Hello, everybody! This is just a (kind of) short story that I have been working on for awhile now, and finally completed.

This story is based off of a beautiful piece of fanart, done by the lovely and talented Whimsycatcher. You can view the artwork here, just remove the + signs:

whimsycatcher. + tumblr. + com + /post/107113264438

Thank you for reading, and enjoy!

~Ra1n

And destiny began with a single name, whispered late on that fateful night.

"Arthur."

The prince jumped and twisted in his chair to glance around the chamber that he knew to be empty, his fingers playing against the hilt at his hip. He knew he didn't need the sword in his own chambers, but he had reached the point that he didn't feel safe without it. There had been too many attacks, too many close calls, for him to be vulnerable. Even in his own room. Uther had even stopped the employment of personal servants in an attempt to instill a semblance of safety within the castle's walls. No newcomers in, no newcomers out. Nobody could be trusted for too long; the castle staff was highly selected and on a rotating schedule. And now Arthur was alone in the middle of the night, without even a lousy servant to help him.

"Arthur."

Arthur's eyes widened; the voice was low and very much inside of Arthur's head. His grip tightened on his blade. The only other time he had ever heard a voice in his head was four months ago, when a rogue sorcerer possessed a knight and attempted to kill Arthur and the king by driving them all to insanity. At that time, the voice had been the knight's, but this voice was entirely unfamiliar.

"Arthur!"

The voice was growing more agitated, but Arthur wasn't so sure he wanted to answer it. It was then that Arthur realized it was a man speaking, and he wondered why he hadn't noticed the gender before.

"Pendragon!"

It was the undertone, Arthur realized, standing up from his desk and taking a few tentative steps towards his door. The undertone was like a child, like a frightened peasant boy shouting inside of Arthur's head. That… and something else. The voice echoed a little too much, like metal ringing in its sheath, heavy iron scales clicking and reverberating together in the dark. It made the voice sound off, as if it wasn't entirely there, wasn't entirely human. A few more changes and it would be all too easy to interpret its words as just meaningless noise.

Arthur jumped when the voice suddenly hissed, like a snake, but deeper and more guttural. There might have been some words in there as well, but they were too garbled to recognize. Arthur understood the meaning, however:

Move.

Arthur unsheathed his sword fully and unlocked his door. It would be a trick, as it always was. Magic of any kind was always a trick; he'd learned ages ago. His father, combined with experience, had taught him well enough to recognize a magical trap, and hissing voices in one's head was a sure sign that something was amiss.

With his sword out in front of him, Arthur made it into the hallway and twirled around, taking in the castle from every direction.

Nobody. There was nobody.

The voice in his head rattled wetly. It might have been laughing, Arthur thought, though it was a wholly unpleasant noise either way. He did not like when people laughed at him, even if they were evil sorcerers in his head.

"Come along, prince."

Arthur glared at the wall for want of an actual figure to glare at before moving further down the hall.

"Who are you?" He asked out loud, but there was no response. Arthur walked further down the hall, trying to ease the heavy intrusion that filled the space between his ears.

As he moved away from his room, however, the presence in his mind seemed to change. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. There wasn't any volume, exactly, as his thoughts were roughly the same volume at any given time, but there was definitely something different. It was more like… a changing frequency. Like dowsing for water with an elm rod, but instead of the twigs twitching, it was his consciousness. He wasn't sure how he knew that he was going in the right direction, but whenever he felt the tension in his mind grow taut, he moved. In this manner, he staggered down the hallway like a drunkard, his sword still raised in front of him.

He followed a twisted path through the castle, doubling back a few times when he took a wrong turn and was informed none-too-gently:

"Wrong."

At each corner, Arthur spun and slashed, expecting a sorcerer or creature to come flying at him, weapons gleaming. And at every corner, he was met with another empty corridor and the strange, wet laugh of the voice inside his head.

When the voice laughed for the umpteenth time, Arthur spoke out loud again.

