A thing I'm showing someone
Evening settled on the cold soot-stained walls of Stonegard, the city that had once boasted of its impenetrability now charred and desolate, its people haggard and shallow-faced, blank and wandering down the streets in search of unspoiled food. Their feet dragged, and their children – they made not a sound, which was the oddest of it all. The children walked with hallow eyes and hallow minds, wandering, slaves to the curse set upon them. They did not eat, nor sleep, no, in fact they did not even feel. They walked, their bodies puppets or ghosts one could not say – trapped under the wrath of the gods.
Black boots struck the wide open cavern, a march across the room followed by the billow of a black-ink cloak, red tinged eyes pinched in a snarl that formed one word, “/Arthur/.” At the evocation of the hiss, the god-king – tucked underneath a magical glamour that made his skin inhumanly bright and eyes dead as a corpse – trailed his gaze lazily across the room until it landed upon the strut of his sorcerer’s clipping boots. Pale lips curved into a wicked smile.
“/What,/” Hissed Merlin, stopping just short of the throne where his king lounged, “Is in my dungeon?”
Arthur played with the hilt of his dagger, allowing eyes – if there were any eyes, that is, for where his eyes should be lie only darkness, a soulless black – to inspect Merlin from his blood-stained boots to the top of his immaculate hair. “A clean floor?” The king guessed. “Rats? Or is it more obvious? Elements of torture – fishing hooks, blunt, rusty knives –” He shrugged.
“This isn’t a game.” Merlin ground out between clenched teeth. “You removed my prisoners and put them in the /bird cage./ Now I’m all for public display but you couldn’t have left /one measly scrap/ behind for me?”
Arthur picked at his teeth, unconcerned with the buzzing energy that hung around Merlin like an oncoming storm. “I had to make a display of /some/ authority figures. It’s not my fault you’d chosen all of them for your ‘experiments’ and killed off over half before I could get around to doing it.” He sat back, practically purring with contentment. “Perhaps I can interest you in a different prisoner.”
“Interest me!” Merlin shouted. “I’ll show you interest, Arthur Pendragon! I chose every one of those men for a /reason/ and if you want to take back Camelot, if you want to rule this land from now until forever more, you /will/ cater to my every /whim/ or so help me I will /pin you to that chair and make you beg for mercy./”
Arthur lifted his eyebrows. “So no change from last night? And here I thought you were inventive.”
The wide double doors burst open, and Merlin’s glare immediately melted into contempt, strutting up to the throne to take his place standing beside it, hot red eyes pinning onto the spectacle being dragged inside. Arthur looked up over his shoulder and flashed Merlin a grin. Between two dark guards was a thin, lanky figure whose face was covered by a hood – his ankles dragged uselessly on the stone floor and he was dropped with a muffled groan at their feet. Arthur waved to the guards expansively, his white teeth flashing like knives, “Remove his hood.”
A snap of fabric and the man’s face – stained with blood, lolling and pinched in pain, was revealed – along with the red seal embossed on his chest. “A knight…” Merlin murmured, immediately drawn to the affairs of Camelot.
Arthur leaned back, sprawled on his throne like a cat, “I give you the traitor that drove me from my rightful throne, from our great city we will soon conquer and the keeper of all of /her/ secrets – Merlin, I’m sure you remember our /dear/ old friend, Sir Lancelot.”
His sorcerer’s jaw had dropped, dumbstruck, a wild kind of glee building up around him and clogging his throat from words. For a torn moment, there was nothing that he could say – and then words feel like drops of rain, warm and loving and dear to his heart, “/Arthur, you –you /clot.//” He said, forgetting his anger and ton replaced with fondness. “Is he /mine?/”
“I can think of no one better to gather his information than you, pet.”
“You,” He shook his head, remembering himself – in that moment the glamour almost slipped to reveal human skin and true blue eyes, but Merlin reinforced it with a thought. He hid his enjoyment for later, though he did not fool Arthur for a moment with his ice-cold tone, “What of the rest of my dungeons? Am I to have just /one/ little soul to chip away at?” He promptly smarted his hands on his hips.
Arthur had only a Cheshire grin to reply with. “I caught his whole company, darling.”
