Work Text:
No. 30—Note to Self: Don’t Get Kidnapped
Manhandled | Hair Grabbing | “Please don’t touch me.”
“Who did that?” Uther demanded. “I know magic when I saw it.”
Arthur froze, cold flushing through him. The jiwpeo had been killed and lay on the throne room floor, dead. Naturally, like most things that attacked Camelot, it could only be killed with magic. The thing had terrorized Camelot for days before making it into the throne room. Merlin had had to desperately throw a spell at the beast to protect Gwen, Morgana, and Uther.
Unfortunately, the wrong person had noticed.
Thankfully, Merlin was standing back-to-back with Arthur. “I did it, Father. I used magic to kill the jiwpeo.”
Uther lanced Arthur with a cold stare. “You? Why would you use magic? You know the dangers of magic more than most.”
Arthur swallowed, though his mouth was dry. “The creature could only be killed with magic! You really expect me to stand by and do nothing while my people die?”
“You could have defeated that creature without magic! What about the griffin, the dragon, the questing beast?” Uther demanded.
Arthur glanced over at Merlin, who glanced back at him. All of those beasts had been killed (or driven away) by Merlin. With magic. Because when Gaius said only magic could kill a creature, he wasn’t saying it for the fun of it. “Father, you don’t understand—”
“I understand plenty.” Uther snapped his fingers. “Guards, arrest Prince Arthur.”
Arthur handed his sword to Merlin and raised his hands in the air.
“Arthur, don’t,” Merlin whispered in his ear.
“You can’t stop me,” Arthur whispered back. Hopefully the fool would have enough sense to keep his mouth shut, or at least, Gaius would have enough sense to slip Merlin a sleeping draught if he decided to try and confess in Arthur’s stead.
The guards grabbed Arthur’s arms and dragged him out of the room.
The guards stripped Arthur of his armor before throwing him in the dungeon, even chaining him to the wall. Arthur expected an immediate confrontation from Father, but he was left alone.
For hours.
By the time darkness fell through the window high up in his cell, he finally realized no one was coming. Perhaps Father was too occupied with the cleanup from the attack to talk with Arthur.
He could have at least sent someone down with dinner.
Arthur curled up in the corner of his cell and drifted off to sleep.
Arthur’s collar tightened. He choked, jerking awake abruptly. “Wha…”
Father dragged Arthur to his knees by his shirt collar. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” His face was red with rage.
Arthur squinted, sleep still gritty in his eyes. Merlin’s magic had killed the jiwpeo, saved all of Camelot from destruction. “I’ve…saved my people from senseless murder?”
“Your magic has released a curse upon all of Camelot! The people you claim to care so much about are going to suffer and die due to your actions!” Uther released Arthur’s collar and strode away sharply, his hands behind his back. “This is why you don’t meddle in things you don’t understand!”
Arthur’s mind sludged through the words. Curse? His people were suffering? Gaius had speculated that someone could have called forth the jiwpeo from its slumber to attack Camelot. “I did not do this. Perhaps someone else has attacked Camelot. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Father shook his head. “I know magic. What I don’t understand is why you would turn to something you know is evil! You realize I must punish you for this.”
“I know,” Arthur said. “I was aware of the consequences when I began to practice magic. I also know that magic isn’t as evil as you claim! I found some of my mother’s old things that you tried to hide—” He had been looking for a lead container for a goblin or something to hit Merlin over the head with many times in quick succession, but the trunks had been a nice find, “and some of her books were about magic.” He’d even found her diary written when she was pregnant with him, but Gaius had stolen it from him and refused to give it back before Arthur could read it. He had almost clobbered the physician, but Gaius had still been recovering from the goblin thing and Arthur hadn’t wanted any more donkey ears.
Arthur curled his hands into fists and jerked at the chains. “You knew magic was safe! My mother believed evil did not reside in magic, only in the hearts of men. You lied to me all this time! I don’t know what caused this vendetta of yours against magic, but it has to stop! All you’re doing is hurting innocent people!”