"Do you think you could be a bit more useful?" He muttered into the castle's night air. The laughter abruptly stopped to hiss once more, and Arthur swore he heard the word ass somewhere in the noise. Oh. So the voice could hear him. He rolled his eyes and leaned against one of the castle walls, sliding his sword back into its sheath.

"Look," he said to the empty hallway, "If you want to kill me, or possess me, or exact your revenge on my father in some way, do you think you could speed it up? I would like to sleep at some point tonight."

The voice in his mind seemed to sigh in exasperation. This time, the word ass was clearly audible. Arthur felt the presence probe him to move again. He kept his feet firmly on the floor, refusing its wishes.

"Do I even know you?" Arthur asked when the presence brushed against his mind again.

"Ah…" the voice sighed, "I'm-"

"So I don't know you," Arthur cut in. The voice was silent for a moment. Arthur waited.

"...No," It said at last, "but-"

"And yet you feel entitled to barge into my mind in the middle of the night and lead me about the castle?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation, and somehow this made Arthur angrier.

"Look," he said, "I don't know who you think you are, but I am the king's son, and I am not going to be ordered around by something as stupid as a voice inside my head. If you want a fight, you will do it on my terms." He absently slid the sword from its sheath again and spun it through the air a few times. It was a habit he had developed as a child, back when he and Morgana would play-duel in the courtyard.

He waited for a response. Sorcerers were cowardly, and he had no doubt that it would flee once he confronted it. When the voice remained silent, Arthur smirked.

"Good choice," he said, sliding the sword once again into its sheath and crossing his arms, "After all, I've been trained to kill since birth."

He turned back to his chambers

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Arthur jumped, then laughed. The voice was back. "Why? What are you going to do to me, O Disembodied Voice? Talk me to death?"

The presence didn't respond, and Arthur knew he had won. Spinning on his heel, he turned towards his chambers, and-

He had to catch himself on a nearby wall when the thing in his mind suddenly dug into his thoughts and tugged, sending him stumbling a few feet down the hallway. He pressed a hand to his head.

"What are-"

Another tug, and Arthur was sent reeling, the side of a windowsill the only thing keeping him from crashing to his knees.

"You have no idea."

A headache suddenly split the space between Arthur's ears as he collapsed against the wall again. He clenched his jaw and his hand went to his sword. The voice laughed again, but this time it was more maniacal, screaming in his ears and roaring through his skull.

"Do you think you can disarm me with mere blows, Pendragon?"

Arthur dropped his hands from his sword and pressed them over his ears, trying to block out the noise and the pain.

"Believe me when I tell you, I can take you apart with less than that measly sword. Just try me."

The howling intensified.

"Stop!" Arthur gasped as he felt the voice readying itself for another tug, "Stop! I'll follow, just stop!"

The voice froze mid-strike. Arthur's vision stopped tilting. The ringing in his ears died down. For a few seconds, he just stood there, hugging the wall as his head throbbed.

"Give me one good reason why I should follow you," he breathed.

"Funny, I thought I had already given you a good one."

The ringing began again.

"Alright, alright!" Arthur grasped the wall again. "I'll follow," he panted, suddenly exhausted. The pain retreated. In its place once again was the weight of the voice, twitching in the back of his skull. Arthur took a shaky step, then another, slowly bringing himself away from the wall. If following a disembodied voice was the only way to keep his pride and possibly his sanity, then so be it. He took a few hesitant steps down the hall, then a few more, and soon he fell into a sort of pattern.

As Arthur moved further into the castle, he found that the voice began to settle, finding a comfortable space in his mind to curl up and watch. It became less of an uncomfortable twitch and more of an almost friendly nudge in the right direction as he approached a set of dark stairs.

He hesitated at the top. The staircase was designated to servants, and Arthur wasn't sure if he'd ever explored it during his escapades with Morgana as a child. Indeed, the steps seemed to descend endlessly into the dark below, and Arthur could recognize the moldy, tepid smell of the dungeons wafting up the steps as he stood.

The voice perked up and Arthur knew it didn't like him stopping. He took one step down. The passageway was cold and unlit, and his hands scrabbled along the walls until he felt the handle of a torch. The second he touched it, the piece of splintery wood leapt into flames. Arthur hissed and drew his hand back in surprise.

