A Sheep in Wolf's clothing Chapter 8, a merlin fanfic

Chapter 8

I am SO sorry, this took me so frickin 'long! Back in May, I couldn't continue my story (I was somewhere around 'Oh, right, because I could easily live in court as a wolf.') because I discovered my very first boyfriend was a shit boyfriend (he had two girlfriends at the same, me and some other girl) and stupid on top of that (he was boasting about it on Facebook and thought he could get away with it because we girls both don't have one- we both broke up with him. He's still sending pathetic texts begging to be forgiven, the arse), and I just couldn't get myself to write a happy ending. After that, I just kind-of forgot about it, and then there were exams, and volunteering, and classmates - after three years me thinking them silly and shallow as a puddle, and them thinking me an uppity ice-bitch-who turned out to be awesome but only after they discovered I wasn't actually an Ice-Queen with no feelings, and they threatened and insulted him for me ( I'm not a good cusser) and took me places with them (16 and my first time shopping NOT with my mother) to feel better,... I was busy,yeah? Sorry. And then, when it's finally summer and I have the time and ideas to write again, my charger broke (everything is on this tablet). Honest to god, I nearly cried. Anyway, my mother finally agreed to get me a new one. And then forgot about it for a good month and a half. But now I have one, and everything is MERTHUR BROMANCE and nothing hurts! Also, trailer for new season = LOVE!

OK, rant over. Cheers, loves, enjoy the chapter!

- MG

'Why isn't the castle preparing for an attack?', Sir Kay asked Gwaine, who had been riding in front of him, but was now riding next to him. Presently, the King and nearly all his Knights were riding quite calmly towards a large clearing a small distance away to meet a dragon. Well, when I say calmly- all Knights but those of the Round Table were antsy and nervous, unconsciously checking their armor and sword, ready for battle. Although one of the newer, low-born Knights, Kay had earned himself quite a reputation of bravery- which was why the other Knights had pushed him forwards to ask the question that was in all their minds. Obviously.

'Do you remember Merlin?' Gwaine asked back. Kay frowned, not understanding what he had to do with things. But as a matter of fact, he did.

'Merlin was impossible to forget! He'd seen before anyone else my sister was sick and alerted Gaius in time- saved her life, Gaius said, it'd nearly been too late to cure her. I suspect he dropped my name to Sir Leon, and got me a Knight's training. He was important to many of us in Camelot.'

'I understand that completely' Gwaine nodded, 'More than you know, really. I suspect Arthur will tell the court the whole story soon enough, but I will tell you this: he was a Dragonlord.' Kay nearly fell off his horse from the shock of it: 'What?!' Gwaine looked at him, amused.

'Have you never seen him sneaking around and suddenly a problem sorted itself out? Have you never wondered why he seemed so noble and experienced, so extraordinarily wise and powerful, when he thought no-one was looking? It was in his blood. He was born with magic and received his heritage when Balinor died. He has used both to protect Camelot ever since he arrived' ,the experienced Knight explained.

And something clicked for the young Knight, and memories of strange happenstances drifted to the forefront of his mind and were suddenly clarified.

'Still, I don't understand: the dragon?-'

'Has no ill intentions towards King Arthur, or Camelot, whatsoever', Gwaine replied. Kay scoffed, 'The last dragon-' '-Is', Gwaine interrupted again,'the same as this one and does not hate Camelot, at all'. Kay's frown betrayed his disbelief. As citizen of Camelot since birth, he had seen the Great Dragon's destruction and would swear like any other that the Great Dragon hated Camelot ( also, he thought Prince Arthur had killed it) .

Gwaine sighed and admitted: 'All right, he did hate Uther. Wouldn't you? Had you been locked up for twenty years, what would you do as soon as you got free?' Kay didn't need even a second to answer: 'Take revenge'. Gwaine nodded,

'And what better way to hurt a King, than hurt his Kingdom? Uther was not exactly a good King, but you and I both know he loved Camelot. That is why the Dragon attacked. Arthur, Merlin and the Knights went out to kill the dragon, but as they were both the last of their kind, Merlin couldn't kill the dragon. He offered him mercy and freedom outside Camelot's borders in return to the safety of every citizen of Camelot -well, actually, every human in Albion- and the Dragon realised his mistake. He gave advice to Merlin before he was released and has done it again after the confrontation. Like Merlin, he has been our secret saviour in hours of need. I've been told he even forged Excalibur for Arthur with his own breath. I hope I've given you enough information to understand why we're not worried.'

After these unusually wise and serious words, Gwaine left his side to ride more forward. Kay looked down at his horse's mane until the group reached the large clearing, thinking and - slowly but surely- changing his view of Camelot's recent history. And the more he did this, the less tense he became. He understood now. Merlin had been the farthest from evil you could get, and if Merlin had magic, then magic wasn't like King Uther used to say. Truthfully, very few in Camelot entirely believed all magic was bad. Most inhabitants of Camelot knew that Uther had sort of made the sorcerers attack them.

