Part III - Chapter 2

"It would make sense to go at night. Magic gives most of us a bit of night vision, and those that don't have it could be helped by people strong enough to offer it."

Arthur glanced up at the voice that called across the great hall. The hall itself was jam-packed with just about every sorcerer and magical being that now resided at Nimueh's estate. Nearing four hundred, now, even if at least half of them wouldn't be able to actively assist the infiltration. The hall itself was the largest room in the Fortress, as Arthur had heard it being called by the residents. An apt name, he considered, both in appearance and potential function.

The majority of those gathered before Arthur where he stood at the head of the room, stationed alongside Merlin before the holographic screen depicting the largest Pits in London, were looking a sight better than they had even only several days before. Arthur hadn't really come to fully appreciate Nimueh's wealth, the weight of her name to access resources, until he saw her capable of re-outfitting, of feeding, of supplying with every need they should require, everyone who passed through her doors. And just as surprisingly, Nimueh herself was more than likely to be found wandering amidst those who had arrived. Or perhaps unsurprisingly, given that, at a passing, overheard conversation, Arthur could discern she was already cataloguing the skills and abilities of those gathered. For her own purposes more than for their infiltration endeavour, he would wager.

Not that he could complain. He might dislike the woman, but she had been nothing if not generous with the resources she offered. Arthur knew what it took to supply an army and, minute as his current allies were, so too were the resources available to them. It must have been a struggle to so supply them.

Scanning the sea of determined faces, tilted towards the holographic screen, Arthur caught sight of the man who had spoken. He was raised slightly in his seat, a frown of consideration upon his face. Arthur nodded. "Yes, we had considered that. One point of discussion would be that we would pool our opinions to deduce when would be the most appropriate timing to launch an attach. You consideration is appreciated, sir. Thank you."

The man nodded his acceptance of Arthur's words and seated himself. There was a faint murmur throughout the hall, but not loud enough to disrupt the proceedings. Such was their approach, as was encouraged by Merlin – everyone should have a say, should not be ordered what to do, should not be forced to act in a way that they opposed. That included partaking in the infiltration, even for those that had taken the sanctuary the Fortress' walls offered.

Not that there were many who sought not to. It was more of a struggle to impress upon the youngest of the new arrivals that it would perhaps be better for them to remain behind safe walls than to accompany the undercover forces. Just yesterday Arthur and Merlin had been forced to confer with a boy of barely six years old who had demanded – demanded – that he accompany them when they made their move towards the Pits located down in south Cymry. His sister had apparently been taken by the Hunters in that region not a year before and he was determined to get her back.

He wasn't the only one driven by such motivation.

It wasn't the usual approach to a war meeting that Arthur took. He had to actually remind himself on multiple occasions that it wasn't really a war meeting at all. That they weren't truly an army, they weren't attacking to lay their lives on the line with the high chance of never making it back out of the Pits again. The preservation of lives was at the forefront of all of their minds, impressed by more than just Merlin. It was what they were striving for in the first place.

Turning towards the screen once more, to the floor plan layout depicted there, Arthur gestured with a hand. "The entry points will be even less noticeable at nightfall than even during evening so this will work to our benefit. Points here and here," he gestured again, "will require temporary submersion to access, so teams will have to possess basic swimming skills to take such routes.

With a nod towards one of Nimueh's sorcerers – Skye, from Arthur's memory – the holographic floor plan immediately brightened with a series of map-like contours trailing along the lines of the projected walkways. "From here, the four teams will progress down the anticipated routes post haste. Access for entry point three is still debateable, given that as of yet our knowledge of that region of is incomplete."

"Will we know anything further before we're set to infiltrate?" An woman towards the back called forwards. She didn't stand but Arthur could still make her out amidst the focused faces. "How likely is it that more information will be gleaned?"

"Is that intel even reliable?" Another woman, seated not far from the first, spoke up. "I can't imagine that the authorities would allow anything compromising to be easily accessed."

"I've a knack for breaking through firewalls, if I can be useful." The young man who spoke up right on the woman's tail couldn't have been far out of boyhood. "Can pretty much tell if the intel's true or been tampered with from the original, too. I could lend a hand?"