The voice laughed again. Arthur rolled his eyes and took the torch from the wall.

"Shut up."

It didn't listen.

Shaking his head, he lifted the torch higher and shuffled down a few more steps. The darkness was thicker the deeper he went down, and he found himself choking on the cobwebs that the weak torchlight failed to illuminate.

"Hey, Voice," he called when he tripped over a dim landing, "Could you perhaps stop laughing at me for just a moment? I can't see a bloody thing and I need to concentr-"

The landing abruptly filled with light. Arthur froze, the now-useless torch still flickering in his hand.

"...Thanks," he muttered, not entirely comfortable with the display. The light had an odd bluish tint to it, and it took Arthur only a moment to locate its source: A strange, flickering orb that bobbed inches away from the ceiling as Arthur moved.

"You're welcome."

He rolled his eyes and began to douse the torch.

"I don't recommend that."

Arthur glanced up. "And why not? I have a light now."

The bluish orb bobbed a few times, then dimmed.

"Just listen to me, Pendragon."

Arthur let the torch be. "Fine," he said, beginning to walk again. The orb bounced slightly ahead of him, casting flickering shadows across the stone walls and steps. The stench of the dungeons grew stronger. Arthur wrinkled his nose, tightened his grip on his torch, and continued walking.

Two flights of stairs later, the smell of the dungeons had thickened until it was practically a tangible force, pressing Arthur backwards. He didn't think he'd ever experienced the dungeons like this. As he made it the bottom of the last flight of stairs, he leaned to the side and gagged.

"God, it smells like something died down here," Arthur choked, his hands on his knees. It was worse than the usual mildew and mold; it was the scent of decay, of things left to fester in the dark. "What did you do?"

The voice scoffed. Or... at least Arthur thought it scoffed. It might have coughed, or laughed, or choked on its own...whatever a disembodied voice could choke on.

"At least you don't have to live in it."

Arthur started at that. "Live in it?" He repeated. The voice lived somewhere? And that somewhere was in the Camelot dungeons? "You live down here?"

The voice let out a low grumble.

"Yes, well, live is a relative term..."

"Enlighten me."

The voice writhed inside of his skull for a moment, and as Arthur put a hand to the nearest wall to steady himself, he got the distinct impression that it wasn't comfortable talking about this.

"Hello?" he said when it settled again but didn't speak. "Are you still there?"

"Yes."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Then are you going to answer my question?"

Another moment of silence, then:

"It was never my choice, Pendragon. You shall see."

The voice suddenly seemed less human again, and Arthur realized that, at some point during the strange journey, he'd started to feel almost comfortable with it. But not now. Now it sounded every bit as inhuman as it had the first time he had heard it.

"Be more vague. I dare you."

The words slipped out before Arthur really knew what he was saying, and the voice hissed again, angrily. Arthur wondered briefly if poking the proverbial bear was such a good idea while it seemed to have control of your head, but the thought vanished rather quickly when Arthur's next step brought him to the bottom of the stairs and the blue orb vanished.

Arthur was suddenly very grateful that the voice had told him to keep his torch; the dungeons were midnight-black otherwise.

"Keep moving."

The voice sounded slightly annoyed and very excited, something that made Arthur feel uneasy. He reached for his blade.

"I'd prefer if you don't do that, actually. Swords make me uncomfortable."

Arthur nearly laughed at that. "Oh, do they?" He pulled the weapon out, "You don't like that? Well, I don't like sorcerers crashing about in my head."

"Please, put it away."

"No."

Arthur knew he sounded like a petulant child, but he couldn't help it. He was tired and frustrated and slightly dizzy.

What he didn't expect was for the voice to respond back with an equally childish, "Yes," that nearly made Arthur laugh.

"And I'm not a sorcerer."

That did make Arthur laugh, "Then what are you?"

Silence. Then, "Keep moving."

Arthur obeyed, but he kept his sword out.

