Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lancelot and his father have lived on their own for quite a long time. Not quite as long as Lancelot can remember, but for quite a long time.

His father has gone to sell what produce they’ve not managed to sell to the villagers at a market closer into town. It’s meant to be a one day trip. He rides out before the sun comes up and should be back before it sets, but when the sun sets and he still hasn’t returned, Lancelot starts to worry.

The choice of whether to give his father an extra day or ride out looking for him is made for him when his father’s horse returns a half hour after sunset, completely spooked and exhausted.

Lancelot remembers the woman his father used to leave him with when he was too young to help work the farm telling him once that he took far too many risks. He puts on a warm traveling cloak and wonders if this risk will be his last before he rides out while a storm is obviously rolling in, looking for his father.

The storm is mostly show for the first hour of his ride. It’s wind and some intermittent clouds that thin enough to let the full moon guide down through the wooded path. He keeps having to stop and sooth his father’s horse, their only riding horse, urging him on when he obviously doesn’t want to.

“Come on, boy, you can do it. We need to find father. I know you’d never leave him if you didn’t have to. We need to find him.” He taps his heel against the horse’s flank and it carries on, slow and wary.

He clicks his tongue and slows the horse when he sees a trail that leads off into the woods. It looks like it’s been traveled down recently. He remembers father saying he thought he’d found a shortcut into town, faster though not necessarily as safe as the main road.

Surely he wouldn’t be so foolish as to go down an untested road without Lancelot by his side? Lancelot was the stronger of the two of them, now that his father was getting on in age. He’d gone to the market alone so Lancelot could stay back and continue with the harvest. With just Lancelot to work the fields, it was getting harder and harder to pull up all the crops in a timely manner. Some of the other villagers offered help when they could, but they had their own farms to tend, lest their lords have fits about crop yields.

Lancelot has a feeling he’s heading down the right path when his father’s horse winnies and pulls back, early throwing Lancelot off.

“Easy, boy, easy,” He tugs the reins, just barely keeping his seat and managing to settle the spooked horse. He makes a calculated move to dismount, knowing that if he’s thrown and injured in the dark he won’t stand a chance against wild animals or bandits, and he won’t be any help to his missing father.

Lancelot has no desire to call attention to himself, so he resists the urge to call out for his father. He continues to placate his spooked horse, murmuring to him and stroking him while his eyes cast around down this unknown path, looking for any sign of his father.

The rain starts to come down just as he sees a giant mansion come into view. It almost looks like a castle. Might have been a Lord’s house once, except it’s overgrown in a way no Lord’s house ever would have been. Vines crawled themselves up the iron fence and the stone walls, curling into windows and blocking whole walls from being seen by how thick they were. Plants where a garden might have been once were wild and being overshadowed by weeds and long grasses. The house looked abandoned, but he saw a single candle burning in one of the windows far up.

Lancelot knew it wasn’t exactly polite to open up a stranger’s gate without permission and let himself inside, but it was pouring and, maybe, his father might have come here looking for shelter.

He knocks on the door several times, calling loudly for any servant or occupant to come out. If nothing else, he hoped that he might get some idea of what other lodging was in the area, or if this path that he’d taken even lead into town like his father thought it did. Lancelot would search all night for his father, even in the rain that seemed to be letting up now, but any sort of direction would be better than the aimeless wandering he’d been doing so far.

The fourth time Lancelot goes to knock on the door it suddenly becomes unlatched at his knock bangs it open. He waits for someone to open the door more completely, but it never happens. He glances inside for any sign of a person, but there are no candles lit in the entryway, and he only sees darkness. There’s a smell of dank coming from the inside of the home, like it’s been sitting in it’s own stale air for years.

“Hello?” Lancelot calls into the home, wondering if maybe the door just hadn’t been properly latched to begin with, rather than having been opened for him. “I’m looking for my father. I had a question about this path.” He waits for a response and doesn’t receive one.

“He’s a rather old man. It’s important that I find him. Hello?” Lancelot pokes his head in the door, going against every sense of propriety he has, and it almost feels like the place gets darker when he sticks his head in, even the light from the outside not reaching the walls across from the it.

“Hello?” Lancelot calls again, louder this time. He hears a creak and backs out, thinking that maybe someone is coming, but after a few more moments, no one comes to the door.

Lancelot grits his teeth at the inappropriateness of it and pushes the door open, letting himself into a stranger’s house, hoping that someone might find him.

“I’m looking for my father. I was wondering if you’d seen any sign of a man. He’s probably tired. He’d been gone all day. Hello?” Lancelot turns quickly when he hears a crash in another room and follows the sound, searching out any sign of another person.

The sound doesn’t happen again, and Lancelot doesn’t find the source of it. He looks around him and is further into the house than he ever intended to be. It is still dark here, with only a couple of low burning candles scattered around the way he’d come in.

Lancelot turns and traces his steps back out of the room.

Except almost as soon as his back is turned, he hears another crash and follows it again listening for any sound like footsteps or running, but he hears nothing.

He gets to a place where he thinks the sound might have come from, but there are no signs of people. He is standing in an empty dining room. No candles are lit, no supper sits on the table, and he’s just… alone in a strange house and now quite sure he’ll be able to find his way out again if he needs to.

With a suddenness that startles him, the chandelier above him bursts into light and he stares up at it, a miracle in front of him. He’s never heard of candles that light themselves. He stares up, wondering when he hears a voice from the shadows.

“You dare to trespass. As you father did.”

Lancelot turns, the candle light surrounding him but not reaching the far corners where he hears the gruff, and frankly terrifying, voice coming from.

“I promise he meant no harm. He is an old man, and he isn’t well…” Lancelot knows this is nearly a lie. His father is old, but not yet infirm. He was well enough to make a day long trip without Lancelot, still, even though he could no longer work the fields. But Lancelot needed as much pity as he could work from this person, whoever they were, to ask him to spare such great transgressions.

“And what is your excuse for coming in without invitation?” The person, a man most likely from the tone of voice, sounded no less frightening, and maybe even more frightening when he spoke this time.

“I- I apologize. Profusely. I came knocking, yours is the only home along this path and I remembered my father mentioning once he might use it to try and get to town.”

“This road leads to no towns.” The man said, starting to sound angry. “But still I have no answer. What reason do you have for entering my home without invitation?”

“The door was open,” Lancelot said honestly, but pitifully, voice small with the understanding that this was not a good reason.

“That door remains locked. Always.”

“It- I knocked three times and on the fourth it came open at my touch. I swear I never intended to come in. I heard a crashing sound and I wondered if someone needed help.”

“Lies.” The man snarled, and from the place where the figure was standing, Lancelot saw it lunge forward, light not quite illuminating, but glancing the figure, showing Lancelot the outline of a thing that could not be a man. It was tall, hulking, with shoulder’s nearly double the width of Lancelot’s. It’s head appeared to have horns. Lancelot’s eyes widened and he stepped back, out of the candle light, towards the door as he tried to plead.

“I was only searching for my father. Please. We will repay any debts we have incurred, if only you will tell me where he is.”

The beast, for that was all he could be if he was not a man, growled and turned away, back into the darkness of a hallway he must have entered from, and Lancelot had no choice but to follow, blindly.