Not for the first time Arthur had to admire the ingenuity of some of the sorcerers. They weren't fighters, and most couldn't have had even a minimalistic education save for that which they could recall from their Pasts. And yet here they were, expressions unwavering and hashing out the basics so as to further acquaint themselves with their responsibilities, the plan, what was expected of them. Arthur had long since valued the opinions of multiple commanders, of his knights, even – it was why he had the Round Table installed in the first place – but he had never quite considered to look further afield, into the lower ranks. He was proven foolish for such a dismissal once more.

Settling his gaze upon the boy who had spoken, who had risen to his feet to call out over the heads of his fellows, Arthur nodded his head. "Our team of technicians have been at the intelligence for over a week now, so we're fairly certain it's clean. But," he turned a brief glance towards their head technician, Borus. The heavy man even then held a data pad and his Comm pulled open before him, fiddling away. Borus raised his eyes briefly as though feeling the weight of Arthur's attention upon him and gave a minute shrug. Arthur nodded, turning back towards the expectant boy. "Your assistance would be appreciated. Any assistance would be appreciated." Then, to the sound of hushed voices, low and considering, as though his words held a deeper meaning than intended, Arthur turned back to the screen. "From our previous infiltration, we have discerned that the security system is based successively along these points here." Glowing yellow dots lit up the screen, in such surplus that the floor plan looked to have contracted the pox. "Our primary goal, before anything else, will be to disable the alarm system."

"Disable or destroy?" A voice called.

Arthur gave a small smile, exchanging it with Merlin's own faintly amused smirk. "Same thing, isn't it? It's not like they'll have a need for them when we've left."

His words actually elicited a chuckle from the room at large, excitement and eagerness driving the voices. He turned back to the screen once more. "Now, with the aid of magic the proceedings should take place at a much faster rate than if such dismantling – or destruction – was conducted manually. We'll need to –"

BOOM!

A loud, earth-shaking clap of thunder quaked the room. It was so heavy, so monstrous, that Arthur actually felt himself waver on his feet. The vibrations coursed through the stone floor, shaking up the walls and even wavered the ambient light that Arthur still hadn't been able to pinpoint the source of.

In an instant, everyone fell silent. That in itself was telling. Far from screaming in fear, expressing their utmost terror at the possibility of an intrusion, an attack, something coming for them, they were utterly silent. Eyes widened, fear palpable, tension rippling through every seated figure as though they would spring into flight but…

Silence.

Another boom, slightly less earth-quaking this time, shuddered through the room and slowly, slowly, those seated in the room rose to their feet. More silence until, like pattering footsteps, a series of thud-thud-thuds. Then nothing.

Arthur was as frozen as the rest of them. No. It couldn't be happening. Surely not. They had expected to be found eventually – it would be idealistic to assume otherwise – but surely not yet. Not before they had even attempted one breakout, before they had relocated to the considered northern base that Nimueh's less obtrusive contacts were already establishing for them. They couldn't have been discovered before they'd even begun –

"No way."

At the sound of Merlin's voice, Arthur dragged his gaze from the distant doors of the great hall. The closed doors, that were all that stood between them and whatever attack was being launched at the Fortress. At the sight of Merlin's widening eyes, not in fear but in distinct awe, Arthur felt his foreboding shift to confusion. What?

He didn't get a chance to ask, however. That very second Merlin was leaping from the dais at the head of the room and darting towards the doors. Fast. Too fast to be humanly possible, which meant he must have been using magic – something that Arthur was familiar with from their practice sessions but still awed him at little. Only for a second, however, before he was throwing himself down after him with a cry of, "Merlin, wait!"

Suffice it to say, Merlin didn't wait. Neither did anyone else, for that matter. For Merlin – Emrys – had become something of a figurehead to those who possessed magic. Not formally, but Arthur had seen it. Merlin, or Emrys, was known amongst sorcerers and magical beings alike. He was powerful. He was experienced and he knew. And, alongside Arthur, he was the one who had instigated the retaliation. If Emrys was charging towards the doors, charging to face the intruder whether they were friend or, more likely, foe, then he would instantly draw the rest of his people with him.

Arthur spilled out onto the steps above the courtyard just as everyone else did, struggling to force his way to the front not because no one sought to get out of his way – which they did – but because as soon as they poured through the front doors of the Fortress alongside the great hall they skidded as one to a stop. It didn't take Arthur long to realise why. He found himself stumbling to a halt.

A dragon.

