Kilgharrah never learned about humans, so he doesn't know their lifespans. At least, he didn't in this fic. He's just going by dragon lifespans now.

I wrote this in one hour, and it was one in the morning. I know it's bad. You don't need to tell me.

Despite him being in the characters box, Arthur is only mentioned in this story.

I do not own Merlin, as much as I wish I do.

"What do you mean, calling Arthur the other side of my coin?" Merlin complained, glaring up at the Great Dragon, "What do people even do with the other side to their coins anyways? Because Arthur seems quite intent on making me clean his stables and his smelly socks (which really are quite smelly. Do you think he walks around in filth with just them on to make my job harder?). He never listens to me and he always makes me clean his armor even though I don't think that's in my job description - isn't that the squire's job? In fact, I think it's the stable boy's job to clean the Royal Prat's stables too! Arthur is such a - he's such a clotpole!" Merlin huffed, finishing his rant and flapping his arms around.

Gaius had banned him from their chambers for the rest of the day, mostly because Merlin was annoying him with his complaining. Merlin had been spending a lot of time with Gwen lately, and the sugary breakfast pastry that he had filched off of Arthur's plate that morning certainly did not help with anything. At all. In fact, the sugar made Merlin so hyper that Arthur had given up and gave him the day off out of sheer annoyance.

This made Merlin very happy, until Gaius had kicked him out too, and when he found out that Guinevere would be out of Camelot with Morgana for the rest of the week. He wasn't quite sure what for, but he could hardly settle on one thought (besides thoughts of Arthur, and wasn't that strange?) for more than a few seconds due to the major sugar rush he was having.

You see, Merlin didn't often have sugar. Not the sweet stuff that Arthur seemed fond of indulging in every once and a while. His mother had given him a sweet once when he was little, and that resulted with Will finding out about his magic, so she had never given him anything like that again.

So, with nobody else to bother, Merlin decided to visit the Great Dragon. It must be lonely in the dank cave, Merlin had reasoned, before he got distracted by a butterfly and had wandered around for a good hour following it. Just when the butterfly left his sight, Merlin remembered that he wanted to visit the Great Dragon, and had quickly made his way to the cave to bother him. And here he was now, in the cave with the Great Dragon.

Kilgharrah frowned, looking over Merlin with a critical eye. The boy was moving around like somebody had dumped a colony of ants down his pants. He couldn't figure out the reason for it, but he shrugged it off as a human thing. Humans. So strange.

"So," Merlin said, "Back to that other side of the coin thing, what do you do with them? I protect mine, and Arthur gives me chores," Merlin pulled a face, "But I'm obviously the brighter side, so what should Arthur really be doing?"

Kilgharrah let out a gusty sigh. He knew this day would come. He had hoped it wouldn't have come quite so soon. Perhaps when Merlin had been in is three hundreds? Yes, Kilgharrah, thought, the teenage years of dragon hood. Merlin seemed much too young. Perhaps he was only an infant? He had never learned the boy's age, after all. This, he could fix easily.

"Merlin," Kilgharrah rumbled, "How old are you?"

"Huh?" Merlin frowned at the change of the topic, "I'm seventeen years old."

Kilgharrah reeled back in shock. Only seventeen years? What had the baby's mother been thinking? At seventeen, the boy shouldn't be let out of his mother's sight! No, Kilgharrah had thought Merlin to be along the lines of one hundred or so. An idea trickled into his mind. Perhaps Merlin was different. He was Emrys, after all. He was exceptional, even amongst creatures of the old religion like himself. Yes, that was a good theory. If Merlin was this developed at seventeen, then Kilgharrah would tell him when he was twenty-five.

"Young Warlock," he rasped, a slight chuckle slipping past his lips, "You are much too young to learn about the birds and the bees. Come and ask me again in eight more years."

Merlin watched as the Great Dragon flew off, his face redder than the tomatoes that he often had thrown at him and eyes as large as they could go, completely dumbfounded.

"No way," he finally whispered when his brain started working again, about three hours later (Merlin would later deny any happy giggling he made later because it didn't happen. Nope. He wasn't happy at all. What was there to be happy about, anyways? Arthur was a not-attractive-in-any-way-prat).