Chapter 3
Merlin was lying on his bed staring at the window, thinking about the day before, while around him Arthur's armor was being cleaned and polished by invisible hands. He knew that Gaius didn't approve him using his magic like that, but he was to be away for another day, and there were some battle leftovers on that armor that he really, really didn't want to touch. His mind went back to Dragoon. What were the chances of him choosing a name that was already in use? And by a very powerful sorcerer out of all people! (Although to be fair it's not like there are many farmers named Dragoon the Great). Merlin wondered what Dragoon would do now that he knew who he truly was; somewhat he had a feeling he would find out soon enough.
"So, this is how the great Emrys uses his magic …" said a voice behind him.
Merlin jumped out of his bed and turn around only to see Dragoon standing in the corner of his room. He was starting to reply when a loud sound of metal hitting the ground filled the room; Arthur's armor was scattered all over the place. Merlin cursed silently and looked back at Dragoon.
"What are you doing here?" Merlin asked.
Dragoon made a little smile. "Can't your uncle Drake just pay you a visit?" he asked, putting special emphasis on the name.
"Yeah, sorry about that, but Arthur hasn't accepted magic yet; I couldn't tell him who you really were," Merlin explained.
Dragoon noticed Merlin's choice of wording, but decided to not comment on it.
"I know that," he said, "but why tell him that I'm your uncle? Wouldn't have been easier to introduce myself as a friend of Gaius?"
"I thought about it, but you having magic reminded me that every friend of Gaius turns out to be a sorcerer, and Arthur has his bright days, so better not give him any clues," said Merlin, while reaching for the nearest piece of armor.
Dragoon pondered about that for a second. "I guess you're right; you are good at this lying business!"
Merlin froze for an instant, that wasn't something he was proud of. "I have a lot of practice," he said, unsuccessfully trying to hide the sadness in his voice.
"Kid, I'm s—"
"And besides," interrupted Merlin, "if anything goes wrong I can always say that you enchanted me into believing you were my uncle and I'm off the hook."
Dragoon laughed. "I'm hurt kid, and here I thought we were starting to trust each other."
He picked up the last piece of armor and he handed it over to Merlin, who thanked him and made sure that it wasn't broken. Dragoon looked at him, he still couldn't believe he had unintentionally found Emrys, but here he was, cleaning the King's armor; Dragoon needed to know what was going on here.
"Kid, do you mind if ask you a few questions?"
"About?"
"You …, Arthur …, Camelot …, I'm just trying to understand some things," Dragoon said.
Merlin knew that he shouldn't be spilling his secrets to anyone who asked, but for some strange reason he actually trusted Dragoon.
"Ask away."
"Thanks." Dragoon conjured two chairs out of thin air, sat in one of them and signaled Merlin to sit in the other one. "First of all, if you are Emrys then I take that means that Arthur is the so called Once and Future King, right?" Merlin looked surprised but he still nodded. "I've done some research," explained Dragoon. "So, is Arthur's relationship with magic the same as his father's?"
"No, not really, but the fact that Uther was always talking ill of magic, and that sorcerers keep attacking Camelot make hard for him to see that magic can be used also for good."
"And do you hope that someday that will change?"
Merlin thought about all he had done trying to accomplish that, the lies he said, the people he killed, the friends he betrayed; he couldn't stand the thought of all that being for nothing.
"It has to," he sharply said.
Dragoon noticed that Merlin sounded like someone who had invested a lot into something that hadn't paid off yet; obviously that wasn't an easy topic for Merlin so he decided to change it.
"Kid, tell me, how did you learn Magic?" Dragoon asked.
"I didn't, I was born with it," Merlin said with a grin.
Dragoon looked surprised. "Are you telling me you can use any spell without having to learn it?"
"Not all the spells," clarified Merlin, "mostly the instinctive ones, like moving objects or slowing time; the others spells I've learned reading a spell book Gaius gave me."
"Gaius is a great sorcerer, you should be glad of having him as a teacher."
"Well, he gives me the books but he doesn't actually teach me magic." Merlin could see the confusion in Dragoon's face. "When the Great Purge happened he promised Uther not to do magic and he tries to fulfill that promise as much as possible."
Dragoon was a little disappointed. "I knew that, but with you being here I thought that it was just a façade; so, Gaius is still loyal to a crazy man that's already dead …" Dragoon said to himself trying to think what to make of it. He looked at the window for a few seconds. "I guess that at some level it's admirable; stupid, but admirable." He looked back at Merlin. "Are you telling me that you don't have a teacher?"