The beast moved much faster than Lancelot did, and he was panting with the effort to keep up by the time they’d ascended stairs that had felt like they’d go on forever. Lancelot’s heart dropped out of him when they passed a prison cell and then another, and another. He had no question about where his father was being kept, and now only worried about what was going to happen to him.

Lancelot suddenly wished he’d brought his sword with him, rather than leaving it with the horse and his supplies.

He hears his father’s voice calling “Hello? Hello? My son! He’ll be looking for me soon!” three cells before he sees him and Lancelot vaults ahead, brushing past the beast to throw himself at the feet of his father’s cell.

His father looks pale, cold and shivering. Lancelot looks into the cell and sees no blankets or mattress to sit on. No hay or straw.

“You can’t leave him here, he’s dying!” Lancelot clutched at the bars, his father’s shaking hands settling over his as he looks over his shoulder, trying to meet the beast’s eyes. “Whatever he has done, however he has trespassed, you cannot treat him like this.”

“He has eaten my food. Stolen into my home. He is a common criminal. As are you, in fact.”

Lancelot turned back to look at his father, brown eyes hare to see in the dark, but Lancelot could see way his eyelid’s drooped, heard the attempt to suppress a cough brought on, certainly, by the draft of the tower they were in and the cold of the stone he’d bee sitting on.

“Prison is a common punishment for criminals. I am within my rights to hold you both here.”

“Lancelot,” his father said quietly, squeezing his hands through the bars. “Please, get out of here. That thing is a monster. It’s a monster. Please, get out.”

“I won’t leave you here.” Lancelot whispered back and then turns to his father’s captor.

“Prison is rarely indefinite. How long have you sentenced him to?” Lancelot’s voice doesn’t shake, despite the fear he feels like cold ice in his chest.

“One year.” The beast said and Lancelot nodded.

“I will serve his sentence, if you will have me in his place. If he stays here, he will die. You cannot sentence him to death for a little stolen food. I beg you.”

The beast is invisible in the darkness. He becomes the shadows in a way that makes him impossible to pinpoint and Lancelot just has to look in the direction where he thinks he remembers the beast being. He asked again, turning his hand over to take his father’s hand in his own. “Please, take me instead.”

“You would have to serve both your sentences.”

“Yes,” Lancelot said immediately, over his father’s protests.

“Lancelot, you’ve got so much life left, don’t let this thing take you. I’m old. Let me die here.”

“No.” Lancelot snapped at his father. “I won’t let you die. You’re to go home, and stay alive until I get back.”

“Lancelot,” His father said his name like he couldn’t believe it was his son’s name. Like he couldn’t believe he was pleading with his son not to go to jail.

“Your father would have to agree to send no one looking for you. And you will be here for one year and 6 months, for both your transgressions.” The beast told Lancelot, and Lancelot nodded. “I have your word. You will stay for both your sentences and will not try to escape.”

“I give you my word.”

The beast gives another sort of growl and Lancelot turned back to his father.

“You can hire the Carson’s boy, Will. His father has enough hands. The family could use the money. Let him help you work the fields. Plant enough to satisfy the Lord, and survive off our stores. With just you, we have more than enough to last the year. Plant well next spring and I will be back in time to harvest in the summer.”

“Don’t, please, son. Don’t throw your life away.”

“It’s just a year.” He murmured, squeezing his father’s hand again. “Just a year and some change. And then I’ll be back.”

“In what condition?” His father’s voice was harsh, angry. “I refuse to accept this. I will not let you do this.”

“It’s my choice.” Lancelot stood and he hates the way his heart aches when his father reaches out to him. He stepped back to let the beast take his father out of the cell and escort him down. He can see where his father is placed on the horse Lancelot brought and set home. There is more light around the horse than there should have been and Lancelot thinks this must be the same magic that sprang the chandelier to life in the dining room. He watched his father ride away, seemingly against his will, always turning back trying to find Lancelot in the dark of the castle.

“Good bye,” Lancelot said to his receding father. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to say it while his father was protesting about being made to leave. He hadn’t even been able to wave. It felt too simplistic. Too wrong. Too dismissive of…

Of his prison sentence.

His self-appointed prison sentence.

The corridor is cold, but not as cold as the cell. As a small sort of protest he waits outside the cell, knowing that his captor will now need to come and lock him in, since he had left without doing so.

Lancelot refused to cry until after he’s seen the beast again. He refused to let the monster see him that way.

He would see his father again. A year was not such a long time, though Lancelot was only 20, and a year was not an insignificant fraction of his life.

A year and six months. Six seasons. Six seasons without his father. Or his friends. Or anyone, probably.

Lancelot saved his tears and his prayers until after the beast had come to lock him away again.

“Are you coming down from there?” The beast’s voice rang from somewhere farther down the steps. “Or would you like to spend the night in the tower.”

Lancelot is startled first by the booming voice carrying up the stone steps, and then by the question being posed to him.

“I didn’t know I had an option.”

“Come down. Now.”

Lancelot has been a farmer with a cruel lord for long enough to know an order when he hears one.

Lancelot comes down the steps, the passage more well lit than it had been when he first came up. The candles along the walls are actually lit in sets of town, and he never has to fear tripping, or running unexpectedly into the beast that he has not yet seen properly.

When Lancelot reaches the bottom of the stairs he hears but does not see the beast. “You will work as a servant in my home. I’m sure you’ve seen it needs tending. There are some things I cannot do. When the work is done, or when your time is up, you will be returned to your farm in no worse condition than you arrived. Do you understand?”

Lancelot glanced around, not sure where exactly the beast spoke from since the only light shines from the corridor behind him, and the beast’s voice sounds like it could be coming from any of three directions.

“If I finish the work early, I can leave early?” Lancelot asked, wanting to make sure that he’d heard correctly.

The beast pauses for a moment before he answers. Lancelot doesn’t understand the hesitation. “Yes.”

“Okay. I accept your terms. When should I start?”

“In the morning. You look like you have worked already today, and the storm will not make working easy. Follow the candles. You’ll find supper and fresh clothes waiting for you. Tomorrow, you eat dinner with me.”

“Yes,” Lancelot hesitates. “My Lord.”

The beast doesn’t seem to like the title any more than Lancelot likes saying it. The corrects Lancelot gruffly. “Merlin is fine.”

“Yes, Merlin.” It feels wrong to call a rich stranger by their given name, but this is the name he’s given Lancelot, obviously with the intention that he use it. It is only polite he introduce himself now. “I am Lancelot. At your service.”

There was no reply, but the air moved, like it was sucked from the room only to return again, and then a passageway lit with candles and Lancelot knew the beast must be gone.

Lancelot follows the path as instructed, and finds what Merlin said he would find. A dinner set on a table. The spread is simple, cured meats, cheese, bread, but it is more than he expected. He hadn’t eaten well that day out of concern for his father, and so he eats what is given to him, and uses the basin in the corner of the frankly beautiful bedroom to wash his face and body. It’s startlingly warm, and Lancelot wonders if this too is magic. He dumps the water he’d used to wash himself and washes the plate, cup and silverware he’d been given, leaving them to dry on another towel before going, quite hesitantly, to bed.

