Chapter Text
Thean
In the late fall, a white fog would settle over the Mountains of Medora. It came suddenly and without warning, at times following what was just a few hours before a clear night sky. He and his siblings would try to predict which morning they would wake up and be unable to see the outside world. Their mother would claim that it was the gods’ way of letting the forest animals know it was time to hibernate away from the impending cold.
Thean’s mind felt as though the fog from the Medora mountains had settled over him. Though the forest around him was teeming with the buoyancy of a new summer, he was stuck in a neverending autumn. And so, like the creatures of Medora when faced with a decaying world, he tried to hibernate. He scarcely remembered much from the day they had found his mother, other than the color red- he had hid within Gwaine’s cloak during the burial process. He did not want to see his mother again, nor any of the other slaves he had grown up with. After dimly registering the news that none of the bodies appeared to belong to children, nor anyone resembling his father, he tuned out all other noise.
The following days and nights of the returning journey slipped by with little to distinguish one from the other. Each was the same; he would be asked by knights and healers alike how he was, and he wouldn’t respond. When offered stew, he would hold the bowl and stare at it. Only on the third day did he relent and finally manage a few small bites of bread. Other than that, he only partook in proffered water, as not even his numb haze could stifle the thirst induced by the hot weather.
When he did sleep, dreams of his mother plagued him. Her face was always turned away from him, staring into the distance at someplace he could not see. Thean did not try to call out to her. He knew it would be no use. Even when she was alive, she would get a far-away look on her face that only time could banish. His father would sit closely to her then, his shoulder gently pressing into hers, and match her silence.
In Thean’s dreams, his mother sat alone.
Their return to the castle was brisk, with few stops in between. Thean still rode on the same horse as Gwaine, with the King riding alongside them. Arthur continually glanced at them over his shoulder, obviously trying to be subtle, and just as obviously failing. Whereas Gwaine was constantly asking Thean if he was hungry, thirsty, or tired, the King was relatively quiet towards the boy, for which Thean was grateful. He wanted to talk to Arthur as little as he wanted to talk to anyone.
When they arrived in the courtyard, the gathered castle inhabitants met them with curious eyes. Queen Guinevere looked concerned at the downcast look of the group, but her children rushed forward eagerly to greet their father. Eloise leapt into Arthur’s arms just as she had the first day Thean had arrived in Camelot. Her father received her happily, but the smile on his face seemed forced. As Gwaine helped Thean off of Arrow, Anselm walked towards them.
“Thean! How was…” the prince trailed off as the boy turned to face him without meeting his eyes. “What happened to you?” Anselm asked softly, a tinge of fear in his voice.
Thean was dimly aware of Gwaine’s hand on his shoulder. “He needs to rest,” was all the usually verbose knight said, and led Merlin’s son through the courtyard and down the winding hallways until they reached the guest chambers. As Gwaine strode into the room, Thean remained in the doorway. The knight stared at him uncertainly, at a loss for words. “You should lie down,” he murmured. Thean looked at the bed for a moment before he felt his feet take him forward. He curled up on his side, turning away from the knight and closing his eyes. Sleep seemed far away, but staring at the bright sunlight streaming through his window felt unnatural. He lay there like that for a long time, trying to relax his breathing to mimic the sounds of rest. Eventually, he heard the door to his room open and shut, signaling the exit of Gwaine.
Food was brought to and from his chambers. The sun rose, and it set. Thean would count the number of times a meal was quietly brought to his room: 1, 2, 3. A small twinge of relief would pass through him each time the third meal was brought, as it signaled he would be left alone for a while afterwards as the castle settled into sleep.
He had visitors. Usually they would sit on whichever side of the bed he faced when they initially entered. Helena would stop by and leave him sleeping draughts, and talk to him softly. Most of what she said pertained to getting him to eat more, but sometimes she urged him to speak. She said talking would help. He didn’t believe her; there was nothing he wanted to say anyway.
Eloise knocked on his door one night. “Thean?” she had called out. “The cooks made a few yam dishes for tonight. I know they’re your favorite. You should come eat with us.”
Thean squeezed his eyes shut then. He didn’t want to crush the faint hope in her voice, but he was too tired to speak up, nor could he stand the thought of sitting through a meal with the royal family. Though far different in social standing, they reminded him of what he did not have.
