Author's Note: So yep that's how it all began this time around. How it ends remains to be seen. Chapters in this one are gonna be short for a while. I own nothing.

Chapter 1

Friends

Twenty Years Later

Merlin sat in a tree just outside of camp giggling maniacally. They were still inside the protective barrier that Tauren and Diana always set up but that kind of barrier never kept out any of her friends, it just wasn't strong enough. Merlin clapped along to the music being played on pan pipes by a young green skinned faun. Two centaurs, one male one female pranced through the clearing in time with the music. Merlin loved these times, times when she could get away from Tauren's lessons and Diana's fussing and her parents knowing and worried looks. She knew who she was, she'd know the truth, her destiny for a while now but she wasn't quite sure what that meant. Bringing balance to magic could mean any number of things. It had meant killing Nimueh several months ago, even though she hadn't wanted to. Nimueh had been using magic to hurt people and that wouldn't stand. The goddess had asked her to kill Nimueh so she did. It wasn't often the goddess asked something of her and it had taken weeks for her to do the deed. But she had ended up saving several lives in the process and meeting a relative she hadn't even known she had. His name was Giaus and he was her uncle on her mother's side. He had stayed at the camp for a few days while he fully recovered from nearly dying but he had thanked her profusely and told her that she had saved the princes life in doing what she did. She had shrugged. She didn't really care for titles, shied away from them when the druids tried to call her their princess.

The male centaur, whose coat was black as night, circled the female whose coat was a deep chestnut brown. Merlin grinned, they were flirting and she hoped it would work out for them. Love was hard to find, she sometimes wondered if she would ever find it herself. She sighed slightly running her hands through her waist length raven colored hair. Several sections of the mass of hair were braided but no matter what she or her mother tried they could never get the whole mass f hair to cooperate. Before she could keep up her slightly depressing train of thought a green glow flew into her line of sight and she grinned wide. The glow circled the clearing once before it spotted her and flew up to the tree she was sitting in. Merlin held out her hands and the fairy landed in them looking grateful of the place to rest. She had brown skin, the color of tree bark and wore a dress made from leaves but her wings were those of a monarch butterfly. Her hair matched them, a fiery orange that faded to black at the tips.

"Mona! How are you? It's been ages!" Mona shook her head at Merlin.

"No time for that now little hawk! You must warn your people, the great dragon has finally escaped his binding and is wreaking havoc on Camelot. We don't know how far he may go to seek his vengeance." Merlin nodded and leapt out of the tree, her deep blue eyes flashing a brilliant gold as she floated down to the forest floor without injury. As soon as her feet touched ground she was off like a shot racing through the forest back to the camp, Mona clinging to her hair as the trees blurred past them. They arrived in minutes and Merlin found Tauren swiftly racing into his tent with barely a knock on one of the posts to let him know he had company. He looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes young Emrys?" Tauren only ever called her Merlin when her parents were around or when there were strangers in the camp which almost never happened and even then they were usually other druids who knew she was Emrys anyway.

"Sorry to interrupt Tauren. Mona just told me that the great dragon escaped and he's destroying Camelot!" The fairy waved at Tauren from where she was making a nest of flowers in Merlin's hair. This wasn't an unusual sight at all, Merlin always found some spirit, or sprite, or fairy or quite memorably a herd of unicorns, but the news she brought was far from ordinary. Tauren shot to his feet and bustled out the door, Merlin followed.

"We have to help them!" Tauren raised an eyebrow. They were camped on the edge of Mercia at the moment, quite close to the border with Camelot which was likely why Mona had brought them the warning. But despite the stories they had told her, horror stories of healers burned at the stake and innocent people hung for helping others, she still genuinely wanted to help. Tauren shook his head slightly, for one so powerful Emrys could be so trusting in the goodness of others. Tauren stuck his head into Balinor and Hunith's shared tent and spoke with Balinor briefly. Soon there was a council meeting in progress.

As always Merlin was in attendance, sitting off to the side until she was old enough to help them make decisions. What she didn't understand was why there was even a question here. People were dying because the great dragon was angry. She'd be angry too if she'd been locked up for twenty years after watching all her kin die but just because he was angry didn't mean he got to do whatever he wanted. She sighed as they bickered. Then one of the guards ran up to the meeting.

"My apologies but there are three knights of Camelot nearing the protective boundaries. They are dressed as simple folk but I recognized Prince Arthur Pendragon among them." Balinor nodded and spoke, seemingly to himself.

"Likely Uther crawling to me for help after all these years. Merlin you should stay out of… Sight." Balinor looked around for his daughter but she was nowhere to be seen. The only trace of her left behind was the footprints left by her perpetually bare feet. They were heading in the direction the guard had come from.