Arthur hadn't meant to actually injure the knight, but he had almost forgotten that this was training and not an actual fight.

Now knowing that Merlin did indeed have magic, his distracted mindset had seemed to switch. Before, he had been distracted by the possibility, so much so that other tasks weren't done to his best ability. After the previous day's revelations, Arthur found himself desperately focusing on anything but Merlin.

Arthur knew that ignoring the situation was only making Merlin more nervous. That morning, Merlin had been the polite model of a servant instead of starting their usual banter.

Of course, this had meant that Arthur had been late to training because Merlin wasn't able to wake him in any normal way, but not one of the knights had dared to comment on his late appearance. Being the prince did have its perks.

Merlin's magic, and Arthur's pointless need to prove to himself, and to his knights, that he was as invulnerable as ever, had driven him to attacking a little more recklessly than usual. The swords they used in training were dull, but could still hurt pretty badly when someone was fighting as Arthur had been.

"Are you alright?" Arthur dropped the sword and crouched by the young knight seated in the grass. Sir Lucan, one of Arthur's newest knights, had a gash in his arm that definitely shouldn't have been there just from practice. I'm sorry, Arthur almost said.

But he didn't.

"You should go see Gaius for that."

Sir Lucan nodded and accepted the hand offered by one of the other knights. Arthur watched as the two walked back inside the castle.

Maybe Arthur shouldn't practice while this distracted. It wasn't fair to his knights.

"Are you feeling okay, sire?"

Leon. Of course it was him. Few of the other knights would have dared to ask a question unrelated to their training. Some of the older knights, the few that were left in service that had been around when Arthur was only just beginning his own training, might have asked. Leon had always been the closest to a friend Arthur had, though. Leon was a couple years older, but had often been a training partner in the early days.

He hadn't been one of the ones that laughed at his jokes and agreed with him no matter what, though. That's what made him Arthur's favorite now, and the reason why he had disliked Leon in the beginning. It was this quality, their willingness to refute Arthur's decisions, that made Merlin and Leon similar.

Maybe it wasn't unusual for most people, but Arthur had realized as he had aged that being prince meant that people often didn't tell you the truth. They told you what you wanted to hear. Leon and Merlin were honest despite that trend.

So Arthur had thought, anyway. What secret was Leon hiding, he wondered. He had to have something. Apparently everyone did. Maybe Merlin and Leon's honesty came from the guilt of keeping back something bigger.

"I'll be fine," Arthur said.

Leon nodded. "If you need anything, just let me know."

"Thank you, Sir Leon."

0o0o0

As usual, Merlin was present to serve Arthur's lunch.

"How was training, sire?" He asked politely.

There he was speaking formally again.

"A knight was injured," Arthur said. "But otherwise, it went well."

There were a few moments of silence while Arthur ate his food and Merlin watched. It was somewhat uncomfortable. Even though Arthur knew that servants watched people eat all the time in order to know when more servings were needed, Merlin just standing silently was a bit unnerving.

"Are we going to talk about…" Merlin waved his hands about in the air for a second, clearly (but not so clearly) referencing their talk yesterday.

"Talk about what?" Morgana stood in the doorway, having heard Merlin's comment as she opened the door.

Merlin's arms dropped back to his sides. "Nothing."

Morgana ignored Merlin and turned to Arthur. "Did you get the answers you were looking for?"

"Yes," Arthur said. He had gotten the answers. He had also gotten more questions, but none Morgana needed to know about.

"And?" Morgana added.

Arthur looked at Merlin. Although Arthur had already told Morgana that he suspected Merlin, it didn't seem like something he should tell without Merlin's permission. Though, maybe he should just go ahead and say something so that he wasn't the only one keeping this secret. But if he shared this information with Morgana, wouldn't he be putting her at risk as well? Uther's wrath wasn't something to take lightly.

It's not about trust.

Oh. Arthur could see now that what Merlin had said was true. He trusted Morgana, but that didn't mean he'd put her in danger just to satisfy her curiosity.

"And I now know what I need to know," Arthur concluded.

Morgana rolled her eyes. "You can't keep me out of this now, Arthur. If you wanted to keep secrets, you shouldn't have asked for my thoughts in the first place. Merlin," she turned to Merlin again, "Arthur talked to me before deciding to speak with you."

Merlin opened his mouth to speak, but Morgana kept going.

"If his suspicions were correct, your secret is safe with me. If they weren't, well, that was a lot of fuss for no reason, wasn't it?"

"I - you won't - you don't..? Merlin trailed off.

"It's okay, Merlin," Morgana said. She smiled slightly, clearly amused at Merlin's inability to speak.

"Right then," Arthur said. "You can leave now." It was clear which side Morgana would take on the matter, and her absolute defiance from everything he had been taught - everything the both of them had been taught - wasn't helping him think. It wasn't helping Merlin think, either, judging by the way the boy still hadn't figured out a suitable thing to say.

Morgana shot Arthur a look but didn't protest leaving the room.

