. Even though Arthur hadn't completely forgiven Merlin, yet, he still cared for his man.
He just hoped they could sort this all out soon. They had a long journey ahead of them, and anger grew in the most horrible of ways when left to fester in a person's heart - especially in the hearts as large as those of men like Merlin and Arthur.
This was going to be a long, long journey.
Next Chapter >>
Master Post
Notes: I will be endeavoring to fix my computer within the next day or so, so please leave a lot of comments for me to get back to! :D
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 01:00 pm (UTC)The argument between Merlin and Arthur was understandable; I agree more with Arthur-those men don't deserve becoming things rather than people.
Lancelot is going to have a lot to deal with with these two.
Good chapter.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 02:12 am (UTC)And yes, Lancelot has a lot on his hands. :P
no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 04:44 pm (UTC)I just hope that Merlin will rest properly. It wouldn't be useful if their main defense was dead tired. (I have a feeling that my hopes will be futile again.) :)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-02 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-04 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 03:27 am (UTC)Just a note on Eire. At the time (i'm going on a broad range from when the Romans arrived to the 5th century) Ireland would have been called Hibernia. Albion was the name the Romans gave England(Wales and Scotland were Cambria and Caledonia) and Hibernia (it means wintry. They had that right :( sooo cold) was the name for Ireland (for some strange reason we have a lot of pubs called Hibernia and a life insurance company too).
Also that map of Ireland isn't great simply because the Romans never got around to us. They thought about it but decided we were too fierce (it's still there, just mainly on sat night down the pub). A bloke called Ptolemy did make a fairly detailed map though. His was even near the right shape http://www.informaworld.com/ampp/image?path=/791546828/791562641/rigy_a_291103_o_f0001g.png.
Interesting that what he had down as perhaps the capital, Hiber, is now Cork which is the largest county. Also interesting is that none of the names have survived, in England an awful lot of the place names are still used but ours are all from the old Irish.
Sorry now seriously geeky rant over, LOVE THE STORY is what I came here to say lol
no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 04:16 am (UTC)I already figured the map was completely anachronistic for the story, but consider the platinum heels and beer cans we have in the canon show, I figure I could take a little liberty with the timing ;). Thank you, though.
I'm glad you like the story, and I hope the future installments don't disappoint. ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-06 10:54 pm (UTC)The flow for this story is amazing. Arthur and Merlin argument was one that definitely has points for the two of them. They both are going through a lot and Lancelot is going to have to keep a close watch on them both if they are to make it back to Camelot.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-07 09:25 am (UTC)