There was a dragon. In the middle of the courtyard.

A dragon who, even in that moment, was staring unblinkingly down at Merlin stopped directly before it with piercing gold eyes.

It was a monstrous beast. Huge, bigger even than that which Arthur had faced so long ago, the dragon Kilgharrah who he had thought he had slain but Merlin had rather sheepishly told him he hadn't. The dragon loomed nearly as tall as the the Fortress wall, neck arching and stretching as its long snout tipped downwards, the whiteness of its scales reflecting the wan sunlight in a myriad of beaming shimmers. The fleshy beard around its jaw, the long, tentacle-like tresses, swayed with the slightest twitch of its head. And at its sides, shifting and rippling and undulating like a puppet on strings, wings. Wide wings, leather-like skin stretched thin between folded bones so that even crumpled as they were in a half fold the light could be seen filtering through them.

Had Arthur not encountered mechanics as large as the Barge before, he would have been rendered immobilised at the very sight of it. Or her, as a pixie-girl at his side whispered, "A queen."

Arthur didn't know all that much about dragons. What little he did know was purely negative, knowledge assimilated from his Past in times of Camelot. He would be a fool to consider such knowledge unbiased and in any way accurate. But even so, he was fairly sure that Merlin should not be within lunging distance of the creature. Of the queen. A darting snap of her jaws and the dragon could swallow him whole. Not that she looked inclined in that exact moment, but Arthur didn't want to tempt fate.

Against every one of his subconscious urges that screamed at him to "stay away!" Arthur started forwards. He pushed through the ring of silent watchers, leaping down the shallow steps in two bounds and hastened to Merlin's side. With each step, the dragon queen loomed taller and taller and by the Gods she was enormous. He could barely meet her gaze when he reached Merlin's side.

Merlin was silently. Silent and staring, as though he were holding an unspoken conversation with the dragon. That conversation, if it had been occurring at all, seemed to cut itself short upon Arthur's arrival, for the dragon turned her attention upon Arthur instead. Her head swung towards him and it took every ounce of Arthur's self control not to hasten a step backwards, to reach for his sword, as her head lowered towards him. She paused when her snout was barely a horse's length from him.

A deep hum thrummed from her throat, so loud and resounding that it seemed to tremble the very earth beneath Arthur's feet. "Ah, I should have anticipated." Her voice was just as deep at her hum, almost inaudible for its depth, and swept over Arthur with an acrid scent alongside her puffing breath. Then she…

Laughed?

That was the only word that Arthur could think to describe the sound that the dragon queen emitted. A deeper rumbling, but hitching and jumping with stops and starts, almost like hiccups. Her golden eyes closed briefly, her head nodding up and down so that the beard upon her jaw fluttered with the movement. Then she drew her head back slightly, enough that Arthur felt himself able to breath properly again. Her neck arched up once more. "You do indeed keep some unusual company, Dragonlord. A child of Avalon, and a Pendragon at that?" She gave another chuckle, her wings shifting in wide, sweeping scrapes across the sandstone pavers ground.

Arthur was immediately confused by the words. Baffled enough that his fear was slightly overwhelmed. Pendragon was obvious enough – he hadn't been a part of the New World for long enough to forget his name – but child of Avalon? His recollections of Avalon, if it had indeed been such, were hazy at best. What exactly did the dragon queen mean, child of Avalon?

And Dragonlord? What Dragonlord? As far as Arthur was aware, the last Dragonlord was lost long ago. What was the queen referring to?

He'd just turned towards Merlin, just caught sight of the similarly confused frown upon his face, when a voice caught his attention. From the dragon but not of the dragon. "Pendragon? A Pendragon? What do you mean?"

Out of nowhere – no, not out of nowhere; she must to have climbed down from the dragon's back itself – she appeared. Sliding to the ground, her patched boots slapping the pavers and equally patched cloak whipping around her like wings of her own, she fell into a crouch to ease her landing before standing tall. Very tall. Taller than –

Taller than Arthur had ever seen her.

He felt his eyes widen in synchrony with his sister's, widen as they fastened upon familiar pale green irises that were so similar as to be identical to those from the Past.

"Morgana."

For the second time in as many minutes, Merlin was rendered speechless. Not only had the dragon – her, she, she was back, and more than that she was still alive – but the words she uttered were astounding. Three little words that left Merlin more confused than understanding.

