Bound

Chapter 18

The next morning all the knights were gathered in the courtyard with Merlin and Morgana. As it turns out, all of the horses were at Edith's castle, which would make their travels much easier. Edith came out to "wish them farewell."

"As promised, here are the horses, your provisions, and your two prisoners sire. I do hope that I do not need to remind you of our deal."

"No harm will come to you. You are lucky that I am a man of my word," Arthur replies coldly.

A few of the knights still looked tempted to kill her on the spot. Edith nodded at him in response. Then she turned to Merlin, who could only attempt to kill her by glaring daggers at her head.

"Goodbye Emrys. 'Till we meet again."

She gave a slight bow of her head and smirked. How he managed not to strangle her at that moment was beyond him. Lastly, she turned to Morgana.

"Morgana," she said coldly.

"Edith."

"Alrighty then," Arthur interceded. "We will be leaving now."

With that the knights, Merlin, and Morgana all mounted their horses and rode off. The first part of the ride was fairly silent. Merlin was sharing a horse with Lancelot because he could hardly support himself, and Morgana's horse was tied to Arthur's so she couldn't escape. They rode for a few hours before taking a break and stopping for lunch.

They are tied up their horses and gathered around as Elyan made a fire and Percival began making the food. Leon and Gwaine were placed in charge of being at Morgana's side at all times. Merlin rested up against a tree a short distance from the others, seeing as he was still exhausted and in pain from the past few weeks. When the food was all ready, Arthur got plates for himself and Merlin.

"How are you feeling?" Arthur started.

"Alright. Getting better," Merlin nibbled at his food.

"Good. You need to eat all of that. You're nearly skin and bone and I don't need you passing out or anything like that."

"Yes, sire," Merlin smirked.

He attempted to jest, but it came out flat. After the events of the past few weeks, Merlin couldn't help but be distrustful of Arthur to say the least. Not to mention, he still didn't know what was going to happen once they return to Camelot. He could be walking straight into the dungeons for all he knew. Of course, this didn't get past Arthur.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, sire."

Formalities. That's never a good sign.

"Look. I know that the last few weeks have been difficult, but you're safe now. We're going home, and we can figure everything out."

"Figure everything out? Arthur, I have been a prisoner and a slave for the past near month and all you can give me is that we'll figure things out? Twice I've asked what is going to happen to me when we leave, and yet you still can't give me a straight answer! You could at least let me know whether or not I'll be walking back into a cell when we get back to Camelot!"

By the end he had attracted the attention of everyone in the little camp. Merlin had even surprised himself with the outburst. And Arthur clearly didn't know how to react either.

"I meant... umm... your majesty," Merlin mumbled.

Arthur considered threatening to throw Merlin in the stocks for all the formalities, but he used his better judgement against that option. Joking probably wouldn't be the best idea at the moment.

"Okay Merlin, I need you to listen to me," Arthur spoke gently, as if talking to a scared child.
"I'm not throwing you in the dungeons. I'm not going to banish you or anything like that. You've gone through enough already. That being said, I don't know what to do. There's so much more that we still need to talk about. A lot more that needs explained, but that'll take time. All you really need to know is that you're not a prisoner, you're not in danger, and you will be going back to your old chambers when we reach Camelot."

"How am I supposed to explain these then?"
Merlin held up his wrists which were chained together because of the cuffs.

"Oh... right."
Ironically, Arthur hadn't really thought of that.
"Well... do you think you could, you know, get rid of the chain?"

"Not when you ask like that."

"Okay... make the chain disappear, please."

Just like that, Merlin's eyes flashed gold and the chain was gone. He gave a sharp inhale and winced, but then breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against the tree. He let his arms relax glad that they were at least somewhat free.

"Are you okay?" Lancelot walked over, seeing Merlin's pain.

"Yeah. It's just hard to use magic on the cuffs. I mean I could since it was only the chain, but my magic won't touch the actual cuffs."

Arthur nodded. Merlin's okay. That's good enough for now. They looked around to see that everyone had pretty much finished eating. Merlin still had a little less than half of his plate left over, but he couldn't eat any more without getting sick. They decided to leave the site knowing that if they rode quickly they could still make it to Camelot by nightfall.

***

Hours later, after a long ways of riding, the knights, Merlin, and Morgana rode through the gates of Camelot. As the group rode in many people turned and gasped at their prince's return. Merlin had temporarily turned Morgana's hair blonde so that the people wouldn't freak out at the sight of her. Anyone that knew Merlin upon first seeing him stared in concern. Though they could not see the cuffs, everyone could tell that something had happened to him. He was thinner, paler, and much more solemn then anyone was ever used to seeing him.

When they arrived at the foot of the castle trumpets were sounded. Immediately Arthur told Leon and Percival to take Morgana to the dungeons, preferably before Uther found out. They left not a moment too soon. Uther ran down the front steps, grasping his boy when he got to him and asking what took them so long. Arthur attributed it to a long hunt and complications. Of course, Uther didn't see that there was obviously something very wrong.

Lancelot began to help Merlin towards the castle so he could go see Gaius. Just then both Gwen and Gaius hurried out from the gate to meet them. Gwen was the first to run up to Merlin and embrace him in a hug. She didn't even get a good look at him before realizing that something was very wrong.

"Merlin, what happened?" She gasped, still hugging him.

He shook his head, unable to answer.
When Gaius approached them hugging, he saw the change immediately. Merlin's eyes were downcast with bags under them. His clothes hung off him much more loosely than they ought to. When their eyes met, Gaius knew that no hunting trip caused this.

"Oh, my boy!"

Tears started to fall from all three of them. Gaius joined their embrace as Merlin shook and wept. He still couldn't bring himself to say a word. Once Arthur got loose of his father he came over to help get Merlin inside so he could explain the situation to Gaius. He gave a still weeping Guinevere a hug before going over to Merlin to help him up to the physician's chambers.

We're nearing the end! So I had the majority of this story written before posting it, but I just realized that I haven't actually finished it yet. Hopefully I'll still be able to keep my one chapter a day schedule.
Thank you for reading!!