The room was nicer than anything he’d ever stayed in. It was counter to everything he expected. Didn’t the beast have servant’s quarters he could have put Lancelot in? Didn’t he have… anywhere else? It didn’t make sense to Lancelot that he was being put up like a guest rather than a prisoner.

Lancelot decided, as he pulled back the blankets and discovered the softness of both them and the mattress, that he would not count his chickens, and would sleep tonight, and await whatever chores the beast can dig up for him tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Lancelot slept fitfully, awakening several times, feeling restlessness that could only be alleviated by walking back and forth. The view from his window was mostly obstructed by the vines that Lancelot had seen when he first came to the castle. Despite the obstruction, Lancelot could make out a few things through his bedroom window, but the view he had didn’t match with anything he had seen when he rode up to the castle. Out his window there is more garden, equally as haphazard as the front garden had been. Sprawling and unruly, completely untidy, uncared for for who knew how long, Lancelot pitied that this land was used to grow decorative flowers rather than something more practical.

When the window’s view proved to be joyless, Lancelot paced the room for a while, then tried to sleep, only to get up and pace some more.

Lancelot thought he’d cobbled together a few hours of sleep by the time the sun started to come up, so he felt fine getting out of bed and getting ready for his first full day as a prisoner of a beast.

Lancelot debated putting on his clothes from the day before, but in their unwashed state they were hardly fit for company, so he tried the wardrobe that, he remembered, had another set of clothes in it aside from what he’d borrowed to sleep in the night before.

The fabric of the shirt Lancelot pulled from the wardrobe was finer than any he’d ever had. It draped more like a nice silk than the cotton he knows it is. Thumbing at the fabric, curious as to it’s origins, Lancelot wondered why something so nice would just be left for a prisoner to wear, but he didn’t know if he wanted an answer to that question, so he didn’t voice it. He put the shirt and the makings of an entire day’s worth of clothes on, and promised himself that he would launder his own clothes as soon as he found a wash bucket and some more water.

When Lancelot is dressed he waits, uncertain if he’s meant to wander the castle of his captor. It felt like he shouldn’t, but he hadn’t seen any servants, and he was hardly expecting the beast to come and call him down for breakfast.

Eventually, Lancelot decided that he was going to try his hand at finding the main entrance, and would wait for the beast there.

He stepped out of his room and into the corridor, but it looked nothing like it did the night before. Lancelot put this up to how dark it was, even when lit by candlelight, and took the turn he thought led him back to the dungeon tower with the hope that it would lead somewhere more central in the castle.

Lancelot got lost very quickly. When he decided to retrace his steps and go back to his room, he found that after only a few turns he no longer recognized the hallways he walks down.

It was only once Lancelot took a turn he knew was wrong, hoping he’d end up somewhere he recognized, that he realized that the house is changing.

Earlier on his walk he’d seen a striking portrait of a woman in a red dress that he’d wanted to stop to admire, but had decided to walk past, knowing his task was more important than a glimpse of a painting. Now, that was staring back at him, on the same wall, he was certain, that he had already seen before. Lancelot knew the house was big, but it was not so big that he could have conceivably gone in a circle. No, The house was playing tricks on him. Or Merlin was. Lancelot sighed and scrubbed at his face with his hand before he finally spoke aloud.

“I was trying to find you and I got lost. Merlin?” His voice carried and echoed, empty in the giant castle. He hadn’t yelled, but certainly with all the echoing someone must know he’s here now. Though, his echo did seem to be coming back to him from several directions, so who knew if his calling out had done any good.

Sure enough, he didn’t get a response from Merlin. Not even the floorboards creaked. It almost felt like he was being ignored. Was this part of his punishment?

Lancelot bit at his lip while he thought. The house was moving through magic, certainly. It was the only explanation for why the corridors were moving that didn’t involve Lancelot being mad, and he wasn’t ready to think about that as a possibility yet, even if he had agreed to be a beast’s prisoner.

Merlin was his captor, but had been good enough to feed, clothe, and house him. The room he’d been in had been wildly comfortable. Certainly the beast didn’t want him dead of starvation lost in the corridors. So the only remaining explanation was that the house itself was magic. The house was moving itself.

Lancelot felt like a fool, but his father had made him introduce himself to their house when they’d built a smaller, easier to heat hut when when he was 6, shortly after his mother and sister’s death from a winter chill. He’d introduce himself to Merlin’s magic house in just the same way.

“Hello,” Lancelot said, looking at the painting of a beautiful woman in a deep red dress with dark hair and striking eyes, and then looking around at the hallway, down it’s length in both directions where it seemed to stretch on… forever. “My name is Lancelot. I am a servant in this house. I am trying to find my master so that I may serve him.”

The house does not respond, of course, because it is a house, but Lancelot felt a barely perceptible shift in the air, and it was less foreboding to be standing there in front of the painting of the beautiful woman.

“I’m going to go down this way. If I shouldn’t, you can just move me.”

Lancelot continued down the hallway that was supposed to be new but was old, past the painting of the woman in the red dress whose eyes felt like they followed him.

He kept walking and eventually came to a set of hallways he vaguely remembered from the night before, and through a door that led to the dining room.

Lancelot felt his shoulders relax and he laughed a bit to himself when he realized that his somewhat foolish plan had actually worked.

“You find being a prisoner funny?”

Lancelot immediately stiffened and his eyes searched the room, but the beast was hiding in the shadows again, which should be harder to do after the sun was so completely up (Lancelot had been wandering the house for about an hour at that point), but Merlin seemed to sink into the small bits of darkness left in the house with ease.

“I- I got lost,” Lancelot explained, “I was simply relieved to have found my way here.”

“Yes. I heard your little speech. You called yourself a servant. Do not mistake yourself, Lancelot. You are my prisoner.”

“Yes sir.” Lancelot nodded, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together the way his father had done Lancelot’s whole like while he was thinking. “I only thought the house would not be as kind to me if I had explained it as such.” This was not entirely the truth, but Lancelot wasn’t going to tell Merlin anything more truthful.

Merlin laughed, a grating sound that echoed around the empty dining room. “The house cannot be nice. It’s enchanted, not alive.”

Lancelot didn’t know what to say to that. He simply nodded and waited for instructions.

“Sit. Eat something. Your job is to tend the outdoor areas. Fence to fence. Make it presentable. Tools are in the garden shed. The house will show you out. If you need anything, tell the house. I will be in my study. Do not disturb me.”

Lancelot nodded and he didn’t hear so much as he felt the beast disappear, going back to wherever he spent his time. Lancelot half expected the beast to join him for breakfast, but apparently he had other things to do.

That was all fine by Lancelot. He didn’t really want to make small talk right then anyway.

This was usually the only time of day he and his father had to talk. By the evening Lancelot was too exhausted to have good conversation, though they often tried. The mornings when they ate their first meal together had been when they’d gotten most of their chatter in.

Lancelot missed his father.

He sat down at an empty chair feeling forlorn and put his head down on the table. The beast had said sit and eat, but there was nothing to eat on the table, so Lancelot would sit and wait a while before he went out to the gardens and got started working. Usually he wasn’t a wallower, but this particular situation felt like it merited a little bit of wallowing.