Child of Avalon.

He'd never heard the term used before. He didn't know what it meant, nor exactly why it was used to describe Arthur. But he could guess. He could guess that it had something to do with the fact that Merlin had sent his body – his dead body but no, don't think about that, he wouldn't think about that – to Avalon so many years ago in the hopes of saving what little of him still remained. Of preserving him so that, in the event Kilgharrah's words should prove truthful, Arthur could indeed return. He hadn't held high hopes, but hope he still had.

That, alongside Arthur's magic. The magic he couldn't use yet brightened his core like the enzymes and light-emitting pigments of a firefly. The magic that Merlin had just begun to suspect – only just, even though now it seemed to make so much sense – was sourced from Avalon itself.

Arthur had magic. And it was a gift from Avalon. And if the dragon queen Aithusa's words was any indication, Avalon had, in doing so, made Arthur one of its own. A child of Avalon? That was what it was?

That revelation in itself was shocking. But Merlin's surprise wasn't given the chance to dampen any for an instant later Morgana sprung from her seat on Aithusa's back. Morgana herself, for it couldn't be anyone but.

She was different. Different as every sorcerer reincarnated was, but similarly the same in key features. Her skin was the shade of walnut hardwood, slightly reflective as though it were polished by seat. Her dark hair fell in messy curls to the small of her back, and Merlin wouldn't have been surprised to see twigs or a bird's nest embedded in there somewhere. She was tall and slender, as most people not of the upper class were, but even taller still than Merlin or Arthur, suggesting she hadn't lived quite as impoverished as most slum-dwellers. The effect was only enhanced by her clothes which, while patched, were layered and looked warm enough to withstand the approaching winter.

But her eyes. Her eyes were the same, as Merlin knew that just about every reincarnated sorcerer's were. He didn't know why it happened, but they were always the same. And Morgana's eyes, their familiar, vivid green bright and clear of the insanity that had plagued her in her later life, were trained directly upon Arthur.

She couldn't have been yet sixteen. Young, and made even younger for the wide-eyed stare she turned upon her brother that was entirely that of a younger sister meeting her long-lost kin, even if she didn't know him as such just yet.

In an instant, Morgana threw herself at Arthur. Merlin saw it, the moment that Arthur nearly snapped, where his own memories, not quite as distanced as those every sorcerer experienced, rose to the floor with a scream of "defend from attack!" But he managed to suppress it. He managed to shunt that inclination to the side, just in time to catch his tall, spindly sister when she crashed into him.

"Arthur. Arthur. It's really you, isn't it? It really, truly is?" Morgana drew away from Arthur, clutching his shoulders, then reaching up to cup his face, to pull at his cheek, to tug at a tuft of hair. Then she gave a gasp of laughter and folded back into him in an embrace. "How is this even possible?"

"I… I don't know," was all Arthur seemed capable of managing. That, and a return of the embrace that Morgana seemed intent to crush him with once more. He glanced over her shoulder towards Merlin for a moment, and there was a touch of confusion, a touch of concern. But both were nearly smothered completely by the sheer relief that was spreading more and more pervasively across his face.

Arthur had his sister back. His sister, who he had been longing for as just one more thing to tie him to everything that he had once known. His sister who had effectively killed him so long ago but that he still cared for, still loved nonetheless. That he had hoped to find before infiltrating the Pits but had determined he would rescue when – not really if but when – he found her there. Merlin saw it all play out across his face, and couldn't help but give a small smile at the sight of it. Arthur looked, if anything, the most liberated he had since Merlin had first seen him.

Relief. It could do that to a person.

Morgana drew away once more, seemingly unable to keep her eyes off her brother for long. The smile that spread across her face was unlike any that Merlin had seen upon anyone in years. Sorcerers rarely had a reason to smile like that. "How is this even possible?" She repeated, shaking her head.

Arthur shook his own head in reply. "I don't know. I don't understand it anymore than you do."

"But you remember, don't you? You remember me, and Camelot and Albion, and Uther and everything, right?" At Arthur's nod, she continued before he could speak, overriding any words he might have voiced. "But that shouldn't be possible. No one but a sorcerer, or one bequeathed with magic could…" She trailed off and Merlin saw her adjust her gaze, shift her view so that she was peering at Arthur not with her eyes but with her magical senses. Then her eyes widened and the expectation of absented magic morphed into realisation. "How is that even possible?"

