Chapter Text
Epilogue: The Chess Master’s Queen
“Arthur?”
Camelot’s young king cracked his eyes open, squinting in the firelight as the shape of Gwen’s face resolved itself above him.
“Gwen,” he acknowledged quietly, in deference to his sleeping knights. “How are you?”
Gwen smiled, more at ease than she had been in six days.
(Soon after their rescue, Leon had informed them of the length of time Lord Domas had held them captive. Merlin, even hours later, still could not speak of their captivity without literally emitting sparks, and Gwen had no desire to witness her poor friend’s composure crack even more once he processed--truly processed--that the reason she and Arthur had been taken at all was due to Lord Domas’s obsession with Camelot's Court Warlock.)
“I'm fine, Arthur. Certainly, much better than you are,” she gently prodded him in the side, utterly unsurprised by the pained hiss she received in response. “Just how many times were you hit in those sessions, Arthur?” she demanded, worried. “I know you’ve avoided treatment until now.”
Arthur tried to shimmy away, clamping his arms carefully around his wounded ribs, “You and the knights needed the treatment more.”
“Arthur, you’re the king! Exactly how well do you expect your army to function without you?” a firm grip around his arm accompanied Gwen’s exclamation as she gingerly peeled it away from its protective clench. She frowned at the purple bruises decorating his wrist where the ropes had crushed against his skin.
“Merlin seemed to muster them just fine,” he muttered, trying (and failing) to dodge her other hand.
Gwen frowned fiercely at him and opened her mouth to scold…when a warmly callused, rather larger hand abruptly clamped down over her own.
Both she and Arthur (whose wrist that hand still held) started, immediately turning to face a darkly scowling Court Warlock, “‘Merlin’ would have preferred not to have had to muster them at all,” the younger man retorted peevishly, holding his hand out for the cloth Gwen held.
Gwen bit back a grin as she handed it to him, noting as she did the nervousness that flashed briefly through the blue of Arthur’s eyes, before the ridiculously noble prat masked it with false bravado, “Queenie!” he exclaimed, would-be brightly, attempting to muster his usual impertinent grin. “How do you like your new tactical name?”
Merlin’s promptly dropped wet cloth elicited a muffled sputter as it collided (not-quite-accidentally) with Arthur’s face. The warlock smirked, “So sorry, Your Highness. What was that again?”
More sputters: “Merlin!” an indignant (if stifled) shout as Arthur reached up and yanked the cloth off his face.
Merlin simply raised an eyebrow at the irritated blue eyes glittering at him, calmly retrieving the cloth as if he had only dropped it, “I can put up with ‘Queen’ if I have to, Arthur. But ‘Queenie’ is a bit much, don’t you think?”
Smothering a laugh, Gwen reached for the bowl of herb-laden water she had brought with her, feeling her expression warm when he immediately thereafter set to work cleaning their king’s split lips.
Grabbing a second cloth and squeezing the excess warm water out of it, she turned her attention to the wrist she still held and the rope burn resting against her palm, listening quietly to the conversation that passed between her two friends as she treated it:
“We’re going to have to wrap your ribs, Arthur.”
Arthur groaned, "Why is it always my ribs?" he muttered.
Smirking crookedly, Merlin rinsed his cloth in the herb-laden water, before wringing it out and raising it Arthur's lips once again, "Maybe because you're an idiot who never wears a plackart except in pitched battle?"
Gwen suspected she was not the only one who heard Merlin's voice waver at the end.
Any pretense of levity Arthur had tried to put up dropped. She saw his expression soften (as it always had in the presence of a certain upset Court Warlock) as he murmured, “Very well. I will be unable to do much training with the knights, in any case; we need to clean up the lower town and fix the keep. How bad was the damage, Merlin?”
Gwen spied an additional laceration along the side of Arthur’s neck, and quickly moved to treat that as well, lest Merlin spot it…and how close it had been to a rather vital vein. Their king seemed to follow her line of thinking, for she saw his jaw clench a bit as he held back a nearly inaudible hiss.
Merlin, luckily, seemed not to hear it, shaking his head and moving on from Arthur’s lips to the first in a long series of cuts littered across the other man's arm. Carefully, Gwen pushed the bowl so that it sat between the two of them (and did not slosh), acknowledging Merlin's painfully grateful glance with a smile and a warm nod, “I don’t know the exact figures, Arthur. I left Gaius and Galahad in charge once it became apparent that we needed to get to you two.”
Arthur grit his teeth, holding back another hiss as Merlin rinsed his cloth and started cleaning the dirt from the next set of injuries, “Our people?”
Merlin’s hands stilled, and he stared blankly down at the cloth he’d pressed against Arthur’s wrist, not answering.
When Gwen glanced up to assess why, she abruptly realized he’d stumbled across the rope burn that matched the one she had just treated. Only this particular loop of rope had cut so deeply into Arthur’s wrist that it had actually broken the skin.
Firelight caught on a single sparkle that fell from Merlin’s eye to land on Arthur’s wrist. The older man’s eyes widened, “Merlin.”
Merlin shook his head fiercely, dropping his hands (and their cloth) to clench tightly in his lap, “Don’t you dare say you aren’t worth it, you prat!” His voice cracked.
Before Gwen could either process or object to the sudden movement, Arthur surged forward and wrapped his arms tightly around Merlin’s neck, burying his grimace against the jet black strands of hair as Merlin stiffened.
“Arthur…” she tried.
It was Arthur’s turn to shake his head fiercely, “Gwen, please.”
She fell silent, startled by the dark, haunted wells of midnight that met her own.
Sighing quietly and nodding, Gwen was not quite able to conceal the tender smile that flitted across her lips at the upwelling of gratitude that immediately lightened the blue of Arthur’s eyes.
Her smile grew (and gentled) as she watched the remaining tension in Merlin’s body bleed off into barely contained quivers as Arthur lightly rubbed his shoulders and arms.
Which was apparently her cue to carefully set down the cloth she held in the bowl and silently climb to her feet, as any awareness Arthur might have had of her swiftly disappeared, consumed as he was by comforting Merlin.
She could have sworn she saw him tuck a discreet kiss behind Merlin’s ear as she moved to join Leon by the fire.
End Epilogue of The Chess Master’s Queen