I know, I know, I have two or three other stories that need work. I don't need to be distracted by some epic… well, epic. Except I couldn't help it. You see, I sometimes just sit there typing nonsense while thinking, and when I tuned in again I found myself starting a story with a dragon's irritated opinion and couldn't help but follow through.
I have no idea how long this will be. I do know where I'm going with it, which is somewhat unusual. It's tied in to my other two stories but you don't need to read them to understand this. Also, I have taken liberties with Balthazar's past, since we know absolutely nothing about it. If I am proved wrong at a later date, this will be labeled AU.
Also, I have neither the creativity nor research capabilities to be era-appropriate. I'll try to avoid using modern phrases, but I can promise nothing.
Disclaimer: me no own.
#
The dragon, not that anyone ever thought to ask, was named Tr'Arlth. It was a harder name to pronounce than its human spelling led one to think. He lived a long and fairly eventful life, as dragons are wont. He had already gone through his third shedding, a bit past the prime of his life, the day that child-sorcerer wandered into his world.
Dragons normally savor the death of a sorcerer- the only humans who could lord over them- and Tr'Arlth was no exception. This one smelled of the Mur'lynn, that which was most powerful of their hated kind, and Tr'Arlth had known it to be important to that one. Had he managed to kill it, he would have been a hero amongst his foundering race.
Had he managed to kill it, he would have unknowingly changed the fate of everything, for the boy would have a hand in the saving of the world on more than one occasion. That came later, though, when he was tired and jaded and resigned to dying for the love of a woman instead of at the behest of some grand cause.
Once upon a time the mighty Balthazar Blake, keeper of the Grimhold, sealer of Morgana, Merlin's last- and, some dared to whisper, greatest- student, was nothing more than a mere apprentice. And the smart man fears the mischief of the sorcerer's apprentice more than the magic of the sorcerer.
#
There was something inherently cool about hanging out with sorcerers, Becky Barnes had discovered. Even if her boyfriend's spells failed more often than they succeeded, even if he was in fact something of a hazard to be around, there was still his teacher- she had a very hard time accepting the antiquated idea of apprenticeship, although Dave himself seemed to have no objections- and his teacher's girlfriend.
There was a parade of cardboard boxes scooting along, hovering an inch off the ground, and Becky was doing homework while sitting cross-legged on an armchair adhered to the wall five feet up in an attempt to get it out of the way. How was that not incredible?
Balthazar himself wandered along, sipping at something that smelled like chamomile, watching his handiwork distractedly. She had only ever seen him give his full attention to Dave's magic lessons and Veronica, and she was grateful for the reprieve; he was an intense man, easily intimidating her even though she knew he wouldn't hurt a fly.
"Do you want down?" he asked abruptly, glancing briefly at her. He had asked earlier, once he realized she was there, about two minutes after he'd put the chair on the wall.
"I'm fine," she said reassuringly, and she was- intimidating or not, she instinctively knew she could trust him. Dave called it the Merlinian effect and considered it to be an extreme aggravation.
As if summoned by her thoughts, Dave himself charged through the front door, dodging Balthazar with the hard-earned grace of the terminally clumsy. He knocked into two boxes and sent their contents flying, swinging his backpack in counterbalance to his own wild careening, babbling excuses for his lateness. It took a full eight seconds before he stopped dead in his tracks and turned to regard them, Becky in her chair on the wall and Balthazar calmly sipping his tea as though his hurricane of an apprentice hadn't just made one of his typical entrances.
"Uh, what is this?" he asked, bewildered.
"She's helping me, just like I asked," Balthazar replied smoothly, and Becky instantly liked him all the more for being tactful enough to not say she's staying out of the way, just like I wanted.
"I was wondering if you still had this," a voice said behind Dave. All three watched as Veronica, who had knelt down to sort through the stuff spilled out of the boxes, picked up what looked like a piece of ivory. As she straightened, Becky got a better look at it and revised her theory.
"Is that a crocodile tooth?" she asked, confused; if it was, she didn't want to see the mouth it came from. It was cylindrical, tapering to a point, as long as an unsharpened pencil and wide as three fingers at the base, slowly curving up to its wickedly sharp end with just a touch of serration. Something with a mouthful of teeth like that could swallow a human in one and a half bites.
"Close enough," Balthazar said, sounding not at all like his normal unhurried, absentminded self. He was as bad a liar as he claimed Dave to be, in his own way. Becky wasn't quite brave enough to call him out on it.
Fortunately, others were. "Oh, really," Veronica shot back challengingly, rolling the tooth in her hand. "The mighty Balthazar Blake, dragon slayer, is ashamed of his moment of triumph?"
"Dragon slayer?" Dave echoed.
"I didn't slay any dragons, Veronica," Balthazar said to her, trying to regain control of the conversation. Unfortunately for him, that simply wasn't happening.
"And without his magic, no less," Veronica added, and Balthazar visibly gave up. He unsubtly scoped out the exits and began to drift towards the front door.
The chair Becky was in slowly descended- no telling which one of them did that, so she didn't bother saying thanks- and she hopped off, stepping around the boxes and into the living room.
It had been Dave's suggestion that the two ancient sorcerers move in together, mostly to get Balthazar out of his lab. Two weeks, a torturous three days of house hunting, and several meltdowns later, here they were on moving day, abandoning their responsibilities to sit in a circle and gossip like teenage girls.
