Chapter Text
After Agravaine departed for the council meeting, Merlin was left alone with his pain and his thirst. The tang of dried blood on his lips tasted like poison. He ran his tongue around his mouth, trying to summon up moisture, trying to expel the yuck. The movement caused his lips to crack and the knife cuts to break open again. He told himself to hold still, to not make it worse, but that did nothing to help the penetrating ache of the bite in his shoulder. He tried to push all of it from his awareness and drift off to sleep.
Although he didn't manage to lose consciousness, holding still at least allowed the pain to dwindle into an almost tolerable companion.
His thoughts, on the other hand, would not stop racing. If he couldn't find mental peace, perhaps he could at least focus his energy on something useful. Like escape. Or revenge.
It took about two seconds to realise how difficult escape was right now. Panic started clawing away at his inside as the impossibility of it threatened to overwhelm him. Calm yourself, he ordered. Not that he had ever been good at doing what he was told, even when he was barking out orders to himself. He tried anyway. Calm yourself. You'll just need to wait for a better opportunity. It will happen. Distract yourself until that time comes.
Okay then, he would plot revenge instead. Very soon, in the not-too-distant future, Merlin was going to kill Agravaine in the most painful way possible. Which would be... what? Disembowelment? Burning alive? No, they say the smoke puts you out of your misery too quickly. Perhaps drawn and quartered? That had always struck him as particularly gruesome.
Or...
Once, back before everything had gone to shit, traders from across the sea had come to Camelot with exotic spices and even more exotic tales. Merlin had visited their market stalls multiple times in order to acquire rare herbs for Gaius: saffron and thyme, marjoram, mint, coriander. One of Gaius' most precious medical books was a copy of a treatise by Hippocrates, salvaged from the Romans before they fled Albion's shores. The book had lauded the properties of plants Merlin had never heard of before. So when the traders came, selling these things, Merlin went every day. He remembered the bright colours the traders wore, the strange accents overwhelming the broken cadence of their speech, the peculiar scents that clung to their robes.
Just remembering that moment was calming. He was no longer in pain, chained to Agravaine's bed, but there in Camelot's market on a warm summer day, basking in the sunshine, listening to their stories.
The story that came to mind now recounted a form of execution that had—or so the traders claimed—been used to kill a man who had murdered the king's brother. Considering that the king's brother had been a traitor trying to topple the rightful king from the throne, it seemed a poor repayment for services rendered. At the time, Merlin hadn't understood why the man would have been executed instead of rewarded.
Now, though, thinking about the story, Merlin saw very easily how it might happen. It could have been Merlin in that role, killing the daughter and sister who would steal the king's throne. He could have killed Morgana long ago, and almost had, back when he had thrown her down the stairs. And if his role in her death were known to Uther, there would have been no mercy. Even if Uther had known of her treachery, he would still have blamed Merlin. He was an expert on misplacing guilt: just look what happened when Ygraine died.
There would have been no mercy for Merlin. Mercy was so very foolish in a world as harsh as this one.
Merlin had granted Morgana mercy, both when she fell (nay, was pushed; he could not avoid that responsibility) down the stairs. And again, one or two—or maybe ten—days ago, after his fight with her in Arthur's chambers. This time he spared her for the sake of her unborn child.
Foolish. Stupid. The world was too cruel for that kind of indulgence.
His thoughts were straying into dangerous, depressing territory. Despairing about the futility of mercy would do nothing to help him survive. He yanked his focus back to the topic of vengeance. At least planning revenge provided an incentive to stay alive, to keep going until his task was done.
So, the traders had told him, this was how they executed the poor sod who had killed the king's brother. They laid him into a small wooden boat, and another boat was fastened on top, leaving him in a box. Holes were cut for his arms and legs and head. Then he was fed excessive amounts of a mixture of milk and honey until he was filled to the point of nausea and his stomach was distended. When the man refused to drink, they poked him in the eyeballs until he did. Then they smeared more of the mixture over his face, feet, and arms before setting set the boat afloat in the hot sun. Flies and bees and wasps were attracted to the sweetness and settled upon him, biting and stinging. Vermin came to feast upon the honey, devouring the man bite by bite. And his belly, distended as it was with milk and honey, threw off liquid excrements which putrefied and bred swarms of worms, intestinal and otherwise.
And so the man lay encased in the boats, his flesh rotting away in his own filth, eaten by vermin and worms.
