A/N:I just wanted to quickly add that the first three chapters are slightly shorter because I wrote them with ink and paper. And I am doing that more often now, it's much more agreeable than just the keyboard.

Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin or any character and plot present in the tv show. I only own my main OC Asah, the plot surrounding her, as well as some other minor characters.

Chapter 2

The bright-haired girl was zigzagging through the crowd, her cloak grazing the ground beneath her. People warily watched her pass, eyes squinting, sometimes flinching away.

Asah had agreed to this rescue mission before she had even been told what it all entailed. And now she knew, she was even prouder to be who she was. A witch. A sorceress. A powerful one too, the elders had said.

Truth be told, she ignored the extent of her own abilities. She used some spells and curses instinctively, but had never learnt other, more complex ones. She was in dire need of a teacher, a good one. And the High Priestess was the teacher she desperately needed.

Asah, apprentice of Morgana, daughter of the dragon. She had to admit it had a really good sound to it.

The only catch to her plan, however, was that ever since she had defied the elders, most druids avoided her like the plague. Only wise old Kunar and young Seth didn't seem unphased by her actions.

The elders, in the druids community, were considered untouchable, their word unquestionable. Asah, with her sorceress' arrogance, had always refused to answer to people who were not blessed with magic, but now she tasted the bitter sting of rejection for the first time.

Realising she had reached her destination, Asah shook off her thoughts, and snatched the arm of the running boy she had been seeking.

Seth' wide smile as he played with his cousins barely dimmed when he saw her, and he exclaimed a toothy 'Asah' before hugging her waist briefly.

She smiled at the boy. "Hello Seth. I've come to say goodbye..."

The grin faded. "Oh. So soon?" She nodded. "What am I going to do then?"

Asah chuckled at the child's antics. "You'll be fine, Seth. Kunar will take care of you until your father arrives."

Seth had been in her care for three months by then, his father Sorh having left the tribe to fight their useless King's war. But now Cenred was dead, Sorh could come back to his child. And as much as Asah had appreciated taking care of the boy, she would be happy to be on her own for a while. She was not sure she was made to be a mother...

Seth nodded with the hint of a smile, but still hugged her tightly. "I will miss you."

She smiled. "I will miss you too little one." Then she gently pushed him away and straightened her cloak on her shoulders as she strode to the group of men who waited under the cover of trees.

Hector acknowledged her presence with a nod. "Asah." She nodded back once, and he turned to the rest of the group. "We will reach The Pit in the night. We shall be swift, and free our Lady as quickly as possible. Our sorcerers," he looked pointedly at Asah and a youngish man with wheat blonde hair, "will free Morgana and the rest of us will take care of the scum who dared imprison her." His lips turned up in a snarl and several others growled in answer.

Asah felt strangely empowered when they started into the woods. She was part of a rescue party that would finally bring her the knowledge she lacked. There was no doubt in her mind that the Lady Morgana would teach her everything she needed.

The other supposedly sorcerer was walking next to her, dirty blue eyes darting to her now and then. After a while, he opened his mind and breathed "Were you really born with magic?"

Asah locked her flaming amber eyes on the other and smirked, chin held up in pride. "I was. My grandmother was a Dragonlord." Her peer gasped, and she felt a pleasant tingle up her spine. Truth be told, no one really knew if Almara had really been a Dragonlord, but her legend was well-known among Asah's tribe and she used this filiation to the best of her abilities.

"Who have you studied with?" he asked next, and this had her grit her teeth. She did not want to admit she had not studied magic yet, not to him, not to anyone. So instead, she pretexted having heard a suspicious noise ahead, and ended this short conversation.

Light slowly faded over the group, and as night settled above their heads, a strange silence took hold of the men. Eyes darted left and right in seach of a foe, the quiet caress of cloth over grass or earth the only sound apart from the scurrying of rodents and owls.

Hector turned to Asah an hour after nightfall, and he beckoned both her adn the blonde man to a different path than the others. Up ahead, she could see the flickering of torches and could hear the loud boisterous laughter of the barbaric men they were seeking.

Once upon a time, the druid folk were called 'Picts' and they had been renowned for their ability to kill in utter silence, swift as a shadow and fleeting like the wind. There was no doubt in anyone's mind the loud bastards would pay their offense with their lives.

Closer and closer Hector and his two companions crept, and as they reached the line of trees, he reached for them in mind.

"There it is. The Pit. Can you feel our Lady's presence?"

Asah surely could. As strong as a heartbeat, but as low as a whisper. The blonde sorcerer - she would never know his name - hissed sharply. "She has been drugged. Chained to her own powers."

