Standard Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin. I'm just playing in the BBC's sandbox.
After about a hundred years of waiting Merlin was reunited with her. That fateful day was just like any other; the waters of the lake still as glass, the sky a light shade of grey, the trees sighing softly in the breeze and he alone with his thoughts, his memories and his pain – often so intermingled he rarely bothered to distinguish between them. By mere coincidence he was reflecting on the Great Dragon when she stepped from the shadow of a great oak and lowered her muzzle to sup the clear water, blinking painfully at the exposure to light. He recognised her at once; though she was much larger than when he'd seen her last, that limp was impossible to mistake. He stood, ignoring the creak of his age-wearied bones, and spoke in a voice that rumbled like thunder.
"Dragon. Come here."
Aithusa flinched as if she'd been branded and turned hunted eyes upon her Dragonlord, furious that she had no choice but to obey his ringing command. She hobbled carefully towards him and stopped a good ten feet away, her lips twitching as she sought control of a growl. Slowly, carefully, Merlin knelt before her and extended his hand.
"Aithusa."
She eyed him coolly but made no response … as if she could. Merlin could see from the faint scars spiderwebbing her frail frame that the Sarrum's torture methods had been chillingly precise; he remembered sometimes waking, feverish, in his bed in Camelot to the sting of a wound that was not his and the cry of a tortured soul bound irrevocably with the one who had summoned it. Aithusa had been robbed so cruelly of so much, and abandoned by so many, that she was but a ghost of the bright dragonling Merlin had released from that hard-won egg; a mere shadow of what she should have symbolised for Albion. Fate, it seemed, had been unkind to them both.
The warlock released a shaky, pained breath and dragged a hand down his face, feeling the scratching of his salt-and-pepper beard. "Aithusa, I'm sorry."
The dragoness blinked and rumbled at him, the sound cascading about her chest like waves upon a troubled shore. Then her eyes softened and she lowered herself onto her belly, resting her head on her right front paw whilst keeping the crippled left one out at an angle. Merlin found himself comparing it to a sultana; shrivelled and pathetic in comparison to what it could have been if left well enough alone, a grape hanging proud on a flourishing vine. The kindled in him fresh remorse and suddenly he could not meet the dragoness' anguished gaze.
"Do you miss her?" he asked, surprising himself. Aithusa blinked at him. "Morgana, I mean. Because I miss her." With a sigh he angled his head so he could look out over Avalon, and see the snowy caps of the grim, distant mountains. "Who she used to be, I mean. But then again I miss them all. There are so many who died in that war … so many who needn't have." He met Aithusa's gaze afresh, with renewed conviction. "Maybe we are not so different as we might think."
Aithusa blinked slowly and solemnly, which Merlin took as a request to speak of the dragons – the species to which she belonged and yet, somewhere along the path, had been irrevocably excluded from. The warlock sat back and lit a fire with his magic; in the hours to come he and Aithusa would take turns reigniting it whenever it showed signs of fading. He started to speak, to tell Aithusa of Kilgharrah, her once-guardian, though he'd never understood how or why the Great Dragon had turned his back on his ward … apparently, neither did she. He spoke of the first time he met to the beast in the bowels of Camelot, his frustration with the endless parade of riddles, his anger when Kilgharrah had offered instead Hunith's life for Arthur's. At the mention of his mother Merlin's throat closed up and he found himself unable to keep going, but as if sensing his discord Aithusa extended her neck to bump Merlin's hand with her snout, granting him access to a thousand sensations, a thousand memories, that flooded into him like water down a parched canyon.
He saw Kilgharrah's mountain refuge, felt the knobbled rock under his paws, smelt the smoky residue that clung to the Great Dragon's scales like an aura. He experienced the day Aithusa and Morgana met, saw their shy bond develop into something meaningful, felt the sightless agony of the dark well and the trembling press of Morgana's mortal, weakened body. The rest was a shapeless blur of blood and bitterness and the witch's face, intermingled with sensations of confusion and regret and aching loss that physically stabbed at Merlin's heart. Aithusa couldn't understand why she'd been singled out for such suffering, to lose the sacred touch of everything she held dear, and just wanted to know that it all hadn't been for nothing. Rather like her Dragonlord in a way.