In the same way he’d felt the beast was gone without seeing him leave, he felt that something had changed in the air a few minutes after he’d laid down his head. When he looked up he was faced with a breakfast spread that was--frankly— decadent.

“Dear God,” Lancelot murmured as he took in the spread of eggs, sausage, fresh fruit, fresh bread (still warm out of the oven), and an assortment of pastries that Lancelot didn’t even have names for. He looked around thinking he might find a person but knowing that he probably wouldn’t. When he could find no one to thank for the generous breakfast he looked around the room and said thank you to the house, the enchanted house, and hoped that would suffice. He bowed his head and said the same grace his father always said, though it made his heart ache to hear it from his own lips rather than his father’s, and then he served himself reasonable portions of each of the foods provided, filling the empty plate in front of him moderately. He didn’t want to offend by not trying everything, but he also didn’t want to look greedy by taking more than was his due. He took what he needed and ate it quickly, eager to get started on the day’s work. When he got up he watched the plates disappear before his eyes.

Living with magic was going to take some getting used to.

“I need to go to the garden shed.” Lancelot told the house, “If you’d be so kind as to show me the way, I’d be very grateful.”

How one might show gratitude to a house, Lancelot wasn’t sure, but he’d figure something out. Pick it some flowers or some decorative leaves. Maybe he’d mop…

Lancelot felt a bit like an idiot thinking it, but he got up and walked toward what he thought was the back of the house in search of the garden shed.

He found the back of the house and the back door led onto a patio that was probably very impressive to look at before it had been overgrown. The garden shed was within sight of the castle door, at least, so he could navigate to it easily once he was outside. He stepped over gnarled roots and through weeds so thick their stalks were as thick as his fingers wondering how long it had taken it to get like this. He was wearing his work boots when he rode out yesterday, so he just hoped that the could find a good set of gloves and a hat in the garden shed.

Lancelot knocked on the shed’s door, and then introduced himself to it, not sure if the shed was enchanted or not.

“Hello. I’m Lancelot. I think I’m the new gardener. You’ll be seeing a lot of me for a while.” He waited and when nothing happened he smiled uncomfortably, still feeling like an idiot and opened the door.

There were candles lighting themselves as soon as he opened the door. So the garden shed was also enchanted, it seemed. He thanked the shed for the light and then went rummaging through it. It looked rather well kept, mostly dustless and well organized for a shed that couldn’t have seen use in several years, based on the state of the house.

Lancelot smiled when he found a wide brimmed hat and gloves on a hook beneath a set of working books. He put the gloves in his pocket, and let the hat dangle behind him by the string while he continued looking for tools. The gloves were of a good make, a thick cotton and wool blend with leather padding the working areas of the palms and fingers. He’d certainly need them by the look of the weeds around the house. He picked up a hoe and scythe and held them in one hand, inspecting the rest of the tools in the shed. He eventually found a whetstone he could use to sharpen the scythe and decided that together these two should be enough to get him through. He put the whetstone (complete with convenient little carrying case) on his belt and the gloves in his pockets and took his tools outside.

The brief foray into the shed had made Lancelot forget exactly how much work there was to do.

Initially, he’d thought maybe he could finish out his sentence early by putting himself to work ceaselessly, but after seeing the state of the yard again, Lancelot was starting have doubts about whether or not he’d be able to finish the work, even if he did work from sun up to sun down and past.

Lancelot put on his hat and a determined expression and started towards the porch, determined to work from the the house outward.

When the sun was highest in the sky Lancelot had not cleared nearly as much of the garden paths as he’d wanted to. He had decided that clearing the paths, which were the easiest to navigate and made getting to the more overgrown areas easier, was going to be the safest starting point. He’d been switching between the scythe to cut down grass and weeds (sharpening the blade every few minutes to make his work easier) and the hoe for digging out stubborn stalks of what could easily have been bushes or young trees growing in the spaces between the stones that lay beneath several layers of thatch. Lancelot had to be careful not to let the scythe scrape the earth, because the stones were never as far beneath the layers of dead and decomposed grass as he thought they were.

Lancelot wiped his brow and stretched his back and shoulders, considering whether it was wise to ask the house for water when he heard the back doors fling open. He looked back and saw no one there, only the doors that Lancelothad been sure to latch on his way out now standing wide open.

“Is this your way of telling me to come in?” He asked the house looking up at it’s windows like he might catch a glimpse of whatever enchantment ran it, but only catching a shadow in one of the far windows that was probably a trick of the light.

Lancelot left his hat, gloves and tools on the porch and stomped his booths carefully of sticker burs and dirt before he went inside. He was surprised that the house felt cool considering the time of day and the obvious lack of open windows, but it was a pleasant surprise. He walked in the direction he thought was the kitchen, searching mostly for water and came upon the dining room again, set for one with a water pitcher front and center.

The lunch spread is just as decadent as the breakfast had been, though Lancelot does recognize a few things from breakfast. Left over sausage and fruit now accompanied by heartier breads and cheese. Lancelot ate quickly, as he often did when there was work to be done, and drank two very full glasses of water before the meal was done.

“Do you mind if I take this out with me? I’m afraid I’ve not been tending myself as I should have been.” He held up the pitcher to the dining room at large, never quite sure where to look when talking to the enchanted house, and still feeling stupid for talking to empty air, even if he was fairly certain the house heard him and responded.

He was proven right when the pitcher felt heavier in his hand, and he looked inside to find it now filled to the brim with water. He took this to be the houses blessing to make off with the pitcher. He also stuffed an apple in his pocket for later, as he often did at lunch where there was fruit to spare and many hours left until dinner, then took the pitcher and a glass with him back into the garden.

When Lancelot stopped for a drink an hour or so after lunch, he found that once the water that had been preciously cool in the pitcher, and clear as day, was now tepid and faintly stale. He put this up to the pitcher sitting in the hot sun and didn’t think of it again. He worked and after a couple more short breaks to drink water took a longer break to rest his shoulders and eat the apple he’d taken from the table at lunch. He found the apple, which had felt fresh and crisp when he’d first picked it up, had a bit of softness to it now, feeling overripe in his hand without a satisfying crunch to it. Lancelot was used to eating far worse than soft apples and he finished it without even a thought towards complaint.

The sun was a couple hours from setting when he heard the doors throw themselves open again. Lancelot wiped his brow and looked up at the doors, weighing the rudeness of waiting to eat super against the benefits of working until sundown, like he was used to.

Then he remembered what the beast said the night before.

Tomorrow, you eat dinner with me.

Lancelot thought he probably couldn’t refuse a dinner invitation from his captor. Master? Well, jailer was probably the most appropriate term. No matter what he was called, Lancelot didn’t think it would be wise to keep him waiting.

So, Lancelot put his tools by the door again, wiped down his boots and left his gloves outside. He had every intention to come back and continue working after dinner. Only, he had this sinking pit in his stomach as he wondered how exactly this dinner would go.

Whatever may happen, Lancelot was obligated to Merlin and so he went inside to face his jailer.