"I –"

"You have magic, Arthur. How is that -? How –?"

"I don't know," Arthur said with a shake of his head. "Truly, Morgana, I don't know. I cannot use it, but I do know I have it." He spared a glance for Merlin and Morgana turned to him for the first time. For the very first time, it would seem, because Merlin registered no recognition in her gaze as she peered at him.

"Was it you?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Did you do this?"

Merlin shook his head. "No one can gift another person with magic. I would guess that what Aithusa has said probably holds weight. Something about Avalon, perhaps."

Morgana spared a questioning glance over her shoulder to Aithusa – the sort of glance of a confused child to their mother – before turning back to Arthur. "But I… I don't understand this. You've always hated magic. You would have hated the thought of possessing it yourself. And now this." She made a gesture over Arthur's shoulder towards the swarm of watching, waiting, silent sorcerers atop the steps. "You're working alongside them?"

"More than that, he's leading the rebellion," Merlin murmured.

Morgana spared him a wide-eyed glance, eyebrows rising. Then she snapped her attention back to Arthur. "It's you leading them?"

"Myself and Merlin," Arthur nodded. "Yes."

"Merlin…" Morgana slowly turned back towards him and this time she seemed to take keener notice of Merlin. "Aithusa was right? You are the Dragonlord?"

"He is," Aithusa rumbled, drawing all eyes back towards her. And suddenly, Merlin could see only her. He didn't know how he had been distracted from her at all – from a dragon, from the dragon, the queen herself. She suddenly became the sun to the many-eyed planets that beheld her.

Merlin could remember first meeting Aithusa. He could remember appropriating her egg – appropriating in the loosest sense of the term – and coaxing her into life with a name. Her name, the one that Merlin himself had given her.

He recalled that, just as he recalled that Aithusa had been smitten with Morgana. That she had obeyed her command and attacked Merlin, Arthur and Gwaine under her command, and even later when she had once more flown on the offensive when they were in the company of Mordred and a disabled Gwen. And then at Camlann again.

She had been a crippled hatchling due to her imprisonment, but even at the battle that crippling, twisted disability had been beginning to smooth, to ease and loosen its grasp upon her. As she towered above Merlin in all of her regal glory, there was not a touch of that crippling to be seen. There was strength, power, and alongside that, wisdom, a wisdom that Merlin hadn't beheld in the younger dragon in the only time that he had seen her, in times of Albion. He had thought her dead, perhaps, hunted down, and his role as a Dragonlord rendered redundant by the absence of both she and, millennia ago, the death of the elderly king Kilgharrah.

Apparently not. And apparently she remained as closely tied to Morgana as she had once been. Except perhaps without quite the blind adoration, the almost compulsive following or orders. She truly had grown into herself as a dragon.

Aithusa was staring at him with a slight tilt to her head. A tilt and a vivid gold to her visibly shining eyes. Merlin could almost swear she was smiling. "It has been too long, young warlock."

Merlin felt a different sort of smile settle upon his own lips. "Is it habit that you call me that, as did Kilgharrah, or does it have some deeper meaning?"

Aithusa chuckled just as she had before. She seemed in an unconscionably good mood for some reason. Dipping her head down, she leant forwards so that her snout was nearly touching Merlin's face. "A term of endearment, perhaps."

"Endearment?" Merin raised an eyebrow. "You don't hate me quite so much anymore, then?"

"Hate you?" Aithusa gave something of a snort that Merlin had to squint into for the force of the wind that struck him. "No, Merlin, I do not hate you. I have never hated you, merely been somewhat confused." There was a faint, barely noticeable flicker of her gaze towards Morgana and Merlin didn't need her to expand to know of what she spoke. Similarly to know that her brief mention of the Past was not permission to pursue that Past further. Merlin understood that, at least; Morgana was barely older than a girl. She wouldn't recall any of what she had done in her Past life in Albion. Merlin was surprised that she was with Aithusa at all, considering she couldn't possibly recall their first meeting yet. But then, perhaps it was Aithusa who had sought her out?

"Besides," Aithusa continued, drawing Merlin from his thoughts. "How could I hate the one who so named me?"