Hector nodded. "Do not fret: they will pay." He paused and assessed the scene. "Let's wait for the signal."

Asah's eyes went forward to the strange camp they had come to raid. Wooden barracks were scattered around the place as someone had hurried to build them, and some larger place between two of those was currently occupied by a large fire from which rose the scent of meat. A little away but heavily guarded stood the remnants of a well, a pile of ivy-covered stone marking its entrance. The Pit. A well-known prison, feared by all. But not that night.

An owl cry came loud from their left, and the loud celebration faded into a tense atmosphere. Some of their foes grabbed their weapons, others went to check the edge of the woods. The moment one stepped too close though, he was snatched close by a moving shadow, and without a sound, he disappeared.

At the same time, the men in the camp shouted orders at each other, and as expected, most of them hurried to the trees, unsuspecting the three sorcerers who had received their signal.

Hector moved as silently as a breeze through grass and stone, followed by the two younger and more eager druids. The closer they got to the Pit, the stronger the throb of magic was.

Behind them, their companions still distributed death and pain, shielding them from pryind eyes with the constant screams of their opponents.

As they reached the pile of rubble, Hector's eyes flashed a dangerous gold, snapping a chain that lay heavily, closing a rusty lid over the make-shift prison.

"HEY!" came the warning soon after, and a broad man with a wide battle-axe erupted from behind the pile of fallen stones, an angry growl exiting his lips as he launched himself at Hector.

Asah had never seen battle before. The little fights between boys in her tribe barely counted, and the sight of the two men throwing everything they had at each other was a sight to behold.

Every swirl of the axe was countered by an invisible shield as Hector lifted a hand and slurred ancient words that his eyes glow. For a moment he countered, but as two other men hurried their way, he turned to his peers and hissed "Go!" before throwing a curse so powerful the first man was forced to his knees, arm trapped against his chest as he collapsed in pain.

Asah's blonde kin shook off his daze before she did and sprang to his feet just as another guard tried to slice his head off. Asah pulled herself free from the scene and climbed on top of the stones, her hand playing and her amber eyes flashing as she wrenched the grate off the top of the well.

A whimper came from under and as she peaked down, a ball of fire casting a light from her fingers, Asah let out a cry of surprise. She could definitely see a human form at the bottom - dark and slender - but all her thoughts were on the pure white being coiled on itself.

A dragon!

Asah could not believe her eyes but did not have time to ponder. Stretching her mind, she reached the weak sorceress she had come to save. "My Lady!" she said, and the form moved in surprise, "I am Asah, and I am here to let you out."

There was a silence before the deep and alluring voice of Morgana Pendragon rose in her mind. "You have magic." She did not expect an answer, and Asah could see her rise to her feet, a hand going to the dragon's head as if to awaken it. "Well let me out then!"

Asah was entranced by the strange charisma that this slender form exuded, but as an arm closed around her waist and roughly pulled her aside, she barely had time to stare. The man who had caught her cursed in her face and lifted a hand to slap her, but a flash of gold eyes later, he had been thrown onto the stone, a deafening crack making it eerily certain he had broken his spine.

This time Asah acted quickly. Producing a rope from under her cloak, she threw it into the Pit and summoned her strength to haul Morgana from below. It took less than a minute before long, flowing dark hair appeared, framing an intensely beautiful face in which shone icy blue eyes.

Those eyes locked on Asah, who felt little for the first time in her life. "Aithusa. She needs to be freed as well."

Asah dared not ask how a dragon could not fly out of a pit, for there was a definite rage burning in the other woman's eyes. Instead she sheepishly nodded and threw the rope on the ground, instead using a spell she usually used on children to make the white animal first rise, then hover over the ground before it slowly flew higher and higher towards her. Morgana followed each of her movements with pursed lips.

Finally, the white and crippled figure of a blue-eyed dragon rose from the Pit, and when its legs touched concrete ground, it let out a whimper as if in pain. Morgana hurried to it and cooed it to calm down, before her icy eyes fell on the scene around them.

Asah followed her gaze and cursed. Hector lay, eyes opened onto nothing, as a pool of blood dried under his body, and the blonde sorcerer was nowhere to be seen. Not far, the clamour of fight was dimming, and the barbarians who had imprisoned the High Priestess were quickly running away at the sight of her free dragon.

With reason. A dying man did not die peacefully as a blazing fire encompassed him the moment the beast - Aithusa, it seemed - caught sught of him. His screams would plague Asah's mind for weeks to come.

The young woman's blood froze in her veins when Aithusa turned to her. But a soothing hand from the dark woman next to her, and the creature bowed down.

"Not her, my friend. She...can be of some use to us yet."