well done! let me count the ways i've truly enjoyed reading this story:
i love that you haven't made merlin all-powerful. he's totally true to his character, not preventing morgana from abducting arthur, and being just too late to rescue him from cenred's castle. having to wait for a moment when he can blame a rebound of morgana's own magic to take her out of the equation.

i 'love' arthur's visions. the first is pretty intuitive, uther telling him he's disappointed - but the one with morgana surprised me, very clever to have her offering him /almost/ what he wants. and it hurts and affects him that he has to deny her b/c it isn't /true/. and then the vision of merlin arriving to 'rescue' him - but undermining his faith in himself by planting the idea that he won't be fit to rule, after this. and of course there were more - but i also like that you hinted at it rather than go through each and every one.

i love the way arthur doesn't even think about merlin finding him first or alone, til the knights are there to chastise merlin for sneaking out and leaving them behind. and then he doesn't question /how/...

i think your arthur is also, completely in character. managing to escape his first cell and defeat several guards before morgana recaptures him, determined to maintain composure once he realizes what's happening with the mandrakes - and only admitting to his weakness with merlin, putting on a brave face and forcing himself to his duties, else, with the knights, on the trip and back in camelot.

also, i appreciate the scenes of during-travel. it helps to set the tone, rather than just skipping to the action parts and claiming two days of travel have gone by. it's realistic without being tedious, so thank you for including those sections.

and the ending was perfect. arthur isn't pristine, but he's going to be fine; and for now, merlin will stay because that's what arthur needs. :D

Excellent story, I really enjoyed the interaction between Arthur & Merlin. One small glitch though - in chapter 1 Lancelot was dead but in chapters 8 & 9 he's alive again. It doesn't really hurt the story but it threw me for a loop when he showed up with the rest of the knights. For a minute I thought he was going to be an illusion only seen by Arthur, sort of an after effect of the mandrakes, but he was really there.

Wonderful story! Very sweet ending :D

I don’t enjoy seeing my favourite characters suffering, but I much rather certain situations were more, as I put it ‘hunger games stress’ or ‘LotR stress’. Where it’s obvious that a person would not go through something without being physically or psychologically scarred and need a lot of time to heal or but sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Merlin, being a family show and more or less onto a new storyline every new episode, nearly never showed this. For example Gwen was under the mandrakes control for ages, had killed because of it, yet is seen to have completely bounced back next episode. The only ones we see with seriously progressing PTSD is Merlin and Morgana.
My point is I love how you have written this story, as it describes so amazing how even someone as strong as Arthur and Merlin have difficulty going through everything they have. I hope you write more soon. Bravo!

Aargh, poor Arthur and Merlin! This was really good! I noticed two words that are inappropriate here: "complacent" instead of "compliant" and "don't give her [Morgana] another choice" instead of "another chance".

A very good chapter! I detected one mistake: you use "inclination" instead of "inkling" when Arthur doesn't have an inkling where he denotes a tendency to or liking for. :)

An intriguing, riveting beginning!

A brilliant ending to a wonderful story!

Wonderful story Loopstagirl. Thoroughly enjoyed it! Good to see Arthur appreciate Merlin for all that he does to keep him safe.
Many thanks.

Beautifully written story! Plot paced perfectly. Characters well drawn. Great job.

Fast paced and well written!

Dramatic!

Thank you for capping the fic off so nicely. I've ready enjoyed it and now that the loose ends are tied, I'm sad to see it end. But I'm sure you'll have a new one planned soon enough and I will look forward to that one.

It's been an awesome adventure and thanks for taking me on this wonderful and eventful journey. You write beautifully (as you always do) and post another one soon!

Very nice! I loved each and every chapter! Good work!

I was sad to see this one end! But it was still very sweet.