He was the only Knight not belonging to the Round Table who did not take a step back as the Great Dragon landed. He felt kind of proud of it, too.

'Good evening, Sire', the Great Dragon said and then he nodded to the others, 'Knights'. King Arthur nodded back, as the Knights of the Round table bowed.

'Good evening to you too, Kilgarrah. I hope you are well?'. Kilgarrah grinned, causing the Knights to shift because look. At. Those. Teeth. 'O', Kilgarrah said happily, 'I am much better now than I have been in a long while and I am certain that you will be, too, soon.' Arthur nodded, glad to hear that. He didn't let the riddle bother him too much, Gaius had told him about his cryptic talking style. He actually didn't sound so mysterious.

'How fares the young Aithusa? I was looking forward to finally meeting him.' 'He left a good two years ago, I haven't seen him since. Although I strongly suspect we will see him very soon.'

For some obscure reason the Dragon's eyes kept returning to a spot right next to Arthur's thigh, but he said none of it. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know why, exactly.

'I take it', Arthur said then, 'you have come here to celebrate the official lifting of the ban on magic in Camelot- though how you know is a mystery?' 'Mmmm', Kilgarrah answered smugly, 'That, too'. Puzzled, Arthur looked at his Knights, who shrugged back and shook their heads, then back: 'Then why are you here?' 'You must see so for yourself. I will take you- and you alone- to another clearing and you will be shown the reason for my presence.' ' Why can't you just tell me?' 'Because you will not believe until you have witnessed it with your own eyes.' Arthur was taken aback by this answer. What could possibly-? He took a deep breath and said:' Very well. I will come with you to the clearing. How will we get there?' In response, Kilgarrah merely smirked. Arthur swallowed.

'All right', Arthur said softly, sitting on Kilgarrah's ( whose left paw seemed to be wrapped around thin air- how strange, Arthur noticed) back, ' I've never flown before and my Knights are right there, so I'd appreciate it if you take it nice and slo- WOAAAH!'

As soon as they landed, Arthur slid off the Dragon's back. He swallowed a couple of times, gulped deep breaths and waited for his knees to stop trembling. Had the Great Dragon not been there, he would have been sorely tempted to sink to his knees. He had the distinct feeling the Dragon was silently laughing at him. Although no amusement was apparent as he said: 'I had thought you would take to it from the first flight, like Merlin' And again, his eyes shifted to the air next to him.

Arthur already knew that he wouldn't enjoy flying unless he had Merlin with him, because he was a Dragonlord after all and-

He hadn't felt it, Arthur realized with a start. The dull stab he usually felt when thinking about Merlin- it hadn't occurred. As a matter of fact, he hadn't felt it at the feast either. He should have- by the gods, he should have, especially with a protective shield looking so familiar. But he hadn't. As a matter of fact, he felt like he hadn't for a long time: not lonely. As if there was someone by his side, with a hand on his shoulder, whispering sweet nothings like you'll be all right, we'll be all right, it's going to be okay and meant it.

Now that Arthur was focused on what he was feeling, he noticed something else. 'Do you feel that?' he asked. The Dragon looked at him with an unsettling amount of surprise: 'You feel something?' The Dragon was acting strange, Arthur thought. It seemed strangely unsure of itself.

'There's wrongness in the air. Something bad happened nearby. An unnatural stillness attached to the earth. Like an ancient battlefield. It's long gone, but still ', he turned on his heels and pointed West, 'There.' 'Lead the way, then, My Lord', said the Dragon and it followed him, crashing through the trees, creating the only sound that could be heard in the silent forest.

As they neared the source of whatever was wrong, Arthur felt torn between the stillness of his surroundings and the not-loneliness in his heart. His uneasiness intensified with every step he took, untill it nearly overruled the imaginary warmth on his shoulder. As he advanced, the treelife became sicklier, and thinned. The undergrowth withered and died and there was nothing but row upon row of sickened trees. Eventually, even trees appeared dead with an increasingly alarming rate. There was no new life to be found.

Finally he came to a clearing where there was nothing at all, the air pregnant with wrongness. No tree, or bush, herb or flower stood, and even the grass had been swallowed by death and replaced by sand and barren stone. A perfect circle of wasteland and in it, under the pale moonlight, the remains of a large beast could be seen. When Arthur stepped closer hesitantly, he recognized it as belonging to the monster that took Merlin.

Anger and hatred, bitter as bile, rose in him as he looked down on the monster that had stolen his other half. This, this pathetic thing had taken what in moments of weakness had been his everything, had been his light in his darkest hours, his rock. All lost because of this. And it didn't even have the decency to give Arthur the satisfaction of killing it.

