Aithusa's POV
A dream.
I know it's a dream because my body feels fuller, all my cuts and grazes have gone and in place of my feeble body lies a proper dragons back. I take a tentative step out of the stables and head towards the wooden door. It feels real but my body easily manages to push it open. This must be a dream because I am not strong and mighty, I am weak and feeble.
I close my eyes and take a breath of the air around me. It is fresh and pure, much in contradiction to the stuffy air that surrounded me in my cave. I think I must be the only dragon in the world to feel claustrophobic. But I can't stand small confined spaces. Dragons are meant to be free, not locked up. I tense my ears to the sounds of the night and then I hear it.
A roar and a flash of wings makes me open my eyes in surprise. Above me the stars glisten and move shimmering into the form of a dragon.
Instinctively I know that it is Kilgharrah, my kin. As he nears I begin to feel ashamed. I do not belong in his powerful presence. I bow my head in shame I have failed him, disappointed him and therefore disappointed myself. Kilgharrah stares at me, there is no hatred in his eyes, but there certainly isn't joy either, he's motionless but it's clear that I am the one who needs to speak first "I'm sorry," I think.
Kilgharrah speaks to me, as if he had heard my thoughts "Do not be sorry, Aithusa it is my fault." He bows his head slightly "I didn't look after you very well."
"It wasn't your fault, it was mine… I was the one who ran away from you, you're my only family and I betrayed you." I think again
"This is a dream Aithusa!" Kilgharrah says sounding surprised "You can speak, you do not have to think your words."
A dream.
But it feels so real.
I cough, "Why are you here Kilgharrah? What do you want?" I ask, surprised to hear my own voice for the first time. I mean I hear it inside my head all the time, but it sounds different here, more hollow, more afraid. To me my voice sounds powerful, confident and scary. But it's not.
"Fly with me." Is his reply. He stretches his wings and takes off. I follow in close pursuit, I roll back my shoulders and stretch my wings and flap them until I am way above the treeline and beneath Kilgharrah's endless shadow. Although they ache from exhaustion, it feels so good to fly with him. I am tired but exhilarated at the same time. We fly in silence, time passing slowly. In comparison to him, my wings are much smaller, not fully developed, meaning I have to flap them twice as hard to keep up with him, it doesn't help that one of my wings is slightly lopsided from where it had been crushed against the wall of the stone tower morgana and I were prisoner in. I stop suddenly.
Morgana dead.
Kilgharrah dead.
Last of my kind.
A dream.
"What happened?" I ask Kilgharrah bluntly.
He sighs with weariness as if it takes a huge amount of energy and looks towards the ground. I follow him as he lands in a clearing. He looks at me and for the first time I see an emotion in his eyes. It's a strange emotion, one familiar to me yet unfamiliar. But he is my kin and I feel what he feels. Sorrow. Pity. Coldness. Guilt.
"I am over a thousand years old, it was only a matter of time before this happened."
"No. that wasn't it. I heard your screams, they weren't dragon. You didn't just…"
Kilgharrah does not reply. Which only confirms my suspicions
Then it dawns on me, there is only one possible explanation. "You were killed." It is a statement not a question.
"It was my destiny and it was my choice." he replies as if determined to convince himself that this was true.
"You sacrificed yourself?"
"Yes."
"Was it worth it?"
"Yes."
"Who did you sacrifice yourself for?"
"Arthur pendragon, so that Albion could live on"
I recoil in disgust at the mention of the royal king's name. "He persecutes us and our kind and you sacrificed yourself for him? You betrayed the dragon kin."
"Aithusa!" he roars angrily "You are a foolish young dragon. You chose to follow in Morgana's ways and tried to destroy the land that Arthur and Merlin are dedicating their lives to! You have no right to speak to me about betrayal!" he looks angry, terrifyingly angry. Dragon angry.
"I-I- I'm sorry." I mutter quietly. I don't know whether I mean it, but I must if I said it right? I deserve his anger. "Is there anything I can do to make it better?"