If anyone deserved such a fate, it would be Agravaine. Not Morgana. Her cruelty and betrayal was born of understandable fear and anger at the injustices of the world. But Agravaine—what motivation did he have beyond cruelty and greed and lust? Selfish desires, never caring for another human in his entire miserable existence. At least Morgana had cared about someone and something beyond herself.
His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Alfred, Agravaine's weaselly little manservant, escorting someone else into the room. Merlin turned his head to examine the newcomer, ignoring the pain that flared up in his shoulder as he did so.
It was a man wearing the attire of neither servant nor soldier, but rather a set of robes reminiscent of the druids. A golden amulet inset with a large, amber-coloured jewel hung round his neck. His face held none of the peace of a druid nor the hauteur of a noble. Instead he wore the haggard look of a desperate bandit.
He also carried an iron collar connected to a thin chain piled in his hands.
"Do you require anything else, Master Ari?" Alfred asked. When no response came, the manservant slipped out of the room.
Merlin wanted to speak, to beg this maybe-druid—Ari—for water. Druids were merciful, yes? Or had they all adapted to the cruelty of the world? He tried to ask anyway, but the blood on his mouth had glued his lips together. Again. As he wrenched them apart, the cuts reopened for a second time, stinging more than when Agravaine had first sliced them open.
Ari clamped the collar around Merlin's neck, keeping hold of the attached chain as he did so. The metal didn't carry any of the runes that marked the magic-restraining bands wrapped round Merlin's limbs. The chain attached to the collar wasn't very long, no more than the length of a typical leash for the hounds. Merlin supposed that was the point.
The man's eyes flashed gold, and the cuffs around Merlin's wrists and ankles sprang open, freeing him from the bed. Merlin curled in on himself, bending his joints, loosening them, trying to bring back freedom of movement after having been stretched out in one position for... well, for however long it was. He wasn't really sure.
He pushed himself into a sitting position and searched the room for something to drink. There was a table close to the fireplace that held several goblets and a pitcher of... something. Water or wine or ale... did it really matter what? If only he could get the taste of dessicated rotten blood out of his mouth.
"Water?" Merlin's voice was nothing more than a scratchy whisper.
Ari laughed and jerked on the chain. Merlin tipped over. He yanked harder, and Merlin was choking, gasping, wheezing. Desperate for air, Merlin threw himself across the bed and towards the man. Only once he had crashed to the floor, landing in a muddled heap, did the chain loosen enough for him to breathe.
Ari laughed again. The cruelty of it slid over Merlin like haircloth sewn with thorns.
"Why would a traitor like you deserve something to drink?" His voice was as cruel as his laugh. "You betrayed your own kind, again and again. You protected the Pendragons while they slaughtered children. Why the fuck would the gods grant their power to a miserable rodent like you? Now they've struck you down for your treachery. And I'm going to enjoy every minute of it."
He kicked at Merlin with his boot, rolling him onto his back. Before Merlin could curl into a defensive position, the man stomped on his ribs and ground the hard sole of his boot into Merlin's skin. "You are a traitor. Nothing more than dirt beneath my feet."
Merlin struggled for air, a near impossible task with most of the man's weight pressing down on his lungs. He squeezed his eyes to stop them from watering. Swallowing, he tried to get his mouth to work. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper. "I... didn't betray you. I serve... Arthur, not Uther. Arthur is... good man."
The man's face twisted into something ugly. "Uther was evil. His son is no different. My family was slaughtered like animals at a druid camp in one of Arthur's raids. He ordered their deaths! My wife! My seven children—"
His voice hitched and stopped. He lifted the boot from Merlin's ribs and turned away.
Merlin's eyes prickled with the urge to cry, but he blinked it back. Any weakness and he might fall apart and never recover. If he wanted to stay alive, if he wanted to help Arthur, he needed to keep it together.
"I'm... so sorry," he gasped. "But Arthur is destined— Restore magic... Bring peace—"
The man spun around and snarled at him, teeth bared. The anger and hatred of it scalded Merlin's heart. "Is that what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night? I do not judge a man based on fairy tales about what he might do someday, but on what he has already done.
"Arthur has killed innocents. He deserves to die. You have helped him. This is far worse. You have tried to justify the destruction of your own people. Whatever torture you endure here will never make it right."
Merlin would have cried then, but found no moisture left for tears. "But... the prophecies--" He barely squeezed the words of between desperate gasps for air.
"If a bandit comes into a village and burns all the crops, year after year after year, should you just accept this? Because some destiny says he might have a change of heart twenty years from now? Of course not! Even you, traitor that you are, would try to stop him so that your village doesn't starve.