“I’m hurting innocent people!” Uther shouted. “How dare you? After cursing Camelot with your magic, how could you dare to accuse me of murder?”
Oh, Merlin and Gaius had better be coming up with an incredibly stupid plan that had no right to work as well as it did to get Arthur out of this. “I’m not hurting anyone!”
“I raised you to be better than this,” Father said. “I raised you to care for Camelot and its people, to sacrifice your life for the kingdom if necessary, not to throw away everything you’ve ever been given for a moment’s power!”
“I do care for Camelot!” Then Arthur opened his big fat mouth and said something he never should have said. “What would Mother think of what you’re doing?”
Pain smashed against Arthur’s cheek. He tilted onto the cell floor, grabbing his throbbing cheek.
“How dare you,” Uther snarled. “Everything I do is for her. You know nothing of the past!”
Involuntary tears flooded Arthur’s eyes. His father had just hit him. Hard. “I was just trying to help.”
Father grabbed Arthur’s hair and lifted him to his knees with it. “Lift the curse.”
“I can’t!” Arthur wiped his eyes, his chains clanking. “I didn’t lay the curse.” And neither had Merlin, Arthur would bet his life on it. “I can’t lift a spell I didn’t lay.”
“Then you leave me no choice,” Uther said. “You are hereby stripped of the title of crown prince and disowned from the Pendragon family. You will be moved to our deepest cell and put in chains no sorcerer can break. And you will stay there until I deem otherwise. It is my hope that you will come to your senses and renounce magic, and I will be able to free you one day. But until then, for your own safety and that of Camelot, I cannot allow you to roam free.”
“Father,” Arthur protested, his heart sinking. Anyone else would already be slated for execution. He was lucky. This was the whole reason he’d claimed the magic was his, to save Merlin from death. He’d gambled on Father being lenient. But he’d hoped lenient would be “willing to accede that magic might not always be a bad thing,” not “locked in the deepest dungeons and chained up indefinitely.”
Father strode towards the cell door, not looking back.
Arthur tried again. “Father, I promise, on Mother’s grave, on Camelot, on everything I hold dear, I didn’t lay that curse! I didn’t hurt anyone! Magic is not always evil, please!”
Father stilled and spoke without glancing back. “My decision is final.” He strode out of the dungeon, cape flaring behind him.
“Father. Father!” Arthur called, his voice breaking, but Father was already out of earshot.
The guards returned and released Arthur from his chains and his cell only to drag him deep, deep into the dungeons where he hadn’t been aware cells existed. Finally, they wrenched open a door to reveal a pitch-black cell. Cold and rot wafted out of the doorway.
“You can’t be serious,” Arthur said. He tugged at the grip of the guards, but they held firm.
One of the guards lit a torch. The cell was small and made entirely of stone except for a drain in the middle of the cell, likely a leftover from old Roman sewage tunnels. Thick chains trailed out of the wall. But there was no bed, no blanket, no torch holder, no comforts, nothing to keep Arthur from going insane in the isolation.
“All right, in you get,” the guard with the torch said.
“No.” Arthur scuffed the floor with his boots, but that didn’t stop the guards from dragging him forward and clamping the shackles over his wrists.
“On your knees,” the guard with the torch said.
“No.” So help him, Arthur would not humiliate himself for this man.
Two of the guards kicked Arthur’s knees out and pinned him to the stone floor. A third wrenched Arthur’s boots from him and clapped shackles to his ankles as well.
“Sweet dreams, your highness.” The guard with the torch chuckled as he left, his compatriots ahead of him.
Arthur was truly going to be left here alone in the dark. Forever. The only people he’d see was whoever was sent to bring his food and water. “Wait! You can’t leave me here!”
But the guards left, the door slammed shut, and the light died.
He was alone.
He had no title, no family, no freedom. And he was locked in chains not even Merlin could open, if the gangly boy could even find him so deep in the dungeons.
Arthur buried his face in his arms and wept for all he was worth.