Chapter Text

Lancelot followed what he was pretty sure was the same path towards the dining room that he had taken at lunch, only to not end up in the dining room. Instead he found himself by the painting of the woman in the red dress again, and he looked at it (at her) and then around at the house.

“Er… I was trying to go to the dining room? I am to meet my master for dinner tonight.” He looked about him, but nothing so much as shimmered in response.

The house had the habit of just putting Lancelot where it wanted him, so he decided to just start walking and hope that he found what he was looking for.

He didn’t find the dining room, though after a few minutes of walking a door did fly open to his left. When he peaked in he realized that it was the room he’d slept in the might before, and Lancelot frowned. Upon a second look he saw no sign of the beast or dinner in there. He was about to back out when the carpet slipped beneath him and he tumbled into the room, just barely catching himself on the doorknob to stop himself from falling in.

Lancelot didn’t spare the enchanted house his ire, looking angrily up at the ceiling and the walls that had much more color in the late afternoon sun. They were a soft muted blue that Lancelot actually quite liked, except when he was nearly being toppled over by magic carpets.

He took the hint of the rug for what it was and went inside, the door closing immediately behind him and the wardrobe now opening it’s doors to him.

That was when Lancelot understood. He was expected to dress for dinner.

Lancelot stripped of his working clothes, folded the sweat ridden things neatly, and placed them on the chair he’d sat on the night before for his dinner. He might have enough time to change back into them and continue work before sundown, depending on how fast the beast ate.

After throughly washing himself Lancelot found a set of clothes that were, again, far finer than Lancelot ever saw, let alone was expected to wear: a blue ensemble with silver buttons that had to be worth more than their horse back home…

Lancelot touched the buttons, but didn’t see them. Instead he sees buckles on bridles and saddle. Sees spare shoes for the work horse hung from the barn that that Lancelot had to rebuild with the village after a wind storm had blown a wall down. Sees the many faces of people who had celebrated with him and his father well into that evening, food brought and shared by all.

In his mind’s eye Lancelot sees his father on the farm, alone, with no help. Wonders how his father will manage for a year and half without him. Wonders how he could just leave his father alone.

Lancelot gritted his teeth and closed his eyes against the tears that stung them. His father was a strong man, even if he was old, and he would be fine. He would be better than fine. They had a plan. Lancelot had to believe that. He had to have faith that his father would be fine. He couldn’t think otherwise.

When the threat of tears had past, he opened his eyes and pulled the outfit out of the wardrobe, feeling a bit like a doll being dressed for the pleasure of his master. His jaw never relaxed as he dressed in the unfamiliar garb that felt wrong against his skin. He combed out his hair anew and, when he felt he looked presentable, went to put his boots back on.

The boots, not unscathed from the day’s work but far from unclean, promptly slide away, along with the rug that they had been sitting on, just out of reach of his hand.

He looked at the boots and then around at the house. “Do you want me to go to dinner barefoot?” He asked the house, incredulous and with more anger in his tone than the incident might have otherwise warranted.

The wardrobe doors shut and a drawer beneath them slid open to reveal a set of polished black shoes made of leather nicer than anything Lancelot could normally have afforded.

That put the last nail in the coffin of the idea that Lancelot was being dressed like a bloody doll.

When he’d been working it had been easy to let his mind go blank, to breathe with the motions of his scythe or his hoe and to push thoughts from his head, but now… Now Lancelot could not stop thinking about the unfairness of the world and the cruelty of this monster who kept him prisoner and then dressed him up for fun. Like Lancelot was a toy to entertain him.

“I’m not wearing those.” Lancelot said, striding back to where his boots lay. Again the carpet moved the boots out of his reach and Lancelot, righteous fury building in him, chased after them.

The house was not faster than him when he was determined, and he caught his boots in less than a minute. He felt the slightest bit triumphant when he went to put them on, but when he tried to sit in the chair he found it was pulled out from under him.

Lancelot glared around the room. “Very mature. I hope you’re having fun, dressing me up to entertain the master. What’s next? Should I learn a song and dance?” Lancelot sat defiantly on the floor, on a place bare of any rug or other furnishings, and pulled his boots on, not caring if the seat of his fine new trousers might get dusty on the floor. He hoped the damned things ripped.

The wardrobe drawer slammed closed and then opened again, insisting on the shoes, but Lancelot ignored it, lacing his boots back up and going to the door.

But the door did not open. The handle froze in his hand like it was locked, but there was no keyhole that Lancelot could see, or any lock he could turn by hand.

Lancelot flicked his tongue beneath his teeth, hard enough to scrape and almost taste blood. “Are you refusing to let me go to dinner?” He asked the doors themselves, and he heard the wardrobe drawer open and shut again, louder, fiercer, but he didn’t look in it’s direction.

“I don’t want to wear them. I’m going to wear my boots. I will not change.”

Lancelot stumbled when the rug started to slide out from under him but he was starting to learn the house’s tricks and found firm footing on the floorboards before he fell flat on his face.

All the wardrobe’s doors flew open and then closed again, leaving just the drawer with the shoes in it open.

“No.” Lancelot said, keeping his eyes locked on the door. He tried the handle again, but it had even less give than before not even twitching in his hand.

“I will just stay here. All night.” Lancelot said obstinately and that was what he did. In a stand off with a wardrobe, Lancelot stood in front of the door, trying the handle every so often to see if maybe the house had let up. It did not. Neither did Lancelot.

He didn’t know how long he stood there when he heard angry clawing footsteps start to come down the hallway.

Lancelot swallowed hard but stood his ground.

“Do you intend to keep me waiting all night?!” The gravel toned voice of the beast asked as he banged on the door, the anger echoing even through the solid wood.

“I can’t get out.” Lancelot said simply, trying the handle again.

“What do you mean you can’t get out?” The beast’s voice was rumbling, like something was building up in it’s chest, not like the growls it made. Something else.

“The door won’t open. The house has locked me in. I’ve been dressed for at least half an hour, maybe more.”

The beast growled on the other side of the door, the rumble of it shaking Lancelot to his core, both with the fear it instilled in him and with the physical vibration of it, even through the door.

“Let him out, NOW!” The beast roared, making Lancelot’s ears ring. For a few more moments, the door stood firm, quiet, and then Lancelot heard the lock click and when he tried the knob he found it turned easily in his hand.

He stepped out into the hall and though he expected to meet the beast, found the hallway empty again. He hadn’t even heard footsteps retreating.

Lancelot swallowed, feeling like he was now certainly on bad terms with the house, and walked toward the dining room, he hoped. The anger he’d felt before was tamped down by fear and trepidation now, having no idea what “dinner” might have in store for him.

The house did not try to get him lost or turn him around. He ended up in the dining room with little fuss, but found it much more poorly lit than it had been earlier in the day, reminiscent now of the darkness from his first night in the castle. Had that really only been the day before?

Lancelot wasn’t sure where to sit, now that there were two places set, one at either end of the long table. He didn’t want to offend, but he no longer felt comfortable asking the house for direction.

“Sit,” The beast’s voice rumbled from one of the dark corners, and since he was not given any specific instruction as to where to sit, he assumed he was meant to sit in the chair closest to him.