He sighs. It seems to fill the space around us, and continues echoing off the trees.
"Aithusa, I need to trust you, but I can't do that until you trust me completely."
He awaits my response. So many thoughts whirring in my mind but in the end, they reach a conclusion. All those who I trusted are dead, it's time that I moved on from my Mistress, I need to put my trust into others, but also begin to trust in myself.
Do I trust Kilgharrah?
Yes.
No.
A dream.
"I trust you Kilgharrah, I trust in you entirely." I say it before my mind has time to object. I look into his eyes and slowly blink, a symbol of trust, a symbol of friendship. He returns my gesture and then breathes out his mouth. A great cloud of mist appears and swallows us up. It's bigger than anything I've ever seen and has all the power and might in it of a thousand dragons. I feel it surround me and begin to fill my lungs, my body. From my claws all the way up through my spine, through my eyes and mind until I am completely consumed by the mist. It beats along with my heartbeat and inhabits my inner thoughts. It tells me who I am, who the dragons are, who my kin is. It is not a sinister force, but one that connects me to the land. That tells me the prophecy as old as the earth itself, the ancient one. I see myself staring through the eyes of the kin, through the eyes of everyone, but no-one at the same time. Then it begins to clear. I don't want it too, I am trying to cling onto it, grasp a handful of the mist but it is fading fast, running down my cheeks like tears, deflating in my lungs and seeping out of my skin, I know after it ends that I will never feel like that again. My eyes are still closed and the air around me seems to be whispering "Merlin needs you, you don't know it yet, but you possess a power as old as the land itself. Remember my kin, I love you." And with a final breath it is gone and I open my eyes and am back in the stables, the land around me quiet, still.
A dream.
But it can't have been, I refuse to believe that I dreamt all that. My claw is clenched and I release it, there reflected back at me is the proof that it can't have been a dream.
^.^
Merlin's POV
I wake up with a jolt. I must have fallen asleep whilst rubbing down my horse. I stretch and look around. The stable is as it should be, but something feels wrong. I can't figure it out. I'm pretty comfortable where I am, and close my eyes. I can't seem to shut down my mind, sleep is not coming. I keep thinking back to my conversation with Arthur. "I can't be true to myself unless I let magic return to Camelot"
My conversation with Arthur.
That's what is wrong.
Now that I think about it, the conversation just seemed wrong. him knighting me so unexpectedly, telling me that magic was going to return. My reply as if I had expected this to happen…
But surely not…
Surely it was true…
But everything now seems wrong about it, the way Arthur suddenly appeared. The way he suddenly disappeared. I didn't follow him out. Just stayed in the stable.
It was a dream. The whole thing was a dream. My whole life at Camelot had been about hearing that phrase, I'd built up so much hope that… I dreamt it all. The realisation of this crashes around me. I'm not a knight. Magic isn't going to return to Camelot. I'm still in a fight with Arthur. So perfect. So perfect it was wrong. I was wrong. A knot of tension appears in my stomach and I begin to breathe heavily. Something has got me in its grasp, holding me and squeezing. It's filling my lungs, my ears, and my nose. Every inch of me is telling me to run but I can't I'm paralysed. I'm trapped. Figures seem to dance around my face, I make out dragons and trolls and witches and goblins, all things magical. They seem to whisper and fill the space around me. They sound so sinister, beating along with my heartbeat intertwining my thoughts. A dragon holds a crystal and into it I see the prophecy. The one as old as time, the one my destiny is written in. I look away, I don't want to see it, but my eyes are dragged and forced to look. I see everything, know everything I cannot escape it. Then I see it. The words that have been told to me so many times. "At the battle of Camlann, the one they call Mordred will slay Arthur Pendragon." but as I look again the words seem to change until it reads "In the battle for the kingdom, the one they call Emrys will slay Arthur Pendragon"
That's the point I collapse.