When Merlin was small he used to run around the house pretending he could fly, because he'd always admired the blue birds outside his bedroom window. He remembers wondering what it was like to truly fly.
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It happens in the most unlikely way.
That is to say, out of all the ways Merlin had imagined while laying in bed at night staring at the pack he kept packed just in case, of all the ways he had hoped this confrontation could have gone it wasn't this, wasn't Arthur staring at him in what he pinpointed as fear.
And Merlin is cold – so very cold, when he feels steel against his neck.
"Sorcerer."
He breathes out and nods his head, his eyes having faded now to their faded blue color. He feels the sword press down harder, cutting off air.
He wonders if his blood will stain the forest floor.
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Arthur doesn't kill him, doesn't order the knights to do it either. Instead he gathers shackles and twine and ties Merlin to the horses. Merlin doesn't complain because while the cuffs suppress his magic, he's not dead.
The wrongness that the cuffs brought he could deal with, he knew he could; just like he knew that there was a part of him that could break the cuffs with a single thought. But he won't because if he does then how can Arthur trust him?
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Arthur doesn't throw him in the dungeons instead he is confined to a tower that takes over the cuffs job.
It's the worst kind of torture.
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Merlin dreams.
He dreams of Morgana's eyes as he gave her the poison, that moment when she realized who had done it, the moment betrayal had been the only thing he could see in her deep eyes. He dreams of what will happen when she is finally caught.
This wild creature who wasn't human anymore, who'd been so consumed by hate, and fear, and betrayal that the once vibrant woman that played with the children in the courtyard was gone replaced with something more monster then woman.
In his dreams, she rages at him, tells him it's all his fault that things had ended the way they had, taunts him with all his mistakes and then she pushes a knife through Arthur's chest, then Merlin's and finally her own.
Merlin wakes up screaming.
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Once he tries magic.
A simple little thing he'd been doing since he was small and lighting the candles in his bedroom while his mum slept so he could play a bit longer with his favorite toy, a little stuffed dragon that he had always remembered having.
The pain though, is new.
He'd never felt like this, felt like his bones were melting and that everything else was melting along with them, he screams and collapses, hitting his head on the side table and scrapping his knee's on the floor, but that pain is nothing compared to the other pain that makes him feel as if he is being torn apart.
He retches, but there is nothing in his stomach to come up, the guard that brings him meals that are slid through a flap in the door hasn't come in a day and as such he hasn't eaten. It makes it all that more unbearable.
He screams well into the morning but no one comes and when it's over he crawls on his hands and knees to the small pallet where exhausted – he finally sleeps without the nightmares that had become his only friend.
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He tries to call for Kilgharrah once, but it ends worse than his attempts to light a candle.
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Sometimes he wonders why no one has come to see him.
He hopes it's just that their forbidden to not that anything has happened to them or that they don't want to see him. He tries to get something out of the guard that has begun to bring him meals again but he doesn't get anything except a scowl.
He hopes that Gaius isn't working too hard, and that someone was helping him because he wasn't as young as he once was and he his joints ached and sometimes his hands shook too much for him to hold a knife steady enough to chop up herbs.
He hopes that Gwen is okay and happy, that she isn't feeling overwhelmed with all the work she has since she was promoted to head servant, he hopes that she has someone to talk to that will sit and listen while she says what she needs to say without interrupting her.
He hopes that Gwaine isn't doing something stupid that will get him thrown in the stocks or tossed from Camelot, he hopes that he too has someone to talk to because the man deserved an ear to hear his troubles.
He hopes that Arthur isn't being too much of a prat to everyone, he hopes that he doesn't see this as to much of a betrayal, he hope that he can overcome his prejudices and see that magic isn't evil only people and he sometimes hopes that Arthur will come and save him
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Sometimes he also wonders how the man he loves could do this to him.
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Merlin dreams that they hate him. Dreams that they laugh while he cries, laugh while he screams and finally laugh as he burns.
He wakes up shaking and praying it isn't true.
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There is a window in Merlin's tower.
It's not big, and they hadn't bothered in adding any shades or bars. But Merlin loves it, it's his only view into a world other than the one he has inside this room – this hellish room. Merlin loves the endless blue of the Camelot summer sky and he loves the clouds that form shapes but most of all –
Most of all Merlin loves the birds.
They're so free, so happy so carefree, they can go anywhere they want and they can talk in their little chirps to anyone. He can't remember that freedom. So one day he finds himself sitting on the ledge, his head bent so as not to hit it on the cold stone.
And the next he get's braver as he watches a bird merely sweep down, a worm in its mouth to feed its lover.
Until one day he jumps, and Merlin who has been caged for too long –
Well, he finally feels free in a way he has never known in all the years that he has lived, and he knows that in that moment, he's - finally, finally - flying.