"The gods gave you a power brighter than the sun, and all you've done with it is protect the men who burn down the world around you. Even Uther, for all his evils, didn't reward or punish anyone based on what they might do in the future. And yet you think you can act as judge and thereby justify the destruction of your people? How dare you!"
He stepped forward and kicked Merlin in the ribs several times, rolling him across the wooden floor towards the door. "Now come on, we're due in Court."
The man pulled on the leash, and Merlin scrambled along on hands and knees.
Merlin was going to be dragged down to the throne room on his hands and knees wearing nothing but his small clothes and iron bands, littered with bruises and bite marks and blood, wasn't he? The pinnacle of elegance, truly.
Ari jerked at the chain repeatedly, seemingly just for the fun of it. Merlin crawled as fast as he could so that he wouldn't be strangled. His destroyed knees ached from banging against the unforgiving stone floor; the pain in his shoulder burned away at his mental defenses.
He cursed how fucking dependent he was on magic now. Without it, all the magical repairs to his body fell apart. Though it probably shouldn't be surprising, considering how he was supposedly "magic itself". He scoffed. How could he possibly be pure magic yet still saddled with such a breakable physical form?
Merlin had died before. More than once. Only magic had put him back together. Did this mean that if he lost enough magic, he would return to being dead? Probably. And he'd stay dead until someone took him to the Crystal Cave. (Or until Arthur fucked him back to life. No—it didn't bear thinking about.)
A particularly strong yank on his neck cut off his breathing, and he nearly collapsed. Focus, he chided himself. Keep going, don't tip over, don't let him strangle you. Ignore your lack of clothes, ignore the pain, ignore it all. Wipe blank your mind. Don't think, just ignore it all.
Merlin had never been good at not thinking.
Gods, Agravaine was going to do one of those triumphant gloating things, wasn't he? Look at me, I've got the almighty Emrys on a chain like a dog. Bow before me, all you peons and underlings. Bow before your mighty King, the illustrious Agri-toad, who managed to subdue the most powerful sorcerer to ever live by... having the good fortune to show up at the right place at the right time and throw chains on someone exhausted of magic and unable to even stand without it.
Actually, that good fortune... it damn well better not be destiny.
Merlin had tried so hard to fulfill his destiny, believing it would lead to a better future.
Wasn't that the reason he had protected the Pendragons even as the Purge raged on?
As Merlin struggled along, people in the halls passed by. A few hurled insults at him, though most kept their heads down and hurried away. Merlin barely noticed, stuck in his head as he was.
Ari's words clanked through his head like a broken bell. If a bandit comes into a village and burns all the crops, year after year after year, should you just accept this? Because some destiny says he might have a change of heart twenty years from now? Of course not!
How many of Merlin's actions had been initiated because of his belief in destiny? A destiny told to him in bits and pieces, by dragons and druids and other creatures of magic.
What if the things he had been told were wrong? Possibly straight-out lies? Even if destiny's messengers were well-meaning, how did Merlin know that the message hadn't been misinterpreted?
And if there is a destiny, a favoured path that events will follow—does anyone possess the ability to be a true prophet?
Merlin had seen, in the Crystal Cave, and he knew that he had seen true. And yet the visions had all faded into snippets of a memory of a dream. Was there anyone, man or beast or god, who could hold on to the infinite truth of the future unless completely immersed in it? And to one so immersed, how could they hold on to any reality beyond that moment of awareness?
Who could do such a thing? The druids? The great seers of old, Taliesin and his kin? The dragons? Who could step into the realm of destiny, see its true path, and not lose the clarity of it when thrust back into the physical world?
And even if destiny favours a particular path, that doesn't mean it is set in stone. There are many ways for a raindrop to find its way back to the ocean. Perhaps it finds its way to a different ocean.
Had Merlin sided with evil because he believed it was destiny? Would he have done any differently if he had never heard a prophecy in his life? Should he have?
Gods, Merlin was in no fit state to even try to understand destiny right now. Just—had he been played for a fool? Did his blind faith kill Ari's family? Lead to Morgana's soulbond curse? To Camelot's defeat? To Arthur's torture and the loss of Merlin's magic and the burning of his mother's home and Gaius's death and so much war and so much suffering and so much death?
If his blind faith had led to all of that, then wouldn't he deserve to be here, now. Wouldn't he deserve everything Agravaine would inflict on him?
The world was too cruel for mercy anyway.