Run (Merlin)
Posted here simply because I like everything in one place and would lose track of it otherwise; my entry for the first challenge at merlin_las. Apologies for anyone who has already seen it!

Title: Run
Author: julesoh
Rating: G
Fandom: Merlin
Word Count: 497
Summary: Arthur and Uther, separately, in The Poisoned Chalice.
Spoilers: Spoilers up to 1x04.
Notes: Written for the first challenge at merlin_las, for the prompt Arthur and Uther Pendragon, no more than 500 words.



Arthur breathes harshly in time with his footfalls. His chest aches from the cool autumn air, but as the trees become fewer and Camelot's high walls get closer, he pushes himself to an even quicker pace.

It's not yet midday, but the sky is dusk-dark and a fine drizzle has flattened Arthur's hair to his skull and made the fallen leaves covering the rough path slippery and dangerous. Arthur navigates them with ease - he's run this path twelve times this morning alone, and countless times before that.

When Arthur was younger and didn't follow his father's orders, his punishment invariably required him to run this route, the number of laps he was assigned depending on the severity of his infraction. Nowadays, Uther punishes him by throwing him in the castle dungeon. Apparently his acts of defiance are far more serious now than they ever have been in the past, but Arthur has never felt less guilty about disobeying his father in his life.

Uther ordered Arthur’s release before a full week passed, though they have not spoken to one another directly since. Arthur has only spoken to Gaius, briefly, checking to see that the antidote was successful.

Now running alongside the castle wall, Arthur steals a glance up at Camelot as she looms over him. She never looks grey, even in the rain, and as Arthur heads back towards the trees for another lap, he allows himself to suppose, briefly, that running here reminds him of a time when he thought his father was right in all he said and did; when defying him actually felt wrong.

---

Uther watches Arthur run from the uppermost castle balcony, scowling as the light rain dampens his shoulders.

He hasn't seen Arthur since their argument in the dungeon, and did not expect to find him running this trail. It has been two years, he recalls, since he has punished Arthur with laps. After Morgana’s teenage years, he had anticipated dealing with another defiant child, but Arthur never rebelled in that way. His acts of disobedience had been borne out of recklessness and a stubborn will, and had ceased by the time he was seventeen.

Yet Arthur has been different since the attempt on his life by that vengeful sorceress, and despite Uther’s original belief that Arthur was simply more rattled by the incident than he admitted, Arthur shows no sign of reverting back to his usual self. He pays more attention now - to Morgana, to his odd manservant, and to Uther himself.

Uther longs to see Arthur look at him with the same trust he used to, needs him to understand that he is proud of his son’s strong sense of right and wrong. He wishes that he had been the one to give him that knowledge.

As he watches Arthur disappear into the forest - he’s so fast, he thinks proudly, a flash of red tunic and then he is gone - he resolves to tell him that what he did was right.




Also, shantirosa, I have been listening to Center of the Sun on repeat since yesterday, good call! :-)