The couch was already in the living room, so they settled down on it. Becky held herself at a respectful distance from Veronica- one might think that, as the two girls, they would bond instantly, but there was more than a thousand years difference between the two, and they came from opposite cultures. The sorceress wasn't necessarily unfriendly, quite the opposite in fact, but there was simply very little for them to bond over.
Dave held out his hand and Veronica dropped the tooth in his palm. He carefully rolled it in his palm, touching a finger gently to the tip. "This is a real dragon tooth?"
"Mm hm," Veronica nodded, watching Balthazar lean against the living room doorframe. "A true dragon, from before they died out. They were already supposed to have been extinct even before I was born."
Balthazar made a noise like a snort. All three paused to look at him. Realizing he was encouraging the madness, he dipped his head and backed away into the hallway.
"Why would he be ashamed at having beat a dragon?" Becky asked, studying the tooth. It looked even larger up close, and she shivered to think of a young Balthazar facing off against its owner.
"He didn't beat it so much as outsmart it, which honestly wasn't all that difficult," Veronica answered. "Dragons were straightforward thinkers, and anyone with an ounce of cleverness could get the better of them. The problem was in surviving to tell the tale."
"Are you going to tell them or just confuse them?" Balthazar demanded, and Veronica pinned him with her will-tolerate-no-crap glare.
"Would you rather tell them?" she asked frostily, and he backed off again. After a moment, content that he wasn't going to interrupt, she nodded once and turned her attention back to the two kids.
"It started when we were children. Balthazar was youngest and newest of the three apprentices, and we judged him harshly for it. He was the orphan of a simple farmer, you see, happily sold by his brother to a fate unknown, while Maxim and I were both from high-born families and given to Merlin to train at only a few months of age."
Becky felt her eyebrows rise. She leaned over to see into the hallway, where the farmer's orphan was sitting, sorting through the boxes and ignoring the conversation. No wonder he didn't like broadcasting his history, if this was how it started.
"I freely admit we treated him poorly," Veronica added sadly. "Merlin was wise enough not to get involved, for we would have seen that as favoritism, and Balthazar was clever enough to keep his head down and stay away from us. He never felt the need to prove himself to us, save for that one time.
"We were your age, or thereabouts, when Merlin left on one of his trips. We were old enough then, and tolerated each other well enough, that he felt it was safe." She paused, shook her head. "He should have known better. Balthazar had just mastered a difficult spell days before we had, and our resentment had reached a new height. There were rumors, you see, amongst the local villagers that a farmer's son was a better sorcerer than a pair of nobles' children. Maxim heard them, and he got very angry, and then he began to plan…"
.
Balthazar twisted the sack around expertly, tying a looping knot in the top and dropping it on the table next to the others. Merlin was perfectly capable of handling this himself, but he was of the opinion that having apprentices meant his days of menial labor were over.
"And you're certain you have to leave now?" the young man asked, cautious. He didn't want to come out and say it, didn't need to. His old master gave him a reassuring smile.
"Yes, I am," he said simply, one hand resting briefly on Balthazar's shoulder before he moved away. Balthazar watched him stop and gaze out the window. There was a gathering darkness that hung over the north like a storm front. Merlin had been watching it far longer than his apprentices had known it was there.
Veronica came bustling into the room, causing both men to turn. She had a long cloak whose frayed hems had been repaired. Merlin gave her the womanly chores, so the two boys didn't dare breathe a word of complaint around her. There was nothing more frustrating and humbling than a sorceress-apprentice of Merlin having to do sewing and cooking merely because she was female.
The one time someone else had dared treat her like a normal woman- the son of a noble, just passing through- he had woken up the following morning to find all his clothes had shrunk overnight and were now too small for him. Maxim and Balthazar alike knew better than to allow him to borrow some.
"I'll be gone a month, perhaps two," their master said, taking the cloak with a nod of thanks. "Try not to kill each other, or burn down the tower."
The former was a common farewell for Merlin. The latter was somewhat newer, having been picked up after he'd returned a year or so ago to find the tower smoking and his soot-smudged apprentices sitting sullen and quiet in front of it. In a rare display of unity, all three had stubbornly refused to point fingers.
They followed him down the stairs, winding their way through the tower. Maxim was conspicuously absent, but then he was upset at being left behind; a few weeks ago, before the foul wind had started blowing, Merlin had promised to take him on this trip. He had rescinded the offer the day before and now Maxim was sulking.
For all that he looked old as the earth itself, Merlin was strong and hale; he slung himself easily onto the back of his big gray gelding. Balthazar, who had always had a way with animals, scratched the horse between the eyes and was nearly knocked off his feet as the big beast sighed and butted its head against his shoulder. Veronica stood at Merlin's side, handing up the sacks and helping him tie them on the saddle.
"Take care of each other," he added grimly, which was new. The two apprentices exchanged confused looks, silently asking each other if he actually thought they would.
Then they stepped back as the big gray, light on his feet and ready to run, half-bolted out the doors and onto the plains beyond. His joyful whinny echoed in the courtyard. Balthazar watched until they were nothing more than a smudge on the green fields. Then he turned and headed into the tower, not sparing Veronica a glance as she did the same.
Merlin or no, they had work to do.
#
Not far away, in the village pub, a young man sat wide-eyed, listening to the talk ebb and flow around him. In some distant corner of his mind, a crystalline rage was forming. After a long few minutes he stood, pulling his hood over his head so the commonfolk wouldn't identify him, and walked out.
He had a rival to deal with.