"So it was you?" Morgana managed to unwrap herself from Arthur for long enough to turn fully towards Merlin. There was something very like respect in her gaze as she stared at him. "I've heard stories of Emrys, and that it was him who hatched Aithusa, as only a Dragonlord can. That was you, then?"

Merlin opened his mouth to reply but in the last second caught sight of Arthur's expression. He looked baffled. No, such was to mild a term – shocked was more correctly. There wasn't a hint of betrayal on his face, but Merlin was still concerned that such was yet to arise. He bit back his words, simply nodding in reply to Morgana's question. They would have to have words, he and Arthur.

Later, however, for right now Aithusa was speaking once more and her glowing radiance drew his attention like a magnet. "It has been too long, I should think."

"Too long," Merlin agreed. "Centuries, even. I thought you were dead."

Aithusa gave a rumbling hum of disagreement. "No, not dead. Merely hiding. Much as every other being of magic has been forced to do over the years with increasing frequency."

"And yet you've come here?"

"And yet I've come." Her tone was sombre, solemn in a way that resounded with the wisdom of age and long experience. "How could I not? You pool around you, Dragonlord, that largest sea of free magic that I have experienced in years. And without the aim of open warfare, at that. I have never witnessed that."

Merlin frowned. Years? Perhaps she referred to the Third World War? But then… never? So many sorcerers, so many beings of magic, had never gathered in such a place before without the drive of aggressive warfare? It wasn't until that moment, until Aithusa's words rung forth, that Merlin truly caught a glimpse of the vastness of what they were doing. There were hundreds of creatures of magic, of sorcerers reincarnated and beings shunned for the power that coursed through their veins, and they were working together with a common goal. More surprisingly than that, it had taken precious little effort on their part to inovke such a communal response – an amplification spell and Mordred's telepathy was all. It was almost as though they had been waiting, had been holding out and longing for the moment when someone would incite them into action.

Merlin could only curse himself for that. If so, why hadn't he done it sooner?

"Do not so reprimand yourself, Merlin," Aithusa murmured, though that murmur likely carried across the entirety of the courtyard and rippled through the walls. "It was not your fault."

Merlin glanced up at her from where he'd dropped his gaze to his hands. His hands, that plucked at one another in frustration for his stupidity. "Is that a dragon thing, or just a you and Kilgharrah thing?"

"What thing would that be?" Aithusa asked, her head cocking slightly like a curious bird.

"You seem to read my thoughts without me saying anything."

A sort-of-smile twitched around Aithusa's muzzle once more. "Of course. We are kin."

"Kin?"

"And as kin, Dragonlord, I will so stand by you." Her gaze drifted briefly towards Morgana. "We both will."

Merlin glanced back towards Morgana, towards Arthur and – yes, Arthur still appeared shocked. Floored, even, though he was making an attempt to hide it. He met Merlin's eyes with incomprehension yet still absent of accusation. Confusion. Utter confusion. Yes, he and Merlin would have much to talk about.

Morgana was stepping towards him, however, and Merlin's attention locked on her immediately. It was hard to not look at Morgana when she was making herself apparent – she had always been of the bossy, prominent, demanding kind, even if in the kindest sense of the terms. She stepped up towards Merlin with her arms crossed, apparently disregarding Arthur for the moment. The pose was so reminiscent of Arthur's, even in this life, that Merlin wondered how anyone could not guess they were related, even Morgana herself.

"I will fight with you, Emrys. Or Merlin, or Dragonlord. Whatever name you go by." Her gaze hardened with a touch of the coldness Merlin recalled from long ago. It unnerved him just slightly. "They took my sister. A long time ago, but… they took her. I want her back."

There was no uncertainty in Morgana's tone. From her words, Merlin knew she would not accept that her sister had died in the Pits, that she wouldn't be able to rescue her. Which was perhaps a good thing, considering that Merlin knew Arthur had seen Morgause. He would leave that revelation up to Arthur however.

Instead, he inclined his head in a single nod. "Then I suppose welcome aboard."

The smile Morgana gave him bordered on feral.

As though a switch had been flicked, the tension rippling statically throughout the courtyard seemed to snap. Their audience gradually rippled down the steps, tentative at first but then picking up speed as awe replaced hesitancy. Because Aithusa was a dragon. A real live dragon. There would not be a creature of magic alive who wouldn't stand star struck in her presence. Merlin fathomed that the only reason he'd gotten off so lightly was because he was a Dragonlord, or perhaps because he'd known both Aithusa and Kilgharrah from the Past. Everyone else was not so lucky. Even Nimueh, descending the steps all of her regal aloofness, stared up at Aithusa with her own adoration visibly surfacing. Dragon-struck, it was called. It appeared to have infected everyone just a little.