Then it was just Merlin and Arthur again.

"I don't know what to do," Arthur admitted. "So you're a test case, Merlin." It made sense to Arthur. Arthur didn't know much about magic, only that anyone who used it was supposedly bad. In a fair justice system, however, Arthur believed that people should be judged on their own actions.

People with magic didn't get a chance to get judged on anything. It was just straight to the dungeons to await their death for all of them. Now that he thought about it, that hardly seemed fair.

"I'm going to watch what you do, and judge based on that." It was likely that his opinion of magic would be decided by Merlin's actions. If Merlin couldn't resist its evil, then who could?

Merlin still looked a little bit nervous, but he nodded gratefully. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Quite literally, don't mention it. We don't want anyone overhearing. Understand?"

"More than you could know."

0o0o0o0

Arthur held the torch out to his side and walked steadily through the castle. It was late. Late enough that only the castle guards should be up an about, and according to Merlin, they didn't often patrol the area Arthur was now heading.

It was no wonder why, really. It was dark and cold down here. Stone on all sides wasn't the nicest thing to look at for long hours, and as far as the guards knew, there wasn't anything that needed guarding in this area of the castle.

Arthur himself wouldn't have seen reason for this hall to be secured until recently. One shouldn't leave the entrance to a dragon's cave wide open for anyone to reach.

The loud clomping of his shoes against the floor, and the slight sound of his sword's scabbard moving against his side sounded even louder the farther down the staircase Arthur went. There really wasn't much light down here, and the stillness seemed everpresent. Was there really anything living somewhere nearby? Maybe the dragon had gone and died since the last time Merlin had payed it a visit. What would Arthur do if that had happened.

You couldn't just leave a body lying underneath the castle. He imagined going to his father and trying to explain that he had found a dead dragon while wandering the castle. Yes, he had just been exploring, and him finding the cave that held the dragon had been a total coincidence.

Finally, the corridor opened up into a chiseled cave, into which some amount of light came in from somewhere. A large rock sat in the middle, but otherwise, there appeared to be nowhere nearby for something as large as a dragon to rest.

"Hello?" Arthur called. "Er - Great Dragon?"

Apparently, Arthur had been looking in the wrong direction, because the wingbeats of the the dragon didn't come from a far corner, but from above. The wind created brushed Arthur's hair backwards, and for a moment, Arthur feared his torch would go out.

Arthur had seen the dragon once before, when he was a child. Uther had told him it was there. But he had never ventured back to the area since, and since no one had ever mentioned it again, he assumed it must have been a dream, or that the dragon was no longer there. But here was the dragon, and Arthur was struck once again by how large the creature was up close.

"Young Pendragon."

Arthur took in a deep breath. Of course the dragon could speak. How else would it have given Merlin advice? But still. It was so far beyond what Arthur would have believed. It was magnificent and terrifying. It might have been somewhat less intimidating had the dragon sounded friendly in his greeting instead of speaking with a mixture of curiosity and something that made Arthur feel as if the dragon was picturing what he would taste like.

"Great Dragon," Arthur began again, "I have come to -" What exactly had he come to do. Really, he was just satisfying his own curiosity, and checking Merlin's facts. What should he tell the dragon. "I have come because. I came because Merlin told me about you."

That couldn't be held against him, could it? The dragon couldn't do anything, and Arthur's reputation with the beast hardly mattered to him.

"Ah. You have spoken with the young warlock," the dragon said in its deep voice." I had not expected this so soon, but as it seems not to have caused a disaster, I do not protest."

Neither said anything for a moment. Arthur couldn't see what the dragon protesting would have done, locked in this cave as it was, but since Arthur was now also in the cave, he didn't want to make the dragon angry.

"Well," Arthur said. "That is all." He backed away from the ledge, not trusting the dragon enough to turn his back to it.

"Arthur Pendragon," the dragon said again. "I may hate your father for his despicable crimes against my kind."

Arthur clenched his fist around his sword hilt.

"However, you have a great destiny ahead of you. I hope that, one day, you will no longer see me as your enemy."

With that final line, the dragon took off again and disappeared. Arthur was left in the same stillness and before, wondering if all dragons had been like this one.

!

How did you like it? Training? Morgana? Kilgharrah? I actually rewrote this chapter, as I didn't like how it turned out at first, but I think it ended up okay.

This is the last "reveal" chapter. Arthur won't spend all his time contemplating in the next one, which will be the episode The Labyrinth of Gedref, but with Arthur knowing about Merlin's magic of course. And then this fic will be over :(

I might (no promises) start a sequel later on in the year, but I want to finish one of my other works in progress before I think too much on it. I do have a survey up on my page on whether you would want it to be Mergana or Freylin, though. I'm pretty set on Mergana, as I think that it would work well with this setup, but I want to see what you guys think.

I actually really love Merthian (Merlin, Mithian) but since Mithian doesn't show up until... what? Season 4? That won't really work. I thought about writing Merthur, because that would definitely fit here, but I decided against it.