“I know you’re sad,” Eloise had continued in response to his silence. Though the door was unlocked, she still had not entered. “I made you something. It’s not much, but I hope you like it.” A soft scratching sound ensued as she slid an object under the door. “Good night, Thean,” she murmured.
When the sound of her footsteps receding down the hallway grew distant, Thean unwound himself from the sheets of his bed. They were slick with his sweat, and his feet were unsteady on the floor. He did not know how long it had been since he’d walked more than the few paces needed to take him to his chamber pot. Hesitant hands reached down and picked up the stitched fabric Eloise had slipped under the door. The stitchwork was no bigger than the palm of his hand, but it was more expertly done than the fabric he had seen Eloise give her father when Thean had first arrived in Camelot. The princess must have spent some time on the gift then. A dark blue flower sat amidst a field of vibrant green, and Thean recognized the shape of its petals from the flowers in the small clearing at the temple of the Old Religion. Eloise had accompanied them during only one of their nightly sparring routines, but had appeared quite at ease in the clearing, apparently having visited it many times before with her brother.
Carefully grasping the gift with both hands, Thean carried it over to his dresser and leaned it so that he could see it from where he lay on his bed. He propped it up with the wooden dragon figurine given to him by Hunith. He wondered if Ava would like sewing; she had always had more patience than either of her brothers. The thought then led Thean to wonder if he would ever get to ask her, and he felt the fog that had thinned for a moment creeping back up on him. He dragged his stiff legs back to bed, and lay there for several hours more.
He slept at night sometimes, but would occasionally only find the solace of rest during the day. The stars outside of his window reminded him too much of when he would look at them with his family. His father would trace the constellations with an outstretched hand, telling the tales that accompanied each. He would claim such heroes and gods were watching over them. Thean had believed him, once.
His mother would usually remain silent at night, a contrast to the rise and fall of chatter from his father. She would gaze at Merlin sometimes with a small smile on her face as he talked to their children, trying to distract them from the woes of the day and the dread of the morning ahead. When the workload grew particularly rough, she would comfort them not with words, but merely with her presence, pressing her body up against theirs just a little more closely to help them fall asleep. Only on nights that her children seemed in relatively good spirits did she allow herself to grow distant as her mind drifted to a place Thean could not follow.
Anselm visited Thean several times, but only at night, and always by knocking on the servant’s door. Like Eloise, he never entered, merely talking through the entrance without stepping into the room. When he lay awake in bed, Thean was able to hear the shuffling of feet before the knocking, drawing in a deep breath in preparation of hearing the disappointment in the prince’s voice.
“Whenever you want to practice again, let me know,” Anselm would say. “I’ll be ready.”
The prince would stand there for several moments more, as though anticipating his friend would leap from bed and claim he was ready. Only when it became clear that Thean would not rise that night, as he hadn’t the many nights before, would Anselm turn away and head back down the dark corridors to his own chambers.
Amidst the haze, an irrational fear clung to Thean. Children’s parents had died in the mines from disease, leaving them alone to fend for themselves. Those that lost their parents managed to scrape by throughout the summer, but by winter, they usually died without an adult advocating for them to be given more food. Thean’s father would try to aid the orphaned children as best he could, but in the end, even he would turn away from them in refusal to give up what little food his own family had been given. Though trays of food were brought to his chambers in the castle each day, Thean couldn’t help but wonder if he’d die by winter just as the children without parents in the mines always had.
On particularly bad days in the mines, Thean thought he wouldn’t survive another season even with the aid of both his mother and father. A few months before his family had been separated, a handler had beaten him for working too slowly. He and his mother had been assigned to the same mining area, and the beating had occurred openly in front of her and all of the other gathered slaves. None of the others around him had said anything; when he had glanced back towards his mother, her back was facing him, diligently scraping her chisel as though nothing of importance was happening.
When they had exited to the main cavern for the night, the rest of their family had not yet returned. Thean curled up in a ball, his back stinging, angry tears pricking his eyes. He heard his mother settle down next to him and place a hand gently on his shoulder blade, carefully avoiding the areas that had been injured. Thean shifted away from the touch. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked flatly.