Some kind of magic had backfired on him and had caused his death and this destruction. It must have had to do with Merlin. If he had been indeed as powerful, his destiny as bound to the land as he was told, as he had learned from his secret lessons on magic... Sometimes sorcerers absorbed the power of the ones they defeated. When Merlin had killed Nimueh, he had received the power to Mirror Life and Death. Maybe the magical beast- for what other than magic could have withstood Merlin?- hadn't been able to take it and it had resulted in this. This devastation. It seemed fitting somehow: a dead scar in the King's land, as there was a scar in his heart.

He would have continued thinking like that if the Dragon hadn't crashed into the clearing behind him. He turned to him. 'Why am I here?' he hissed. There was no answer, merely a sigh from the Dragon. He kicked the remains of the beast in anger. He raised his voice and asked again: 'Why am I here? Why would you show me this- this cruelty? Is this your idea of punishment? A lesson, maybe: "This is the price of your failure"? Are you that cruel? Damn you, answer me!' The Great Dragon' s expression merely showed understanding and compassion, which angered Arthur even more: 'What?!' 'None of those, young King', Kilgarrah said calmly. 'I bring good news. The best of news, truthfully. I think', he suddenly mused ' it's better you lower your defenses. Show yourself. He can feel the magic. The change will work.' Arthur blinked. 'What?'

A loud, happy bark suddenly sounded next to him and Arthur jumped a foot in the air in surprise with a yelp. He jumped back and drew his sword. 'Show yourself!' he demanded and waved his sword threateningly at nothing in particular. 'Calm down, prat', something said fondly in his head. 'Was that-' ,he thought, 'Had that been-?'

The air in front of him rippled as you could sometimes see on a warm summer day, but in the shape of a dog. A very large dog. The air rippled again, and the dog-figure became more consistent, as if it was now a shadow. A third wave- the three ripples had taken less than a couple of seconds-and before him stood a large wolf, black-furred, blue-eyed, wolf-grinning. He recognized it as the wolf from his hallucination caused by the snowstorm, the wolf from the cave, his wolf. Hello, Arthur.

Excalibur fell from Arthur' s limp fingers, throwing up dirt as it landed. 'M-Merlin?' Arthur whispered no louder than his breath, desperately hoping, praying, begging- 'Yes.' A happy, strangled noise forced itself out of Arthur's throat and he threw himself forward with open arms. Merlin did so too, and they met in the middle and did not let go. Arthur dug his fingers in the soft, black fur like he had done before and buried his face in the space between Merlin's neck and shoulder, as Merlin buried his nose in Arthur's hair.

'You're alive', Arthur whispered, 'Gods, you're alive! I thought I'd dreamt it, your eyes in the cave, that I was going mad, but I wasn't, 'cause you're here and alive. Oh, Merlin, Merlin!' He let out a muffled laugh that didn't sound entirely sane, and broke and turned into a sob while he pulled the wolf closer and buried himself deeper in its warm fur. 'Please be alive, Merlin. Don't let me be mad, don't make this a dream, don't- don't be dead!'. His voice broke on the last word. 'Please!', he pleaded. The wolf whined softly and licked his ear. 'I'm not', Merlin soothed, 'I'm here, I'm real, Arthur. It's all right. It's going to be all right. I promise.' Arthur continued shifting between happily sobbing and desperately pleading in Merlin's fur for a while, while Merlin continued comforting him through it. When Arthur had finally calmed down enough he pulled back to look at Merlin-as-wolf. Then, quick as lightning, he hit Merlin on the head. Merlin growled. 'That's for dissappearing on me for a good two years, idiot.'

'Oh, right, because I could easily live in court as a wolf.' Merlin answered sarcastically. Arthur had to admit he had a point there. 'But why make us believe you were dead? I- I mean, Gwen and Gaius were heartbroken. Gwaine insulted me an awful lot of times.' Merlin had not missed the badly covered confession of heartbreak and looked on fondly. 'You would have been a stubborn ass, and tried to make it work anyway, or risked your life questing uselessly for a way to change it. I know you.' And he did, because that was what he was planning on doing anyway, until he realized- 'Uselessly? You mean there isn't a way to fix you? At all?' The warlock and the dragon exchanged glances. 'Well?' , he asked. 'Here' s the thing …', Merlin explained, as shortly as he could, his life since the Last Hunt.

'Hang on!', Arthur interrupted at the end, 'What would you need me for? You're the two most powerful magic beings, how could I possibly help?' ' Our destinies have always been one. Being together makes us stronger', Merlin answered, 'You didn't, by any chance notice a difference, somehow, inside?' Arthur's eyes widened. He had! The warmth, the strength, the absence of tension, the love. 'That's mydestiny?!' , he asked. Merlin nodded. ' That's our destiny', he said. Arthur hadn't been this deliriously happy in a long time.

It was ridiculously easy, in the end.

They sat on the bare forest floor, eyes closed, connected to each other- hand on fur, paw on claw, claw on shoulder. They taught Arthur his line, which he studied diligently until it flowed off his tongue, and told him to concentrate on the feeling of destiny and images of Merlin, as they each recited their line.