Once he was seated, the light seems to become brighter just around him and the plate he’s been served. He didn’t have a buffet to serve himself from now, but just a plate of raw greens and vegetables set before him and more spoons, forks and knives than he knew what to do with.

He heard the chair scraping at the other end of the table and looked up, but he could only make out the barest hint of an outline in the deep dark on the other side of the room. Neither of them move to eat.

“I thank you for your hospitality.” Lancelot said when he felt that the room had been too quite for too long. “I know you are not obliged to it, and I appreciate it.”

The beast, Merlin, Lancelot tried to remind himself, remained silent.

Lancelot, swallowed, and said his father’s grace quietly to himself before picking up the fork closest to his hand.

“What did you say?” The beast asked before Lancelot’s fork could even touch the salad he had been served.

“Um. What?” Lancelot had heard, but was hoping not to have to explain if he claimed ignorance.

“When you were muttering, just then. What did you say?” The beast’s voice still rumbled, but it didn’t have the same tone of intimidation as it had from the other side of his locked bedroom door, or the commanding tone from just minutes before. The question felt more neutral, if such a thing was possible of a jailer.

“I apologize, I didn’t mean to offend your lordship. I only said my father’s grace, as I prefer to do before each meal.”

The beast did not respond to this. Lancelot looked in the direction of the shadow on the other side of the table, but the beast didn’t seem to have any intention of responding, just picked up hit own fork with an extra clicking sound that Lancelot didn’t quite understand. It didn’t sound quite like rings hitting metal, but… what else could it be?

Lancelot turned his attention to his own food, reminding himself that it was rude to stare and the beast had an entire tower of dungeon cells that were ready and waiting for occupants should the beast be offend.

Still, he couldn’t help his idle curiosity and on occasion he found himself looking up and in the beast’s direction. He caught almost nothing of the beast’s true form, except that his hand, the body part closest to Merlin when it reached to take bits of salad onto his fork, didn’t seem to be bare skin. The beast’s hand shone like brushed metal, light dim and diluted, but still remarkably reflective compared to human skin.

After catching this glance, Lancelot decided he was better off not looking at the beast.

When their plates were empty they refill themselves with course after course. Lancelot cannot eat anymore once the desert, a pastry Lancelot recognized from breakfast appeared in front of him, so he let it sit there and waited for the beast to be finished so he could be excused.

The beast didn’t sound like he was eating either, and Lancelot didn’t know what to do. He looked up and through the darkness Lancelot caught his first glimpse of bright yellow eyes that seem to float in the space where he knows Merlin must be, but can’t quite see. Bright yellow eyes trained specifically and almost forebodingly upon Lancelot.

“Why did the house lock you in?” The beast asked, and Lancelot shuddered, not quite expected to be spoken to after the dinner-long silence.

“It wanted me to change. I didn’t wish to.” Lancelot hoped this paltry explanation would be enough. He didn’t really want to revisit the rage that he had only managed to keep in check by fear and willpower.

“You worked the garden in those clothes.”

“No, my lord,” Lancelot can’t bring himself to be familiar and call the beast Merlin. He just can’t. Not now while anger is starting to heat in his chest again, threatening to bubble up and expose him. “I refused the shoes it tried to give me. It did not want me to come to dinner without them.”

The sound that came from the beast then made Lancelot tense. It was a strange rumbling noise that was not a growl, but was not unthreatening, exactly.

It took a few moments for Lancelot to realize the beast was laughing at him.

His face grew hot with indignation and Lancelot clenched his water glass in his hand, staring down at his pastry and willing his to shrink back inside him, reminding himself that he would have to live with this beast for the next year and inviting his ire would not be sound, no matter how much Lancelot wanted to snap and ask the thing what was so damned funny.

“The house is fickle. It’s almost always better to go along with it. It’d have probably fed you stale bread if I hadn’t been here tonight.”

“I will eat what I am given.” Lancelot said without protest, and he waited in the silence that followed, not sure what was happening.

“If the house tried to feed you no more than bread after a day in the sun, working as you have been, you should protest.” Merlin said this with a tone that, in his own muted rage, Lancelot could not decipher.

“I am at your mercy. I will eat what I am given.” Lancelot said again, and he caught sight, again, of the hand that seemed to glint, or maybe shimmer, in the low light.

“You will eat what is proper. If the house tried to serve you otherwise, you must tell me. I order you.” The command rumbles in Merlin’s chest, not unlike it had when he’d asked him to sit, and for all the farse of caring the beast may put up, Lancelot could see the truth through it. He was a prisoner here, Merlin his prison keep. He was expected to follow orders.

“Yes, my lord.” Lancelot nodded but knew himself well enough to know this was an order he would not follow.

The beast growled, and the glowing yellow eyes, still watching him like wolves’ in the night, seemed brighter then than they were before.

“You are going to be a handful.”

Lancelot countered this assumption with the truth. “I will uphold our bargain.” And he would. But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

The beast’s chair scraped against the floor and Lancelot braced himself, wondering if he was about to be attacked for what, he knew, was passive aggressive obstinance, but Lancelot does not move to defend himself.

No blow ever came. When he looked up, he could feel more than he could see that the seat in front of him was no longer occupied. He stood and the dishes at his place setting clear. He was grateful for the dinner to be over, even if he thought he might have just made his stay here slightly more unpleasant.

He went back to his rooms and couldn’t find his working clothes. He grumbled about it, but ultimately decided that it was too close to dark for it to be worth it to go back outside anyway. The house probably wouldn’t let him even if he tried.

The candles on his bedside table and the fire in the hearth had lit themselves while he was out. It was the summer, and he hardly expected to need a fire, but it was a polite gesture and he would wait a while yet to bank it. His anger was reduced from simmering, just a warm glow in his chest that threatened to bubble up if heat were applied again. It was better if Lancelot avoided anything that might stroke it’s flame.

He felt restless, not ready yet to go to bed. But having nothing else to amuse himself with, he decided that must be his course. Usually, after dinner, he and his father would sit and talk, discussing whatever goings on on the farm or in the village there were. Rarely was there energy for politics or philosophy, but usually a smile could be scrounged up for the state of the neighbor’s wandering goat, or the expected harvest of their crop. It was lazier than their early morning conversations, more stilted because they were both usually exhausted, but if they’d put in a good day’s work, and they’d gotten to go in before the sun went down, sometimes they’d sit outside, watch the sunset and speak about whatever came to mind.

Lancelot missed his father more desperately than he had even before dinner. He wished he could write. Wished he could send his father a letter to tell him what was happening and how he’d had dinner across from a beast today, and had a war of wills with a wardrobe. He laughed to himself, thinking of it.

“Can I have my night clothes, or are those banned too?” He asked the wardrobe, smiling apologetically despite himself. He was talking to an enchanted house. What point was there to holding onto a grudge?

The door of the wardrobe unlatched itself and a clean night shirt was hanging in the closet along with a pair of soft sleeping pants. He took them gratefully and thanked the wardrobe with a gentle pat to the door. He washed again and dressed for bed, and this time when the drawer opened where the shoes had been earlier that night, he found thick wooly socks.

Lancelot looked down at his bare feet, on the cool stone floor that would only be colder in the morning.