Her fingertips traced circles around his shoulder, unbothered by his efforts to shrug her off. “My sweet,” she murmured. “They would have just beat you harder.” Thean swallowed back a protest; he knew that she was right, but he didn’t care. Even if the beating would have become worse, he still wished he had heard her voice calling out bravely against the harm inflicted on her son. The humiliation of being publicly punished might have abated had he not felt so alone.
The visits Thean tried to pay attention to the most were those of the Queen. She usually came once a day, with a book in her hand. She’d read him stories, carefully selected ones which mentioned little about children and mothers, and instead told tales of fictional places and heroes. Sometimes, she’d try to raise the book to Thean’s line of vision to show him what a word looked like in an effort to continue their lessons in reading. Thean tried to focus, truly, but the mental effort to read was too much. He preferred to just lay and listen passively to her stories, relieved when he was able to get lost in a fictional world if only for just a moment.
Though he never thanked her, for he still did not care to speak, he was grateful for the times when he could bask in her presence. When his eyes drifted up to her calm face as she spoke the words of the heroic tales, he realized he might know more about the Queen than his own mother. The tales his father had told Thean and his siblings ranged from when Guinevere was a servant and all the way up to when she had become Queen. His own mother’s life was a blank page, devoid of any detail from before she had arrived in the mines of Medora. Thean wasn’t even sure how much his own father knew, despite being the person his mother was closest to. And if Thean was never reunited with his father, he would never know.
Thean feared his mother would always remain a person only partially known to him. She’d stay in his memories as a face, a voice, a presence, and nothing more.
He considered himself lucky when a night passed without a dream of his mother. Usually, the dreams were just of her turned away from him, but sometimes they were more grimly vivid. Thean tried not to remember her as he last saw her, brown eyes poised lifelessly towards the sky with flies feasting on her open wound. He tried to tell himself that that was not her, just a hollow encasing of the person that had once been there- but then he remembered how her red hair had curved in familiar slight curls, and could not deny that the body belonged to the same person who had once sung him lullabies.
Usually the numbness prevented any strong emotion from rising up inside him during waking hours. The only time Thean truly felt a sense of anger was when the King visited. He knew that was unfair, and could almost feel the guilt rolling off the King in waves when he’d sit silently on the edge of Thean’s bed. Yet Merlin’s son couldn’t muster the effort to comfort a man when he himself felt so far from peace. It was so much easier to feel anger than sympathy. Thean tried to just remain quietly on his side and wait out Arthur’s visits, but during one visit a week after their return, he hadn’t been able to contain his anger.
Arthur had asked how he was, and as usual, Merlin’s son had remained silent. “Anselm and Eloise miss you,” the King had said then, sitting carefully down on Thean’s bed so as to avoid the boy’s feet. The comment was one meant to get a reaction, however small, but Thean refused to take the bait. He shut his eyes tightly then, though they both knew he was not asleep. “Thean…” Arthur began. “I want you to know… how very sorry I am.”
That was when Thean had felt something snap. A part of him wondered throughout the week why the King had avoided directly addressing the result of their journey, but now he realized he did not want to hear it. He did not care what the King was sorry for- the death of his mother, the way Thean had found her, or their inability to find the rest of his family. No matter what the King was apologizing for, his words wouldn’t change anything. Even royalty could not order anyone back to life once they were gone.
Though his eyes were closed, he felt the warm shift beneath his eyelids. A loud bang startled both he and the king, and Thean realized he had somehow slammed his chamber doors open, the resulting crash from the sound of it hitting the inner wall. He hadn’t said a spell, but the magic had happened anyway. Merlin’s son felt faintly surprised by the action; his instinctual acts of magic had always come from a place of fear before, never of anger. The King did not seem to care which emotion had spurred the act of magic, standing quickly from the bed.
“I’ll leave now,” Arthur said, his voice sounding smaller than it ever had before. Thean watched as his red cape disappeared, the door closing softly behind him. He lay there, trying and failing to process what had happened. His magic hadn’t given him that same surge of energy he had felt since the removal of the runes; the warmth he had felt in his eyes hadn’t reached the rest of his body.
Aside from the setting of the sun and the rise of the moon, Thean had little to track the passing of time with the exception of the rising heat. Summer was upon the castle. In the mines, he had loved summer. The darkness of the caves kept he and his family comfortably cool during their work, and shortages of food were uncommon due to the bountiful prey of the forest. Ava and Clo had wanted to be picked for firewood collecting so that they could observe the flowers and creatures of the forest. Thean claimed to only accompany his siblings on such chores to watch over them, but he had enjoyed seeing the sites of the forest more than he cared to admit. The natural beauties his father described in his stories seemed in reach when outside of the caves.