He'd only taken a few more shuffling steps down the dim corridor when he ran into something unexpected. The dungeon floor sloped suddenly downward, and Arthur felt his boots grip the damp rocks.

"Come."

The voice prompted, and Arthur hesitated. The floor descended into darkness, and there was no telling what he was walking into.

"I will not harm you, Pendragon. I give you my word. Come."

Arthur laughed. "A sorcerer's word means very little to me."

"I'm not a sorcerer."

The prince rolled his eyes. "Right. You're something else," he muttered, but began to move again anyway, holding the torch out in front of him.

"Careful, young prince."

"Oh, now you care for my wellbeing?"

The voice fell silent. Arthur took a few more unsteady steps.

"What are you planning on doing with me, then?"

"Keep walking."

"I am the crowned prince. I order you to tell me."

"Nice try."

Arthur laughed. "You can't talk to me like that."

The voice snorted.

"Fine. Nice try… my lord."

Arthur's brows rose in surprise. His toe caught on a crack in the floor and he took a moment to regain his balance. He hadn't suspected the voice was capable of sarcasm, and there was another long stretch of silence as Arthur tried to navigate the dungeons in the flickering torchlight.

"Hey, not-sorcerer. Do you think you could summon that orb thing again?"

The darkness seemed to nearly douse his torch entirely.

"That, I cannot do."

"And why not?"

"Because of your blasted father."

Arthur froze. Of course it was about his father. When was it not?

"My father?"

There was a pause, then a disgruntled,

"Yes."

The prince smiled. Now they were getting somewhere.

"And what did my father do to you?"

"No more questions. You shall see."

"You already said that," Arthur pointed out, but the voice didn't seem to care. Arthur's boots squeaked against the damp floor, barely illuminated by the torch. The walls that had been so close to his shoulders suddenly fell away, the empty cells on either side of him disappearing. Casting his torch back and forth, Arthur found that he had somehow reached the end of the tunnel-like hallway to come to stand in a cavern, the space open and impossibly large.

"Hello?" He called into the darkness. There was no response, and he shuffled further into the cavern. The ground below him sloped down a few more feet before abruptly disappearing over a jagged cliff edge, and Arthur saw no way to go any further. A large mound of stones rose up from the murky depths a few hundred yards in front of him, but nothing existed to bridge the gap. There was a low clanking sound, like metal scraping against stone, and Arthur's grip on his sword tightened. It was the first sound he had heard outside of his head in a while.

"What do you want with me now?" He called, and his voice echoed back at him in the ensuing silence. Arthur felt a chill run up

His spine. "Hello?" He called again. The same ringing came from somewhere in the dark beyond the cliff. A new feeling of fear began to settle in his stomach. "Where are you?!"

The clinking fell silent. Arthur thought he could feel the entire dungeon holding its breath. Summoning the last of his energy, Arthur opened his mouth to yell into the darkness just as a deafening whoosh filled the air and something bolted in front of him, a large shape blurring across his vision, emerging from below the cliff side and disappearing somewhere above his head. Arthur let out a gasp and immediately fell backwards, nearly dropping his sword and the torch. A low chuckle reverberated off of the walls.

"What a small, idiotic thing you are for such great things," the voice boomed, and Arthur was startled to realize it came from above him, rather than inside of his head. He squinted up into the gloom, trying to find the source of the voice and the commotion.

There was another noise, like the flutter of a bat, leathery and airy and heavy all at once, and a part of the darkness...shifted?

"What?" Arthur called, directing his voice towards the movement and what he hoped was the thing speaking. It was definitely not a sorcerer. Arthur was almost sure of it. He aimed his voice at the dark shape again, "What do you mean? Where are you?!"

There was a single, dejected-sounding clink, a large burst of warm air, and the shape detached itself from above, moving towards the scant yellow light that Arthur's torch still cast. The now-grey figure clambered down the rocks heavily, and finally something caught the light and glinted.

"I am here," the thing said, and Arthur raised the torch higher to behold the sight before him, his mouth falling open at what he saw.

Wings.