The sun crept across the sky and vanished, to be replaced by the moon and in due course reappear. Aithusa and Merlin slept together on the banks of the lake, their heads but inches apart, and when he shivered she dropped a soft wing over him to stay the chill of the night. When the cool light of dawn made a mirror of the timeless water she rose and hobbled away from him, apparently struck by the urge to keep moving. Merlin had sensed her discord the night before and didn't begrudge her her freedom … she deserved it after all she'd been through. So instead he lifted a hand to her as she took off, sweeping into the sky like a sprite and vanishing against the glare of a fluffy white cloud.
o~O~o
Then, about fifty years later, she returned.
Just as before she stepped from the shadow of the oak, eyes darting suspiciously about, but this time went straight to Merlin and perched on her haunches at the edge of his camp. She had grown again, though her crippled leg had not; it was now so withered it actually hung in mid-air, the bones distorted and bent out of shape. Just seeing the old injury made Merlin's stomach twist, but he did not allow it to interfere. He bowed to Aithusa, who inclined her head in return, and without prompting he began to speak of other things he'd neglected to mention the first time around.
He spoke of the Dragonlords and their lineage, of his father and how proud he was to carry his legacy. Somehow the one-sided conversation turned to Gaius and all the elderly physician had ever done for him … Merlin avoided mentioning the old man's death, for it had come soon after Arthur's and had been the impetus for his irrevocable exile from Camelot. From there he mentioned Guinevere and her kind spirit, the old Morgana's passionate fire and, with a wry chuckle, the time Uther had gone bald. He spoke of books he'd read and spells he'd learned; a few he even demonstrated for Aithusa over the lake, for he'd had little cause to practice them over the intervening years and did so now with relish. She watched everything carefully but showed very little emotion until Merlin conjured a dragon from the smoke of their campfire. Only then did her eyes widen and she strain to reach the shadowy relic of her kin, letting loose a miserable whimper when the Last Dragonlord allowed the spell to fade. Troubled, he spent the night whittling a charm for her, and come morning he halted her inevitable departure long enough to tie the trinket onto a length of cloth – a strip torn from his red neckerchief – which he looped it around her good foreleg, a sign of his well wishes for her.
Aithusa accepted the gift graciously and touched Merlin's head with her snout by means of response before whirling to face the water and taking to the sky as she had before. The warlock watched her go without regret, but felt a slight pang of impending loneliness. How long would he sit by the lake, alone, until she returned? Would Arthur had risen in the time would take her to return? With a sigh he picked up another block of wood and began shaping it to match the image he'd formed in his mind's eye. Somehow, he knew he'd be waiting a lot longer for that eventuality to play out than he would the dragon's return … but still …
o~O~o
Merlin had developed quite a collection of wooden statues when Aithusa next returned, but had no time to show any of them to her as, brimming with excitement, she pushed aside his courteous salutations to nuzzle his open palm with the flat of her snout. Into him washed the familiar flood of sensations, but this time they were spiced with the foreignness of other countries. Aithusa had travelled widely in the fifty years they'd been apart, to the furthest corners of the globe on a great pilgrimage, and had even discovered a mythical place where proud people with tanned skin actually worshipped the dragons. Though her kin there were much longer of body than she herself was, and had whiskers and fur in the place of scales, Aithusa had revelled in their presence and lingered there much longer than she'd intended. Merlin watched on with a proud smile, glad that his one companion – infrequent, but companion nonetheless – had found a place where she was welcome. Aside from the shore of Avalon, that was.
As usual Aithusa stayed with him through the night, her large body – at least half the size of Kilgharrah's now – silhouetted proudly against the starry vista, and departed just after dawn … but not before Merlin secured another trinket to her leg, which now carried a sigil from the distant empire she'd visited; two half-circles melded around one another with a dot of the opposite colour plonked dead in the centre of their own respective hemispheres. Proudly, Merlin rubbed Aithusa's shoulder and watched as she took again to the skies. Then he settled back down into his whittling, reflecting sadly that it had been two centuries now since he'd last heard Arthur's supercilious voice.
o~O~o
Aithusa's absence was prolonged this time; two hundred years elapsed before Merlin saw her again. He'd grown old in her absence, now sporting an impressive snowy beard that reached almost to his belly-button, though his eyes had yet to lose their youthful light. The world around him had changed; towns and villages where previously there had been none now encroached on his sacred forest, and he'd been forced to move into the shadow of the oak from which Aithusa had first emerged. In the dead of night she returned to him, but he could tell immediately that something was wrong.