The window of his chambers faced out onto one end of the courtyard. Through the glass he could hear the chatter of a constantly busy outside world. Boisterous voices sometimes carried laughter that broke the silence of his room. Though the visitors to his room were always solemn, outside of his solitude, the majority of the castle carried on cheerfully.
On a particularly warm night, Thean thought of the cool stone floors of the caves as he fell asleep. In his dreams, he was greeted with the presence of the same floors, though they felt much colder than he had remembered them to be from summers past.
When he stood up, he was greeted with a darkness uninterrupted by the shadows of other figures. He navigated to the corner where he and his family slept, but no one lay there either. Desperately, Thean traced his fingers along the wall. He and Ava had begun carving shapes into the walls from a young age, often based on the stories their father told. With Merlin’s guidance, they had outlined the shapes of dragons and other mythical creatures. Clo had joined when he was old enough to grasp the large rock needed for the task.
The wall beneath Thean’s fingers was perfectly smooth. The pebbles on the floor that were usually pushed out of the way to make for more comfortable sleep lay in untouched piles.
The cavern looked as though no one, not even Thean’s family, had ever dwelled there.
He woke up cold. The summer heat usually made him wake up with his back dripping in sweat, and so his present shivering was disconcerting. The moon hung low in the sky, indicating it was still before midnight. He found himself swinging his legs over his bed without thinking. He didn’t know where he wanted to go, but he knew he didn’t want to remain in his chambers anymore.
Thean wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he last left his chambers- two weeks? Three? Servants had come to his room diligently to change him into new sets of clothes when he allowed them, empty his chamber pot, and provide meals. Having no need or desire to exit his room, he had remained mostly in bed.
The outer hallway greeted him with interspersed torches. Though dim, their flames made him squint. He had always shook his head when servants asked if he wished candles to be lit; throughout his life, he had existed in darkness during the night, and saw no reason to see his chambers clearly when he had often kept his eyes closed while awake or asleep in the past weeks.
The emptiness of the hallways confirmed that most of the castle had gone to rest. Some guards would no doubt be patrolling, but other than that, Thean’s aimless walk should remain uninterrupted. He wasn’t sure whether he was happy or not about that.
His memory of the castle’s layout had faded somewhat during the time that had lapsed from the journey to the mountains and his voluntary isolation. He trailed close to the walls, trying to note any identifying markers at each turn so he could find his way back to his bed when he wished. After a few minutes of walking, carefully avoiding the hallways in which he heard the murmurs of guards, he came upon a corridor with multiple archways. The beginnings of the training grounds stretched beyond in silence, undisturbed by the usual ringing of metal against metal.
A figure stood leaning beside one of the openings, and Thean began to shuffle backwards, but in his haste was louder than he wished. The man’s face turned towards him, and he recognized the light brown hair to be Gwaine’s. The knight had visited Thean only once or twice in the past few weeks. He hadn’t even sat down on Thean’s bed as the Queen and King had, but instead only asked how he fared before exiting. Merlin’s son had almost longed for him to stay, but Gwaine seemed as unwilling to remain in the boy’s silence as Thean was to speak.
The knight stood up straighter, walking slowly until he could clearly see the boy in the moonlight. “Thean?” he asked, his voice slightly shocked. “Are you alright?” Merlin’s son had not been seen outside of his chambers for weeks, and now he stood at near midnight in a place of the castle he hadn’t frequented before.
“‘M fine,” Thean said, scrambling for an explanation. “I just wanted to see the King.”
The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could fully process them. His voice sounded hoarse; it had been the first time he had spoken since the return journey. Now that he was outside of his chambers, he could not bury his mouth in a pillow. Did he really want to speak with the King? He wasn’t quite sure. The King may not want to see him after his last visit.
“Arthur?” Gwaine asked, his eyebrows settling deeper into his forehead. “Well, sure, I can take you to his chambers, if that’s what you’d like.”
Thean nodded, trying to hide his mounting panic. He had never requested to see the King before, certainly not at night. The King saw those who he wished to see, not the other way around. The walk to the royal chambers proved far quicker than Thean had hoped, and by the time Gwaine knocked on their door, he still had no plan as to what his explanation for the late night visit would be.
