Chapter 1: The Legacy of a Father (Merlin)

Merlin had always been defined by what his father was, and sometimes more accurately what he was not.

Ealdor had known him as Hunith's bastard child. There was a time when he wondered if anyone beyond his mother, Will, and Will's family knew his actual name, because everyone else just called him the bastard. In a village that small, he was the only child whose father had disappeared before his birth, and they never let him forget it.

Hunith never let him forget that they were wrong. She and her husband had never been married formally, she said, and he knew later that this was because the nearest priest was in the border town where the guards of Camelot were posted and Balinor could never have gone there. They hadn't made a public show of their marriage because Ealdor would never have really understood. But the only thing she told him about his father when he was a child was that one night Hunith and the man she loved had sworn to each other in a field under the stars that they were each other's and each other's alone before God as long as this life lasted.

Hunith never looked at another man, not even as the years grew long and she raised the child the village claimed was a bastard alone. Merlin was to discover, years later, that Balinor never looked at any other woman, either.

They may never have been recorded as married, but they kept their vows to the end of their days.

Merlin never let himself take the definition of his father Ealdor gave him too seriously. He knew they were wrong.

When he discovered his father was a dragonlord, it did change his definition of himself. There were days when he wondered wearily just how many freaks of magic could be crowded into one tired man who had never really wanted to keep secrets at all, but most days he was proud to carry his father's legacy, even if he could never remember how it came to him without a dull, aching throb in his chest.

It was one more layer in the layers of lies and secrets that lay between Arthur and him, secrets he was too afraid to ever pull back, and he thought of his dragonlord powers that way on the days he was tired and no longer believed things could go right.

Most days, though, he was proud to carry his father's legacy. Proud to be a dragonlord. Proud to carry the banner high, to carry it on even if all the others had been slain, to carry this last bit of his father with him as long as he lived. He was proud to be defined by his father's legacy of magic.

The night Amhar was born, Merlin stared down at him and knew he would be defined all his life by who his father had been and even more by what he was now not. Namely, alive.

They all looked at him as Arthur's legacy, as the one last remnant of Arthur carried on, like the last spark of the dragonlord magic in Merlin. Merlin looked at him that way; Gwen did; and so did Leon and Percival and Gaius. The whole kingdom saw in Amhar the child of his father, the heir who would one day inherit his father's throne and legacy and realm. Of course it was all a thousand times worse than it would normally have been because Arthur was dead.

Merlin still couldn't think that without his throat becoming dry and choked and his chest feeling like a warhorse was sitting on it.

There was a night, though, when he was holding Amhar and rocking him to soothe his sobs so Gwen could sleep, when he looked down at the little child in his arms with Arthur's eyes and a fuzz of dark hair over his head and realized that the only thing the babe would understand was that he was fatherless.

He would grow up the way Merlin had, without a father to play with him, to teach him and train him and tell him he was proud of him. And Merlin didn't wish that life on anyone.

He couldn't be Amhar's father, because that role was and always would be Arthur's. But – but maybe he could be Amhar's Gaius. Gaius had, after all, been the closest thing Merlin had had to a father – never taking that place, exactly, but mentoring and caring about him and loving him. He could do that for Amhar at least.

That night, he stopped thinking of Amhar as only Arthur's last legacy to the world and started seeing him as a little boy helplessly defined by the way everyone thought of him as that.

Merlin's way of going about being a mentor to Amhar was by doing things for him he wished he had had a father to do.

When Amhar was a baby, all Merlin did was help Gwen. Gwen needed the help, of course – she couldn't quite care for a baby around the clock and be a queen and try to find closure over Arthur all at the same time – and Merlin was always there, carrying the baby, keeping an eye on him, watching him for her. He had his own work, of course, but if Gwen could go everywhere with a baby on her hip, so could he when she needed a break.

And then Amhar started growing out of the stage where he could just be carried everywhere and cooed over and started growing into a little boy. So Merlin walked with him when Gwen couldn't and watched the knights spar with him even if it was a long time before he could hear sword on shield and not think instantly of Arthur and battles and Camlann. He played with Amhar and tossed a ball back and forth with him and told him he was proud of him.

Merlin wondered later when he was older and wiser how he had ever thought he was a mentor instead of a father. He was glad the thought had never occurred to him when he would have been young and stupid enough to be worried about it.

"May I come watch you?" Amhar asked eagerly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Merlin was about to teach his first group of students a lesson in magic, and Amhar's bright, chirping voice broke him out of debating whether he should teach them how to make flames in their hands or on candles first. He turned to look at the young prince.

"You don't have magic, do you?" he blurted out.

Once that would have been the most terribly unsafe question he could have asked, and he would have said it only behind locked doors – or more likely he would have spied until he knew instead of asking. Now the only thing he did after saying it outright in the middle of the hallway was glance instinctively both ways to see who might have heard.

The fact that a couple of guards marching past at the far end of the corridor might have heard was somehow not terrifying anymore.

Amhar shook his head vigorously. "'Course I don't have magic!" he said, as if Merlin was stupid and should have known that. "But I want to see you teach it. It's exciting, Uncle Merlin!"