Her body eclipsed the moon as she landed heavily before him, her hindquarters submerged in the chill water, but she made no move to reach her Dragonlord, instead allowing her forelegs to crumple from under her. He ambled to her side as fast as his creaky bones would allow and rested his hands on her face, watching her eyelids flutter painfully. She moaned, and into that sound she projected the agony of a thousand hurts, ten thousand times what she'd experienced with Sarrum. Concerned, Merlin rested the palm of his hand on the flat of her snout and allowed her to speak to him through her memories.
He saw Kilgharrah's hideout, now intruded upon by weeds and dirt, and to his surprise a second dragon so close in resemblance to Merlin's old mentor he thought for a moment the beast yet breathed. But no; the dragon from Aithusa's memory had youth yet in his bones, and whenever Aithusa came near he nuzzled up against her like a cat. Time passed in a whirl of sound and colour, and Merlin saw a clutch of eggs nestled between Aithusa's feet. His heart leapt but it was not to be so; a splash of time later and the eggs were destroyed, the hunters dancing around them whilst Aithusa and her mate howled at the sky. Shame curdled hot and strong in Aithusa beneath the roaring inferno of her anger as she slew the men, but not before one of them stabbed her mate through the heart. She stayed with the male while he died, then ventured on, bitter in the knowledge that now she was truly the last of her kind. She remained airborne for several days, devoid of the will to live, before her strength gave out and she returned to Merlin. The last image she impressed on him was that she didn't want to be left alone … not again, not here, not now.
As the illusion faded tears sprang hot to the warlock's eyes. He knew what was happening; he could feel Aithusa's fading heart beneath her strong scales while the magic of the earth, so dim compared to what it used to be, pulled away steadily at her life-force. She, his sole companion the world over, was dying.
Merlin was no stranger to death, but being in its vicinity again haunted him terribly. He remembered all those who had died for him and for Camelot; Will, Freya, Balinor, Lancelot, Isolde, Elyan, Gwaine … Arthur. The latter's face haunted him especially, and Merlin heard afresh the man's dying words. "Thank you. Thank you …"
He stayed with Aithusa as the life bled from her, speaking quietly of all those he had loved and who had, in return, loved him. She rumbled continuously throughout, glad to have found one steady companion who would care for her wellbeing, and as dawn broke she slipped gladly into eternal rest; free at last from all her worldly cares. With tears dribbling into his beard Merlin pulled her good leg free from the water and untied the anklet, stowing it roughly in his pocket. Then he stepped back and set Aithusa alight, watching as the element she had wielded in life claimed her tired body at last. He stayed by the lake for a long time, balancing on the balls of his feet, until he spied a party from a nearby village come to collect water, and deemed it correct to vanish into the shadows of the trees. So this he did, but not before turning back to the water one last time and lifting a hand in farewell, as he had done to salute the lonely dragoness as she'd flown from his camp all those long, painful years ago.
"Farewell, Aithusa … my last Light of the Sun."
o~O~o
A/N:
I was a little disappointed with how the writers treated Aithusa this season. Kilgharrah made her out to be this wonderful thing for Albion, and while I thought having her betray Merlin was a good plot twist I seriously can't believe that they just allowed her story to anticlimax. What was the point of her, then, writers? According to legend the red dragon (Kilgharrah, though he's more a brown colour) was supposed to kill the white one; that was one aspect I was actually looking forward to watching play out. I could have dealt with it if we'd at least found out what became of Aithusa instead of being left to stumble in the shadows of the loopholes … as you can tell, this is my version of what happened to her. I really do feel sorry for the poor thing, but come on BBC … just COME ON.
As the disclaimer states above I don't own Merlin or the cover picture, but any reviews would be heartily appreciated. And as for my last story (A Thousand Years) … wow. Just wow. The ones I've received thus far have been incredible, and it was lovely to be so warmly welcomed into the world of fanfiction. Well, it worked, because now I'm here to stay … *cue the Morgana smirk*. Until next time fellow Merlinians ...