A befuddled “Enter” called out from behind the large double doors. Thean remained in the hallway as Gwaine stepped into the room, bowing swiftly. Smoke hung in the air above a bedside candle, signaling the Queen and King had just laid to rest. Their lightly colored nightclothes agreed with the same conclusion.
“I’m sorry to disturb you my Lord, my Lady, but I met with Thean in the hall just now and he wished to speak to you.” The words sounded oddly formal. Sir Gwaine had never been much one for formalities, and his choice to use them further proved his own uncertainty about the situation.
“Thean,” Guinevere called out from where she and Arthur still sat upright in bed. “Of course, come in.” Her voice was soft with tiredness and concern.
Thean ventured further into the room, momentarily stunned at its size. He had thought his own chambers to be as luxurious and spacious a place as one could rest, but the royal chambers were thrice the size of his own and infinitely more decorated. He had to walk past a large and ornate table before arriving at the canopied bed upon which the King and Queen sat.
“What is it, Thean?” Arthur asked. He did not seem angry, to Thean’s relief. Though his own emotions towards the King were still uncertain, he did not want to purposefully upset the man who let him reside in the castle.
“I…” Thean began. He found his gaze, which usually remained rooted on the floor, flitting between those of Gwen, Arthur, and Gwaine. So many eyes trained on him all at once, each holding questions beneath. “Um…”
Perhaps noticing the boy’s unease, Arthur said, “Sir Gwaine, I’ll see to it Thean is taken care of. You’re free to go.” The knight blinked in surprise, but hastily bowed and exited without protest. As he walked past Thean, he glanced down and offered a small smile of reassurance.
With the closing of the door behind him, Thean tried to focus on what he should say. “What is it that troubles you?” Guinevere asked, shifting in her bed in preparation to rise if needed.
“I was just in my chambers and,” Thean swallowed nervously. “I didn’t want to be alone in there anymore.”
That was the heart of the matter, then. It had been easier to sleep in solitude that first week in the castle with the hope that he’d be reunited with his family eventually. But with each passing week, all the spaces beside him only filled by sheets and blankets felt emptier. He felt silly admitting this in front of the King and Queen, but their faces held no ridicule as they studied him.
“You don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be,” the Queen said, and stood up from her bed. Thean was confused at the movement as she gestured back towards the bed with her hands, still standing beside it. A moment passed before it dawned on him what she was offering. He began to mouth a protest, but she murmured, “It’s alright, Thean.”
He expected her to continue, but she left her reassurance at that. The simplicity and openness with which she made the offer was calming.
Thean’s feet carried him to the Queen’s side of the bed, and he gently raised himself up, trying not to disturb the carefully tucked in sheets as he settled between the two main pillows. The King had shifted back down to his left, flat on his back, his head turned slightly in Thean’s direction. No disapproval lay in his eyes when Thean glanced up at him. He only gave a small nod.
Guinevere got back into the bed and began to gently arrange the sheets and blankets over Thean, one by one. They were made of a light fabric to not burden the King and Queen with the summer heat, but still held a comforting firmness. The blankets mattered little to Thean, though; rather, it was the sound of breathing by him, and the faint physical warmth of the King and Queen’s bodies that made him ache with the memory of laying down beside his family for so many years.
To his horror, he found himself letting out ragged breaths that did not at all match the calm breathing of the King and Queen. His vision began to blur, and streams of water stained his cheeks. Humiliation closed his eyes; he had not openly wept since the day he had found his mother, and now here he was in the royal chambers, crying in the King and Queen’s bed. I’m going to stain their sheets. The thought was so ridiculous and pitiful that it elicited another sob from his mouth.
A hand pressed gently against the back of his head, in the area where his hair just met his neck. In embarrassment, Thean had turned his back to the King, and so he realized that it must be Arthur gently patting his dark hair. He tried to focus on the contact. They weren’t mad at him; they would have kicked him out of the chambers by now if they were. Guinevere settled closer and placed a hand on his shoulder, making small circles in a way similar to how Thean’s mother had once done. She began murmuring words of comfort; he struggled to hear what precisely she was saying, but her tone was enough to hold onto.
The fog had begun to lift.