Uther rubbed his hands together with difficulty, feeling the calluses catch on each other drily, scratching like scales.

Such old hands. He'd had them his entire life.

Hands that had played with his father's beard. The hands that had held a sword, fought for glory, defeated an enemy with practiced ease. His hands had touched Igraine, stroked her blonde hair as it lay across her pillow like stolen sunbeams. Hands that had held her tight, refusing to let go for fear that he'd never get her back.

The same hands that had touched a troll.

The same hands that held his baby boy, touched the child's cheek with strong father-love, and the same hands that swished downward like the axe that he ordered to fall on the necks of hundreds.

They were the hands he'd used to pull his ward close when she cried, but also the ones that had clenched around her neck fiercely, invading her space, when she dared to question him.

The hands that had ruffled his boy's hair.

The hands that had slapped a maidservant's face.

The hands that had signed death warrants.

They had clenched together when he felt worry begin to claw at him.

The hands that brushed his face, hiding him from view when he'd needed to mask the emotions that he couldn't stop feeling.

Hands that now ached from the hours he'd spent with shackles gripping his wrists in fierce anger, determined to make him feel the same as every prisoner he'd ever cuffed.

His hands were just as old as he was. The hands in manacles, just as useless and as unable to move as he was.

But when he looked at the veins showing through his skin, the wrinkles became clear, and he just couldn't believe that they were his hands which had done all that. No, they were some other Uther Pendragon's, one who did great and terrible things, who kept an entire kingdom in his grasp. An Uther who got things done, was sure of himself, made mistakes, and sometimes had to apologize for them.

They couldn't have been his hands, because right now he just knew that it was that other, powerful Uther that had done those things. He didn't. He was just a man; a trapped man, not a king. Just a man with old hands.