Summary: Arthur meets a mysterious young man and instantly feels a bond with the stranger. But he does not know this man was born with powerful gift that he uses to fashion himself as a modern-day super hero "Merlin". This power threatens to destroy the sudden love he has discovered, as well as Merlin.

A/N: Although this a chapter story, I try to write each chapter as a small story in itself. I'm a slow writer, but a dogged one that must complete what she starts.

Chapter 3: The Dream

For the rest of that day, an all the weeks that followed, my mind held onto the memory of our encounter. I had his face memorized and could bring back every detail of those minutes. I could still see his kind, expressive face with all those straight lines, straight protruding cheekbones, and arrow of a nose. I could still smell the grass, how the Dragon's spit felt on my face, and hear the laughter of the people that interrupted us. I thought often of that languid full curve to his bottom lip.

I remember simply wanting to be close to him again, if only for a moment, if only to be friends. I made excuses to take many long walks along that same coastline but I never saw him. And all the time I was spending time with other people, I thought about how his naked body might look in the darkness, I wondered if his sighs and moans would sound like theirs. The more I thought about these things, the hungrier my body grew.

Most of the time these desires could be set aside by my studies and filing my free time with occupations that would at least be temporarily absorbing if they were not fun or useful. I dated many women in a short period of time, had an encounter with one man - all of whom I forgot immediately afterwards. I used to have a knack for simply filing feelings away, letting my memory hide the useless and improbable desires from me. But Dragon's master had a way of recalling himself to me when I least expected or wanted it. His face backdropped by the view of the coast and the yellow reeds returned again and again to me like a symbolic and critical scene in a film I was suppose to heed. He insisted that I not forget him.

That hunger made me dream one night of the sea, but on a different emptier coast and a darker, lonelier sky. I was lying on fur instead of cloth blankets and he was under me. And when he lifted his eyes to mine they were the color of gold, not the dark blue I remembered. The spray of salt from the sea sprinkled and shined like tiny jewels on his eyelids and cheeks. I felt his hand slip into mine and he dragged his lips across my knuckles and kissed the webbing between my fingers. He was deliberately slow, so slow and lazy because he knew this would be our last time together. Only somehow I did not know this, unwilling to wait and with urgency I took his mouth in mine, shivering as the familiar fire roared within me. He tasted of salt - bitter and delectable. I pressed him to the fur, forcing his shoulders down with my hands, my nails digging into his arms. My tongue slid and licked the walls of his mouth as his knees clamped against me. We built and climbed and his head fell back, black hair against brown as his cartilage made ridges along his throat. I was mesmerized at watching him as he dipped back and forth, sweet and intense with his face a perfect mask of pleasure and, sadness? Those eyes, those golden eyes looked like pools of agonizing loneliness. This is the last kiss, the last embrace, the last time he was thinking as I just pressed myself deeper into him, wrapped in my own universe, my own desperate search for warmth. I pushed myself deep, deeper into a pale body outlined against the dark.

It felt so good. I loved him so much. The two of us were so tight together, such a perfect fit that I knew the world was healed because of us, by the strength of our unity, by the power of our destiny. The sea calmed then rose to meet shore near us and under the white of the moon he was everything to me.

A xylophone chimed incongruously in the distance and I sprang upright in bed. It took me a few moments to recognize it as a ring tone, then that the sound was coming from my phone. I reach for the receiver on my dresser and answered with a bewildered "Hello?"

There was a few seconds of breathless silence and I wondered crazily for a moment if it was Dragon's master reaching from the past out of my dream to me. But my sister's voice, Morgana, came through the line.

"I've left you three voice messages. Have you stopped returning my calls?"

"I don't even get a hello?" Nothing kills a hard-on from an erotic dream more than the nagging sound of your sister's voice. "I was busy with a paper the last few days."

"Well, little brother. Nothing in your business textbooks will properly prepare you for this. We have an business emergency."

I sighed heavily and readied myself for her usual diatribe. I was all theory and education versus her natural business acumen and ruthlessness. I was too academic, inexperienced, and nice to inherit father's businesses; she was none of these things therefore better suited for it. It was a sibling rivalry our father nurtured to the detriment of our relationship.

"What? Break a fake nail and your assistant Gwen isn't around to call the salon for you?"

"This is serious Arthur, you need to come over right now - wait, hold on just a sec." I heard her murmuring to someone in the background. It sounded like she was arguing with my father, their voices rose every now and then to a higher pitch. I tried to make out the words from their muffled tones but couldn't. "Back... just come to the office now. The news broke out that we are under investigation for corporate criminal wrongdoing and for some reason father wants you here."

"What? Criminal? That's absurd."

I heard a clink of crystal on wood and wondered if she had been drinking too much. My father prided himself in a friendly and ethical corporation, despite its size, so this accusation had to be an exaggeration on her part. Yet her words and voice were perfectly steady, even a little amused when she said, "Of course we'll prove it isn't true. I just want to find the mole that got this falsified information and pull his nails one by one off."

She hung up abruptly and there was silence, and distantly, the sound of traffic. Of course these things were common. It would be proven wrong. But why was the news involved?

I lay back down on the pillow and tried to gather together the threads of my dream but couldn't. Those images that seemed so real were gone, except for a lingering feeling that there was a warning in it for me somewhere. Then I remembered - I didn't believe in premonitions or metaphysical mumbo jumbo warnings. I had enough of fantasizing about some man I'd never see again. I got up, took some deep breaths, and readied myself to face my father and sister.