Huge, leathery, brown-grey wings with wicked-looking talons filled his vision, trembling in the light of the torch. They were scratched and torn, and Arthur could only assume that was the result of the jagged rocks that littered the cavernous space. Still, they were impressive, and Arthur couldn't bring himself to look past them for a few moments.

When he finally did, he was confused.

He had expected some kind of giant reptilian beast, a monster made of scales and spines and bone. He had expected the wings to belong to some kind of creature that was only seen in books, to be gruesome and dirty and have a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. What was attached to the wings, however...well, there were scales, and maybe a few spines, and certainly bone, and yeah, it was dirty. But it was not giant. It wasn't even big. And it certainly did not possess a mouth of razor-sharp teeth.

In fact, for all intents and purposes, the owner of the wings appeared to be nothing but a peasant boy.

...A slouched, emaciated, dirty peasant boy.

With his back facing Arthur and the wings blocking most of his view, Arthur was almost positive his eyes were playing tricks on him.

But then the wings shifted a little, and the peasant boy shuddered and turned his body. Arthur squinted into the dimness, and was still trying to reconcile the lack of continuity between the enormous wings and tiny body, when he turned his head and looked over his shoulder, his eyes immediately coming to rest on Arthur.

...and they were glowing.

Arthur took a sharp intake of breath, but did not take a step back. The thing tilted his head to the side in a questioning manner.

"Hello, Pendragon," he said.

"Hello," Arthur replied, startled. He could now see why the voice had seemed so odd in his head- it had a reptilian rasp that matched the wings, and a soft, cheeky tone that matched the body.

The creature smirked.

"You really are rather rude, aren't you?" He hissed.

"Excuse me?"

The creature kept the smirk on his face, surveying the prince with golden eyes. When he had apparently found what he was looking for, he nodded and let the smirk drop. Slowly, with long, pale limbs, he grasped the rocks below him and turned, great wings folding heavily behind him. With bare, bony feet he clambered down the pile of rocks until he halved the space and stopped, kneeling to look at Arthur once more.

Closer up, Arthur could make out the details of the creature's body. The face was human, with bright glowing eyes and sharp cheekbones. A pair of horns twisted up from beneath a mop of black hair, just above a set of pointed ears. The area where the wings joined the body, right above his shoulder blades, was mottled, and the muscles were distended and protruding from under his skin.

And his skin. It was like nothing Arthur had ever seen before- pale and thin and human looking at first glance, but upon further inspection, covered in a layer of fine golden scales. Despite himself, Arthur had to admit that they were strangely beautiful.

"Enjoying the view?" The creature asked, smirking once again.

Arthur wasn't sure what to say, and only managed a sudden, "What are you?"

The boy looked offended.

"Who am I, prince. It is who am I."

"Fine, then who are you?"

The creature straightened his spine regally, and gone were Arthur's thoughts of his resemblance to a peasant boy. No peasant had ever stood with so much pride, or commanded so much respect with a single gesture.

"I am Emrys," he said, his voice serious and as terrifying as it had been the first time Arthur had heard it.

Arthur didn't know if that was the creature's name or the creature's species, but he sincerely hoped it was the former.

"And what are you doing beneath the castle, Emrys?"

Emrys scowled. "I see you shall be given no awards on your mastery of observation." He shifted his weight, and Arthur heard the same metallic clink that he had heard before. This time, however, he could see the source: a long black chain that lead away into the darkness was attached to a manacle encircling Emrys's ankle. "Your father is an ignorant, tyrannical bastard. But I digress. I did not call you down to discuss your father. We have far more important matters to attend to."

"Like what?" Arthur scoffed, but Emrys glared at him. Pulling the chain taut, he leaned until he was only a mere meter away from Arthur's face, his golden eyes boring into his skull. His wings unfolded to their full length, huge and powerful and terrifying, and when he finally spoke, the words seemed to resonate in Arthur's very being, in his soul, in his bones and chest:

"I, Emrys, the last of the dragonkin, and you, Arthur Pendragon, the once and future king, have a destiny to fulfill."