As a peace offering, he took the socks and patted the drawer. “Thank you.” He said with a soft smile at the wardrobe. He pulled the socks on, and they were soft and comfortable enough that he was glad to have them.

Dressed and with nothing else to do, Lancelot went to bed. The world outside was nearly night-dark and through the vine-covered window that was a constant reminder that he was a prisoner, Lancelot could see the moon starting to rise. He watched the moon long enough to notice it’s movement, thinking about his father and wondering if he was seeing the moon and thinking about his son.

Lancelot pulled the cover up over his face, hiding his tears from the house that was enchanted and imprisoning him. Lancelot’s tears were for him alone, not for the prying eyes of a house who had showdowns with him over dress shoes.

Lancelot slept restlessly on his second night in the castle, and it was worse, somehow, than the first.

Chapter Text

Lancelot slept fitfully, but didn’t get out of bed each time he woke in the night like he had the night before. He stayed in bed, adjusted the covers to make himself more comfortable, and recited his prayers, or tried to recall one of his father’s stories, or the sound of his mother singing from when he was very young.

Lancelot hadn’t tried to remember his mother’s singing in so long that he found it hard, almost impossible, to recall. He thought, vaguely, that he remembered the way her voice sounded, but even if he didn’t remember her voice he remembered her words, the songs she used to sing etched into his memory, even if he wasn’t sure he was remembering her singing them correctly.

Lancelot hummed the song to himself aloud, but then remembered the house could probably hear him and stopped, drew the cover over his face again, and missed his father.

Lancelot had lived on his father’s farm for his entire twenty years of life. He’d never been away from his father for more than a few days. The prospect of going for more than a year without seeing him… The very thought felt cruel and hateful. Where Lancelot had felt confident and determined two days ago when he’d agreed to the beast’s terms, he now felt like he had made a terrible mistake.

He would never undo what he’d done. His father could not have worked the garden like Lancelot was, and who knew how long his father might have survived if he’d stayed in that terrible dungeon for a year? Lancelot had done the right thing, of course he had, but… he missed the farm, and his horse, and his father. He missed walking to village center during festival season and haggling his farm wares for tools and cloth and flour. He missed the idea that he may see another friendly face. If not quite two days left him feeling like this, how would he feel after a year?

Lancelot laughed at himself. This is the despair setting in, as it did so often in his father’s stories. The hero feels as though all is lost, like there is no way to succeed, only to find some last glimmer of possibility, some small hope within himself the hero uses to carry on.

Lancelot wondered, as he fell asleep, what he should hope for. What he should hold on to. His father, surely, but even the thought of one day going back to his father had not kept the despair away that night. What more could he cling to, if not that?

—

In the morning, when the sun began to rise, Lancelot was already awake. He was dressed by the time the sun started to crest the horizon and nearly forgot to stop for breakfast until he ended up in the dining room instead of the back of the house.

The spread today was smaller and he wondered if that was the retaliation Merlin predicted for his transgression with the shoes, but the food was all still fresh and so Lancelot didn’t see a problem with it. After his morning prayer, he ate a bowl of warm oats with fresh fruit and nuts, and a few slices of perfectly cooked pork. He wondered where the enchanted castle got it’s food, since there was certainly none growing on the property that Lancelot could see. Did the beast go into town to buy groceries? Lancelot laughed once at the image of the elusive beast in a sunhat and draped in dark clothes to keep himself looking mysterious as he perused the fresh produce stands.

Lancelot ate what he was served and thanked the house heartily for the meal and just like the day before the plates were gone when he rose, except for pitcher of water left on the table, along with the glass Lancelot had already emptied once that morning. He said his thanks again and went back outside to continue his work.

He put the pitcher in the same place he had the day before, and poured himself a drink for good measure. Again he found the water that had been cool and clear at breakfast to be tepid and stale outside. Lancelot furrowed his brow, because he’d definitely just had a drink from this pitcher and it hadn’t tasted like that, but he ignored it and set to work. Taking the tools from where they’d been left the day before and going back to work.

When he worked his father’s fields, he’d occasionally hum to himself, some of the working songs that the other farm hands had taught him, a tavern song on occasion just to amuse himself, and he finds, once he’s been working for a while, that it is easy to slip into the old routine. It is good to keep his mind occupied when the motions of the scythe slashing and the hoe digging become monotonous. It kept him from feeling bored, at least. He took regular breaks for water, though never more generous than he would’ve been on the farm during harvest time. He just gave his muscles enough time to rest and then went back to work.

The work was not as fast as he would have liked it to be, but he was not so slow that he felt unaccomplished. By the time the doors swung open to invite him in for lunch Lancelot had cleared the main path of debris and only had to dig up a few of the more stubborn roots before it was completely walkable.

Lunch went much the same as it had the day before. He was met with a spread and he took some fruit with him to have between meals. He worked until the sun started to dip lower in the sky and the house called him in by throwing open it’s doors.

Lancelot put the tools up before going inside this time, knowing that the likelihood he’d have time to keep working was slim enough to warrant their proper housing.

When Lancelot returned to the shed, he patted the doorframe kindly before opening the door. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring these back to you yesterday, I expected to return after supper but things became… complicated.” Lancelot wasn’t sure if the Garden Shed was it’s own enchanted building or somehow connected to the house, so he wanted to make sure it knew he wasn’t being rude. After the confrontation with the wardrobe, and considering the wide array of very sharp and dangerous tools in the shed, it felt like a good idea to stay on the shed’s good side.

Maybe he was just imagining it, but he could have sworn the air became slightly cooler, a reprieve from the hot summer sun. “Thank you, my friend. I will see you tomorrow.” Lancelot patted the doorframe again on his way out and carefully shut the door behind him.

He tried to go straight to dinner, but found he was once again redirected back to his bedroom to change.

“I’m choosing what I wear today.” Lancelot told the room in no uncertain terms, and he didn’t think it was going to listen, but it felt better to at least try and take back some of his power. “The monstrosity you put me in yesterday could have bought my father three horses.”

He opened the wardrobe and found that there actually was enough clothes there to make a choice.

The shirt he chose was a muted blue with long sleeves and the vest that he chose to go with it is a dark leather. He put his work boots on again, this time without protest from the house, and he felt much more comfortable. It was a nice ensemble, but it didn’t feel like he was playing at something. Washed, combed and dressed, the house let him go to dinner without a standoff, and he took the time to appreciate the house, meandering through the halls rather than walking.

He smiled almost in greeting at the painting of the woman in red when he passed it, and he noticed how, despite the smell of dank, the house was dustless and fairly clean. He supposed there were some things even magic houses couldn’t fix.

The carpets, though he couldn’t feel them through his boots, felt soft and plush, and looked new and untrodden. Lancelot had never actually seen such luxurious fabric used to make carpet. It almost felt like a waste, though he’d never mention this to the house. The walls, though stone, were draped occasionally with tapestries that seemed to depict scenes, though Lancelot’s meander was not quite slow enough to understand what story they were telling all together. There was a blonde woman with a rose, a dragon, a castle. Normal fairytales, he though, except for the woman.

