Merlin woke up with a start, his head quickly shooting upwards from its earlier spot, it had surprisingly been a quiet night, the nightmares were silent for today, merlin was less jumpy and hadn't woken up drenched in his own sweat, tears staining his usually blotchy pale cheeks. He looked around to see the Knights watching him anxiously, he furrowed his eyes and less than subtlety reached for the journal they all knew was there. He furrowed his brow tighter, his eyes scrunching and narrowing as he pulled his hand away, trying to play off him reaching for his journal as if he were brushing something away, trying to be inconspicuous.

"What happened?" Everyone was watching him curiously now, cautiously even. Lancelot cleared his throat and asked,

"What are you talking about Merlin?" Merlin sighed and rolled his eyes, propping himself up on his elbows,

"It's late in the morning and Arthur isn't blowing a blood vessel yelling his royal pain in the ass head off, no one woke me up, no ones dead and we aren't being attacked. That means Arthur let me sleep in.. Which is kind of out character for him so.. what happened?" Gwaine smirked weakly and said, leaning down to pull the younger man to his feet,

"Impressive Merlin." Merlin smirked weakly and pulled himself up off the ground, purposely cracking his shoulders, neck, fingers and back. He looked at all the Knights and his king again before cocking his eyebrow again, but this time shrugged it off as the Knights not getting enough sleep the night before and this being the result. The boy shrugs again and heads over to his pack, which had been un-ceremonially slung against a tree stump. The boy grabbed a spare pair of trousers, a shirt and a few other things before cocking an eyebrow once more at the Knights and the king before him, before shrugging and muttering something about needing to take a quick bath in the river. At that moment, everyone realized something more about Merlin. When the company went on longer camping trips, Merlin would insist on bathing alone, but now, due to the journal entry and the mention of unseen scars, the suspicion only grew. So, about 10 minutes after merlin had left the group, everyone silently made their way to the river shore, which was shrouded in trees and brush, to wait and watch. They all made it to the trees edge that met the shore, which was rather close to where merlin stood and watched, the men had to be silent for even a rustle of a bush or a snapping of a twig would alert the servant.

They all watching in silence as merlin pulled off his coat and tossed it aside, then probably proceeded to pull off the boys signature neckerchief. Merlin quickly pulled off his light blue tunic and revealed something horrible to the men. Scars littered the pale canvas that is Merlins back, all ranging from large to small scars but all noticeable. The most noticeable were 5 long, dark scars, ranging from violent red to paled and faded purple. The largest scar of them all was a large, oaken brown scar that started at the center of Merlins left shoulder blade and made its way all the way down the the small of Merlins back, even from the distance the other men stood, they could see the small welts and markings the whip had left, the lashing obviously a form of torture.

All the men wracked their brains, thinking back and looking back into their minds to try and remember where merlin could have gotten those markings, gotten those scars. While in thought, they hadn't realized merlin was facing his bundle of items he'd brought with himself to the river, until they saw the mass of scars that littered his chest too. There were several scars on the servants chest, the most noticeable was a scar on his chest, right over his heart. Now, everyone knew a thing or two about scars and the mass of the scars on Merlins body were not from his clumsy antics, someone did those things to him. Someone had lashed Merlin, someone had burned him, over his heart, someone had hurt Merlin more a few times and yet... merlin had managed to hide everything from them, from Lancelot, from Gwaine, from Arthur. The servant had managed to hide his nightmares, his scars, his pain and his sadness from everyone up to this point.

They all bowed their head as Merlin headed to the water, they'd all seen enough. They silently made their way back to the camp, all shocked into a state of silence and horror. Gwaine was the first to speak, his voice hoarse and weak, the images of the scars that littered his best friends upper body replaying in his mind,

"Why.. Why didn't he tell us..? About the nightmares.. about the scars.. W-Why..?"