Chapter Text
Arthur walks down the main avenue of town, gray ash swirling around the ankles of his boots. The buildings around him have mostly fallen in, shells of structures crisscrossed by charred, blackened beams that lean against fragments of walls. There are pieces of humanity scattered across the ground - clothing, children's toys, broken pieces of furniture. But there is no sign of life; not even a plant remains on the scorched earth.
He thinks of legends he was told as a boy of cowboys and the wild west on Old Earth, that ancient blue world that they call the cradle of humanity. There was a term he'd learned in those legends - “ghost town” - that seems far too appropriate here and now a thousand years later.
A newspaper blows by, the crackle of dry paper the only sound for miles save for the crunch of his footsteps and those of the half dozen men who follow behind him. He follows it with his eyes and thinks that in another situation, he might be amused that these primitive settlers are still using paper to distribute their news.
They'd gotten the emergency signal five hours before, and even then Arthur had known it was too late. This isn't the first ghost town they've been to, it isn't even the only planet it's happened on. All of the planets in the system have been suffering, inner and outer ring alike, and no one is quite sure what's happening. Abductions, some say, raiders or aliens from the great beyond come to pillage their towns like the pirates of Old Earth. Other say it's a plague, a virus of some sort, and that's why it jumps between planets and seems not to discriminate when it comes to who or where it attacks. There's another theory though, a hushed whisper in corners and back rooms. Arthur knows that there are some who believe it's magic.
“Split up, look for survivors,” Arthur tells his men gesturing with two fingers. He's only following protocol and they all know it. They've never found anyone alive in one of these ghost towns and none of them expect this time to be any different. But Arthur has to make his report. He has to say they checked every home and shed and under every porch before he and his men got back on their ship and went home to the Camelot.
His men disperse, heading off in different directions to follow a search pattern they know by heart.
Arthur walks another few paces and picks up a book, brushing ash from its front almost reverently. It's actual bound paper with a linen cover and by rights should be sitting on a shelf in a market on one of the inner planets with a very high price tag. It's also not in a language he understands, which is strange because he knows four languages and can scrape by in three more if he's pushed. That aside, most books, if they are printed on paper at all, are printed in Basic these days. But then again, this is a planet in the outer ring and the outer ring has always been a wild land of unknowns and little, half-inhabited planets that feel like they're stuck a hundred years in the past.
Arthur still doesn't understand why his father stationed him at the edge of the outer ring instead of letting him police the inner planets like he'd always dreamed. He's always felt it was a insult or that perhaps his father didn't think he was good enough. But he still does what he can for these people. They certainly need it.
“Sir!” someone calls out and Arthur snaps to attention. He recognizes the voice as Lancelot's before Lance even turns the corner around the remains of a house.
“We found someone,” Lance says, a little breathless. He can't have run that far, but the air here is thinner than it is on the Camelot so maybe he has an excuse.
“Show me,” Arthur says in reply and starts jogging with Lance at his side.
Arthur isn't entirely sure what he's expecting to find, maybe some terrified woman cowering in the cellar of what used to be her home or a child who'd found some tiny place to hide and gotten lucky. But what he finds is entirely unlike anything he could have imagined.
There's a raised dais of rich, red rock in the town square that looks like imported martian rock and on it is sitting a young man. He's uninjured, but his expression is utterly vacant and he does not react to Arthur's arrival except with the tiniest movement of his eyes.
Black hair, blue eyes, about 1.8 meters tall, are the data points Arthur would write down first on a profile. But they are not this stranger's most eye-catching features. Arthur stares at the tattoos that curve across his skin. He's stripped to the waist so Arthur can see the lines of dark ink that caress every angle and curve of his body with a language of symbols and patterns that he doesn't understand.
“What's your name?” Leon asks and receives no answer.
“Hey, you okay?” Percy tries after a beat of silence.
Arthur's men are all there, gathered in a half-circle around this strange survivor, but none of them seem willing to take a step towards him. They shift from foot to foot like frightened animals, glancing at each other as if to confirm that they all feel this aura of strangeness radiating from the man.
“I'm Captain Arthur Pendragon of the Camelot and these are my men. Will you tell us who you are? We'd like to help you.”
Arthur doesn't want to move closer any more than his men do. But he squares his shoulders and takes deliberate step after deliberate step forward because Arthur Pendragon is not afraid. When he is less than a stride away, he crouches to try to get a better look at his face. The man lifts his head just enough to meet Arthur's eye and for the briefest flash of a moment, Arthur thinks he sees gold and feels something like electricity jolts down his spine.
Shock. Arthur feels suddenly like a fool not to have realized it. Of course his man is suffering from shock. That's why he hasn't been speaking to them and why he hasn't moved. There's nothing mystical going on here, no reason why they should all have felt afraid. He's only a frightened young man whose entire village has gone up in smoke.
“Come with me,” Arthur says and takes the man's hands, drawing him to his feet.
The Survivor, Arthur isn't sure what else to call him since he won't give a name, walks a pace behind him in silence. His steps are sure and his boots are good but Arthur knows virtually nothing else about him.
For some reason that he can't explain, Arthur stays with him all through the flight back to base and through the registration process to get him entered into the logs on The Camelot. They don't know his medical history, can't even get a reply out of him when they ask questions, so one of the medical staff pokes and prods and gives him almost a dozen injections just to be on the safe side. They simply can't afford to bring some alien disease on board.
The man sits through it all with the same, slightly dull expression and doesn't flinch even once. Gaius checks for all kinds of things to see if something is actually wrong with him. But in the end, even Gaius is stumped and can only say that their survivor is completely healthy and that perhaps he needs a nap.
Arthur snorts and leads the way to a spare cabin they've temporarily designated for the man they rescued.
“You can sleep here for now,” Arthur tells him. “If you're unable to speak, all you have to do is shake your head and we can sort out another means of communication. But we really need some answers to help you.”
The man looks up at him with sad eyes and doesn't reply.
Arthur leaves because he doesn't know what else to do. He goes back to his duties aboard the ship, goes out on the next mission they are assigned and when he comes back, the man they found is gone.
He catches Gwen's elbow when she walks by in a corridor, probably running errands for Gaius, and asks where the man went.
“Some of your father's men came on board and took him away. Didn't you know?” she tells him with a cheerful smile.
And no, Arthur hadn't known. He didn't sanction this and why no one bothered to check is beyond him. He should have had to sign off on the transfer, but even he can't go against his father so perhaps it's a moot point in the end.
“Oh, right,” he tells her and if the smile on her lips is too knowing, or perhaps even a little too loving, he isn't going to say anything about it. He lets her go and she carries on towards what used to be Morgana's room.