He blinked and felt like he was in the dining room. Too quickly, maybe, though he had no idea why the house might be rushing him along. For a moment Lancelot felt he was alone, but the air stirred in the same place where the beast sat yesterday, and Lancelot found Merlin’s eyes in the dark.

“Good evening.” Lancelot told floating yellow eyes. Once again the table was already set, and the lights were low enough that he couldn’t see Merlin in his dark corner. Lancelot had a moment where he thought it must be sad to live so shrouded in darkness, but he pushed it aside. Surely the beast wouldn’t want his pity.

The seat Lancelot took was once again more well lit than Merlin’s, though not as well lit as it was during his earlier meals in the day. The dinner together felt like a farce, but Lancelot didn’t have any power to complain about it. As the prisoner, he had to do as he was told.

“Good evening.” The beast rumbled at him once Lancelot took his seat. The food served itself by magic again, and Lancelot said his grace and ate without trying to start a conversation.

But he need not have worried about starting conversation. The beast handled that.

“How is the garden coming?” The beast’s grumbling voice is unexpected, and it makes Lancelot jump. He recovers himself quickly to answer.

“It is slow work, but it will get easier. With time the worst of the weeds will come up, and then it will just be a matter of tending, conditioning the soil. It’s not so different from farming, except what grows is useless.” Lancelot winced when said the last bit, having gotten lost in his train of thought and spoken without thinking. “My apologies. I meant no offense.”

Lancelot was surprised, just like he had been the night before, by the sound of the beast’s laughter. “Nothing in that garden is useless. The plants all have their purpose.”

Lancelot held his tongue and did not ask why they were so poorly managed if they were so useful. Lancelot couldn’t imagine letting the farm get that overgrown.

“Are you upset with me for pulling the weeds then?” Lancelot asked when the beast seemed to be waiting for something.

This earned Lancelot another of the grating laughs and when he looked up Lancelot could see those bright yellow eyes watching him intensely.

“No. They picked bad spots to grow.”

Lancelot grinned and turned back to his first course, finishing what was given to him and letting the course replace itself.

“You don’t have to finish everything. Yesterday you didn’t eat your dessert.”

“I’ve been taught my whole life that I’m to eat what I’m served. Food is not so easy to come by in the farmlands. Most of what we grow is not for us to keep.” Lancelot cut a piece of potato and while he was chewing Merlin asked another question.

“What did you grow. On your farm?”

Lancelot wiped at his mouth with a soft cloth napkin before speaking. “Mostly wheat, for the Lord. A few subsistence crops to feed ourselves and a few others in the village. My father and I traded and sold what we did not give away. The two of us alone couldn’t handle animals, so we traded crops and sometimes my labor for meat and dairy.” Lancelot smiled wistfully, remembering Mrs. Greene who used to sneak him pastries for his father when there was flour and sugar to spare. He wondered what she would say if she could see just a handful of the pastries that Lancelot had seen in the last two days.

“Do you miss him? Your father.” Merlin asked, and Lancelot wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that.

“Of course I do. I’ve spent nearly every day with him since I was born. It’s been just us for well over half of that time.” Lancelot moved the food around his plate but made no attempt to keep eating. He needed a minute to sit in his sadness. In his memories of long evenings spent talking to someone who knew him better than anyone. Understood him better than anyone. Family, his father had always told him, was all you had. You had to hold on to it, while you could, because everything can be taken away without notice.

Lancelot bit down on the tip of his tongue with his back teeth to drive away the memory of his father’s voice and went back to eating, not really tasting what he put in his mouth.

Merlin didn’t ask another question for a long while. Lancelot tried to keep his mind clear of the thoughts that had felt oppressive the night before. He didn’t want to get into another fight with a piece of furniture. He couldn’t change his situation, and being upset about it wasn’t going to help anything.

“Is everything in your room to your liking? Do you require anything?”

Lancelot rested his hands on the table, utensil still in his right hand, and thought over the question. It made a difficult to understand anger rise in him, almost physical, like a burning bile in his throat. He swallowed it down and took a deep breath before he answered.

“I have no complaints.”

“None?” The beast pressed, and Lancelot’s fire shines through.

“I am a prisoner, my lord. I don’t know that any prisoner could complain.”

Lancelot regretted the tone he used. It bit like a caged dog, but could the beast really blame him? Most prisoners aren’t forced to socialize with their captors and smile about it.

Merlin doesn’t seem to have a response to this. Lancelot eats the desert placed in front of him even though he feels too full, just so he doesn’t have to look up at the beast.

The night before the beast had left the table before Lancelot, and so he hadn’t had to worry about etiquette in that regard. He was waiting for the beast to chastise him for his smart remark, but no chastisement seemed forthcoming. Lancelot wasn’t sure if this made him feel safter or less safe.

“I do not mean for you to suffer unduly. Whatever you may need, the house should be able to provide it. You have my permission to move freely around the house; it will keep you from going anywhere you shouldn’t. You may not go outside except to tend the garden. The house knows that, and will keep you where you should be. Any time that you are not outside working, you may fill your time as you see fit.”

The beast got up and left at the end of his speech and Lancelot didn’t look up fast enough to see him go. Lancelot wasn’t sure what to say to that. He wasn’t sure if he was grateful or if he felt like Merlin was doing the bare minimum considering his sentence was unlawful, not carried out by law or lord.

But Lancelot and his father couldn’t afford the ill reputation brought on by a court case. He wondered, briefly, what his father said about Lancelot’s absence.

The silence of the room became oppressive and when Lancelot can no longer stand it he gets up and goes back to his room.

On his way back he absentmindedly brushed his hand over the bottom of the frame around the portrait of the woman in red, and his eyes didn’t quite see the tapestries on the walls, his eyes looking but not seeing them.

He passed his bedroom door and the house made him circle back, this time with the bedroom door open.

“Thank you,” He told the house, and patted the door frame in the only gesture of thanks that he could muster. His body felt heavier than normal, thoughts of his father still weighing on him. “I’m going to go to bed.” He stripped and washed with the basin in the room and got dressed again in the warm nightshirt and cozy socks. The fire was going again, and Lancelot realized he never banked it the night before. When he held his hand to it, the flame wasn’t overly hot, even for the middle of summer.

“Isn’t it a little hot for a fire?” He asked, and one of the logs cracked and broke, making the fire blaze hotter for a moment, and then lower. Lancelot ran a kind hand over the fireplace mantle and climbed into bed. It was dark again, like the night before, with only a few candles burning in the room. Lancelot blew out all but the bedside candle so he could climb into bed. He had another day of garden work in front of him, and another and another and another.

Lancelot wondered what free time the beast expected him to use to “entertain himself” when he was exhausted each day working from sun up to sun down in the summer heat. Lancelot could barely muster the energy to eat and talk, let alone, what? Knit? Whittle? What was he expecting Lancelot to do?

Lancelot pulled the blanket up to his chin and tried to focus on the high quality of the bed and the sheets, rather than the fact that he had only put two days of his prison sentence behind him and still had a year and a half to go. A year and a half without his father, or his friends, or his farm. How was he going to get through a year and a half with only a house and a beast for company?

Lancelot focused on his heartbeat and let it soothe him to sleep for his third night in the beast’s castle.