How To Train Your Dragonlord

MORGANA!!!

Arthur P.O.V:
I had border patrols and guards on constant lookout for Merlin, in case we were worried over nothing. I knew, however - now that I knew the full truth about Merlin - that we would be proven right in our concern. I was regularly exploding at my Knights of the Round Table, and my Council, because we had still not found Merlin. I started to understand why my father had always been so angry at me disappearing against his orders.
I was angry at Merlin, at Hunith, at Ealdor, and especially at myself. I shouldn't have let him go. I shouldn't have invited his mother. No. I was glad he'd spent his birthday with his mother. He deserved that. What I was most angry at was my naivety at not sending trained knights with them. I should have known that he would be ambushed. I should have known that he would still be uncomfortable wielding a sword. I should have taken more precautions to protect my Merlin.
Because, no matter how hard I tried to maintain a strict Ruler-Heir relationship with Merlin, my head and heart and soul waited for something more. And now, that was in jeopardy. Merlin was in jeopardy. Wherever I was during each and every day, my thoughts constantly returned to this, because - no matter how angry I was at everything - I was afraid for Merlin. I had never been able to stay mad at my manservant-turned-heir for very long.

I was pacing around my chambers two days after Merlin's horse had returned - the day after he was supposed to return. Something was off about the situation. I had a strange feeling that this had happened before. Merlin had gone missing. Somehow, I instinctively knew exactly who would be pulling the strings.
My pacing was interrupted by a knock on my door. "Enter!" I called, not hiding the low-lying anger in my tone. The door creaked open and Sir Leon, one of my oldest friends, entered my chambers.
"You called for me, Arthur?" he asked. I took a breath and tried to hide my anger.
I smiled to him and signalled for him to enter the room properly. "Has there been any sign of him yet?" I asked, getting straight to my reason for calling my oldest friend.
"Regrettably not, my Lord," Leon replied, tilting his head down.
I sighed and sat in the chair at the head of my dinner table. "I'm worried about him, Leon," I said, after a few minutes. I had whispered, half-hoping that Leon wouldn't hear.
"I know, my Lord. And we will find him. But, Arthur, we think he may have been in Cenred's Kingdom when he was ambushed. You know the magic laws in that kingdom, sire."
I sighed again and rested my face in the palms of my hands, my elbows resting on the table. "I know, Leon. That's what has upset me the most. I should have gone with him, or sent you with him at the very least."
"He may just have been facing too many of them, Arthur. There may not have been anything we could have done."
I looked up and looked my oldest friend in the eye. "But we could have helped."
"Maybe he wasn't targeted specifically, and we'll find him soon, with a couple of bruises and not much else."
I could tell that Leon believed what he'd said just as much as I did. "The ambush seems a bit too well planned to just have been a coincidence. And it reminds me of the time that Morgana kidnapped Merlin to try to make him kill..."
I paused. Morgana. I knew that the situation had felt similar. There was always a recurring theme with Morgana. Torture one of us and try to kill the other. Merlin had been ambushed, so I guessed that she would be trying to kill me. Again. Leon had noticed me stop speaking and was looking at me, confused.
"It's my sister, Leon. Scour our lands for a place that looks like somewhere Morgana would hide. That's where we'll find answers, at the very least." Leon nodded and bowed, before leaving my quarters. "Don't worry, Merlin," I whispered to myself, "we're coming to save you."

Merlin P.O.V:
Only a couple of days could have passed since I had been ambushed by the bandits. The bandits were still wary around me, but they were also more wary around Morgana. They seemed all too glad when Morgana came down into the dungeons to collect me.
I hadn't been given food for the duration of my stay in the cell, but I had expected that, seeing as they were bandits working with Morgana, and I was their prisoner. The lack of food was just starting to take its toll, and my stomach was rumbling frequently.
Morgana clicked down the stairs in her high heeled shoes. Seeing as I had exposed her magic to the bandits, she didn't refrain from using it on me while I was powerless. She lifted me up off my bed and stood me upright, so that I had no choice but to watch her come down the stairs. I saw that she was carrying a necklace with a gemstone pendant. I recognised that it would have been enchanted with the spell to freeze my magic, as the cell walls had been.
Rather than give her the satisfaction of speaking first, I asked: "Morgana! Are we going somewhere? Are we going to your latest hideaway?"
She practically growled at me as she reached the bottom of the stairs and started walking over to my cell. She muttered a silencing spell as she walked towards me, obviously directing it at me. "Mae tawelwch yn euraid," she said, her eyes shimmering gold for a moment.
It was a pretty simple spell and, ordinarily, I wouldn't have even needed to block it. However, because she had frozen my magic in my veins, there was nothing I could do to stop it. "That's a lot better," Morgana remarked as she reached my cell. I moved my arm to grab her, but she must've silently cast a spell of immobilisation, as my arm wouldn't obey me. "We're going home now, Merlin. You won't be staying in such a cell as this anymore." She grinned maniacally to me, so I knew that whatever torture she had deigned for me would not be a pretty sight.

(A/N ~ Merlin's cheekbones, I can't believe this has got to 4K reads! Thanks all who have read it so far, it means everything to this young wordsmith! Okay, so I know that I haven't done author's notes on this story, but I needed to express my gratitude to you all that you have taken the time to read my fic.)