Merlin found himself drifting to Arthur's side, retreating slightly. They couldn't really speak for loudness of the rising chatter, the exclamations of wonder and the excitement that was building because Aithusa was a dragon, a dragon queen and she was here!

Eventually, though, Merlin found himself caught on the arm. Arthur, silent and waiting as he had been throughout the entirety of their people's excitement, had evidently felt he'd waited long enough. Leaving Morgana by Aithusa's towering side, he led Merlin by the arm, not dragging but with determined steps nonetheless, away from the milling masses.

As soon as they'd drawn up alongside the wall, Arthur turned towards Merlin, head bowing towards his, and voice lowered. Surprisingly, there didn't seem to be all that much by way of disgruntlement in Arthur's expression. "A Dragonlord?"

Merlin squirmed slightly beneath his attention but accepted defeat readily enough. "Yes."

"Really? A Dragonlord?"

"Yes, really."

"You didn't think to perhaps tell me that?"

Merlin shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. Still there was no reprimand, no accusation in Arthur's tone, but he felt it himself anyway. Perhaps he should have told him. Arthur was being remarkably lenient – had been lenient, and understanding, and impossibly fine with everything – and Merlin should have done better than he had. "There seemed no need. Until now, I didn't believe that any more dragons even existed."

Arthur stared at him for a moment. Stared and stared, his hands holding unshakeably but not too tightly to Merlin's arms. Not tight enough to be distressing nor even mildly uncomfortable, even if Merlin would always be hyperaware of any kind of touch. Then, in a slow, steady spread, a smile drew across his face. "This is fantastic."

Merlin's eyebrows jumped in surprise. "What?"

"Fantastic. This could be just the back-up plan we need."

"Arthur, I really hope you're not thinking Aithusa should come to the Pits. She can't – that would be foolish, and too dangerous for her as possibly the last dragon in existence. Not to mention there would be no way to manage it covertly if we –"

"Yes, yes of course," Arthur interrupted him, his smile still fierce. Then he leaned in to Merlin slightly until their foreheads were nearly touching. "But think, Merlin; if we really need the support of simple presence, if we ever need to defend with our entirety, we have a dragon on our side."

"I had noticed. I was there when she told us, in case you hadn't realised."

"I did realise," Arthur smirked. Then, in a motion so fluid that Merlin didn't even know how it quite happened, he turned to his side, slipped an arm around Merlin's shoulders easily, and began to lead him back in the direction of the great hall. The direction that everyone, including Aithusa – though Merlin sincerely doubted she would be able to do more than stick her head through the doorway – where headed. He hadn't even realised that they had begun to make a move, but the sight of Nimueh – because of course it would be Nimueh – gesturing for everyone to return back in doors was explanatory enough. "Just as I realised that she would do anything to save the sorcerers, the magical beings, magic itself." He grinned at Merlin sidelong, looking more enthusiastic and confident than he had since they'd first decided upon their plan. "And with her as a last resort, just in case, we could actually do this, Merlin."

It wasn't until that moment that Merlin realised Arthur had been having doubts. That he, just like Merlin, was driven more by hope, determination and sheer desperation than by confidence in their capacity for victory. It would have been disheartening to realise, except that, in the moment that he understood, Merlin similarly understood that such uncertainty was vanquished. Arthur held all the confidence of a king that knew he could win if he rode into battle.

It made Merlin smile, just a little bit. Warmed him enough that he felt the urge to wrap his arm around Arthur's waist in return and shake his head as he felt his own resolve harden once more. "That is the intention, yes."

"We could win this."

"And rescue everyone."

"Without losing everyone in the process."

"That's the plan," Merlin nodded, and turned his smile upon Arthur. Arthur returned it twice as wide before leaning in to press a kiss upon his lips. Merlin allowed it for just a moment before drawing away and picking up his step. "Come on, then. We've got a people to prevail a plan for rebellion upon."

Arthur immediately tightened his arm around Merlin's shoulders and picked up his pace alongside him. "That we do."