Merlin swallowed back the instinctive fear at letting someone who was not a magic user and thus not bound to keep the secret to save their life in on the lesson – Amhar was four, for heaven's sake, and it wasn't like it mattered now that magic was legal anyway. But for a moment he looked into the clear blue of the eyes Amhar inherited from his father, and the family inheritance flowed back to him. Uther decrying magic as evil and to be exterminated – Arthur, leaning against the window – "I had forgotten magic was evil. Thank you for reminding me" – Perhaps it would be good to have Arthur's son listen in – perhaps he will never form the irrational prejudice that comes from not knowing that magic can be good, can be beautiful, and Merlin can never, never show him that now –

Merlin shook himself sharply from his thoughts, horrified. Amhar was not his father or grandfather, and he didn't deserve to be judged by their legacy with magic, nor by Merlin's still instinctive fears wrapped and layered in with his memories of them. Amhar was a four-year-old boy who was curious, and there was no harm in letting him see more of the magic he adored.

Luckily, also because he was four, he didn't realize how long Merlin had taken to answer. Merlin swallowed hard.

"Of course you can come!" he said cheerfully, and reached for Amhar's hand to lead him to his chambers.

But there was still something sick in his stomach that he had come so close to judging what Amhar was asking on the basis of his ancestry, and he made a decision that he won't do that again in the future.

That day was probably the last he viewed Amhar on the basis of his father's legacy.

Oh, of course he could never look at Amhar's eyes without thinking for a split second of Arthur's – and neither, he knew, could Gwen – and of course he never lost the sense that he was standing in for his best friend, but Amhar was just a boy. He deserved someone to stand in for his father. He deserved to make a legacy of his own.

Amhar knew his legacy, of course – Merlin and Gwen had told him about his father over and over again – so he had never thought of Merlin as fulfilling that role. Merlin thought that was a good thing the day Amhar cornered him in the hall and told him he was afraid of seeing his father, told him that he never wanted things to change between the two of them.

He had never realized just how much Amhar had come to see him as a father.

He had also never realized just how much he saw Amhar as a son.

He had certainly failed at being a Gaius – although given that there were days he came very close to thinking of Gaius as a father, given that Amhar called Gaius Grandfather, maybe he had succeeded too well instead.

He loved the prince – always had and always would, of course, but he realized that evening as he walked slowly back to his chambers that in doing all the things he wished a father had done for him with Amhar, he had in some strange way almost become Amhar's father. The thought terrified him, because that was never what he had set out to do, so it was a good thing Arthur was coming back soon. He was Amhar's proper father; he could take over that role then.

He tried to ignore the throb of loss, old and familiar, that rose deep within him when he thought about giving Amhar away.

Then Arthur came back, and everything was wonderful and painful and confusing, but he did notice that Amhar still seemed to bring the deepest questions he didn't want to trouble his mother with to Merlin. Arthur was taking his role as father up readily, which was good, and Amhar basked and expanded in the glory of having his real father care for him. But he still seemed to need Merlin, and Merlin was more than glad to be needed.

And then came the day of the dragon flights.

Amhar flew with Arthur, and it was very much well worth the small pinprick of giving up that activity that had always been Merlin's and Amhar's and theirs alone to see Arthur on the back of a dragon, and to see Arthur doing what his son loved most with him. The day got even better when Arthur came back complaining about Aithusa's sense of humor and adventure, along with a very excited and satisfied son and a smug dragon.

Merlin got to take Freya flying with him after that, like he'd promised her, and that was more than enough to make him forget everything else for a while. He'd never in his wildest dreams thought he'd have Freya back, much less get to show her his world, the kingdom he loved and protected, from his favorite vantage point on dragon-back.

He was still thinking about Freya, still alight with the warmth of her love, when Amhar caught up with him in the hallway. "What is it, Dragon?" he asked lightly.

Amhar was uncharacteristically hesitant, staring at his shoes. "Take me for a dragon flight?" he whispered.

Something throbbed deep in Merlin, but he only protested, "You've already had one with your father, and an exciting one if Arthur is to be believed."

"But it wasn't with you," Amhar protested, and something deep within Merlin broke and healed all at once.

He had never meant to steal Arthur's son, to be a father to him, but he didn't – couldn't – regret it. And knowing that the boy he had loved and cared for as his own all these years still wanted him warmed him inexplicably in a way nothing else could.

He put his hand on Amhar's shoulder as he had a thousand times before since Amhar outgrew having his hand held. "Then we'll take a quick turn around the castle before supper," he said, turning back to the courtyard and hiding just how suddenly happy he was behind a normal tone of voice.

He didn't think Aithusa would mind a third flight. By the deeply satisfied aura she gave him when they reached the courtyard where she already sat waiting for them, she was happy about it instead.

You and your hatchling, she said in his mind. It is right that you ride me together.

Merlin could have protested the hatchling bit, but he knew Aithusa knew he wasn't really Amhar's father. He knew what she meant.

And he was too happy about it himself to protest to her.

They would always be defined by the fact that their fathers weren't there when they were young, Merlin and Amhar. That would never change.

But there was a world of difference between growing up being called a bastard, even if you knew it wasn't true, and growing up with a man who took you on dragon flights and loved you like a father – not even a mentor, but a father – would.

Merlin had grown into his father's other legacy, the heritage he passed down, over time. He was proud of being a dragonlord now, proud and not the least bit ashamed.

Someday Amhar would grow into the legacy and heritage of the kingdom too. He would be blessed to have both a king and a queen, a father and mother, to teach him how to live it.

But somewhere in the shadows, he would have a Merlin too.

A/N: Since I survived a very busy semester at college, here is finally the series of one-shots from my Future-of-a-King-verse that I promised! These stories probably won't make much sense unless you've read that one. If anyone is curious, the conversations referenced here about Amhar's fears about his father's return and about the dragon flights are in chapters 8 and 14 of Future of a King, respectively. Anyhow, hope you enjoyed this story, and I'll be back with more from this world before too long.