"Yes, I am a self-learner."
"Do you want one?" asked Dragoon, raising his eyebrows.
Merlin froze, staring right at him. "You!?"
"Ouch; yes me."
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that, it's just that it was … unexpected, I mean, you did come to Camelot to kill m—, sorry, punish me, and now you are here offering to help me."
"Well, what can I say, I changed my mind; and besides I said that I was going to teach you a lesson, which kind of applies both ways." Dragoon laughed a bit at his own joke. "So, what do you think?"
One of the main reasons for Merlin to come to Camelot was to learn more about sorcery, but when he saw a man being beheaded just for having magic he understood the extent of the hatred that this kingdom held towards it. His hopes were crushed until Gaius gave him his spell book, which proved useful for a few years, but now he had long learned everything that book could teach him. There was nothing to think, he extended his hand to Dragoon.
"I'm in."
"Great!" Dragoon said, shaking Merlin's hand, "then I'll meet you outside Camelot at nightfall for our first lesson."
Merlin saw as Dragoon stood up and started to leave the room. "Didn't you want to ask me more questions?"
"There will be time for that, now I have some things to get ready for tonight," said Dragoon walking towards the door. When he was already in the other room he turned around and asked "You do know that you are immortal, right?"
Merlin just stayed there without saying a word.
Dragoon smiled and closed the door.
.
.
.
As always Merlin didn't have any problem getting out of the city, some day he would have to talk to Arthur about the security, but for the moment that was really useful for his magic escapades. He could see Dragoon waiting for him next to a tree.
"Follow me kid," he told him.
"Where are we going?" Merlin asked.
"To the forest, I found us a spot where we can practice without being disturbed."
Merlin followed him for a little while before he couldn't hold the question any more. "So, what's that about me being immortal?"
"Well, that's what Emrys means, I thought you knew."
"Obviously I didn't; does that mean I can't be killed? Because that would be really useful right now…"
"No living man can be truly immortal; the bond you have with magic will heal you enough to prevent you from aging past a point, but it has its limits, a fatal wound will still mean death."
Merlin was in deep thought. "It's a lot to take," he said.
"I know, but I promise you that this will get your mind off that." He went into some bushes and signaled Merlin to follow. "We are here."
Merlin almost laughed when the place turned out to be the clearing he used to talk to Kilgharrah. The moment Merlin entered the clearing he felt a surge of energy rush trough his body.
"What just happened?" he asked.
"Don't worry," answered Dragoon, "I just blocked your magic for a little while, which bring us to lesson number one …"
"You did WHAT!?"
"Sword fighting!" continued Dragoon ignoring Merlin's question. He picked up two swords that were on the ground and tossed one of them to Merlin, who caught it mid-air. Dragoon started attacking Merlin slowly. "Many powerful sorcerers tend to rely completely on their magic; however there are at least thirty two known ways of blocking someone's magic, involving anything from enchanted amulets to bunnies." Dragoon took advantage of Merlin's confusion and tried to attack from above, but he blocked it. "Don't ask," Dragoon said.
Merlin step away from him. "So we have to learn how to defend ourselves without magic, I get it, but you could just told me not to use it, you didn't have to block it!"
"Could I? You said it yourself, your magic is instinctive; you would have slowed down time without even thinking about it." Dragoon attacked Merlin again but every time he tried to deal a blow sword clashed into Merlin's. "You know kid, you are a lot better than I expected."
"I always watch Arthur train, and even sometimes I'm his training dummy; I was bound to learn something."
"Well, come on then, let's see what you got!"
They both rushed towards each other with their swords held high.
.
.
.
Dragoon didn't know exactly how long they had been training, but both of them were lying back on the ground trying to catch their breath. "That was some good fighting kid!" Dragoon said.
"Thanks."
"Your magic should have come back by now, try something." Merlin mumbled a few words and a sphere of water appeared out of nowhere and headed straight to Dragoon. He threw a fireball at it, but the water sphere just split in two, dodged the fireball and hit him in the face. "Very funny," he said sarcastically.
Merlin laughed. "I owed you one," he said.
"You did." Dragoon stood up slowly, he looked at the sky and then back at Merlin. "We should be heading back in a little while, and since you did so well I'm going to answer you one question about magic."
"Just one?"
"For today, yes; I've learned that the fewer questions you get to ask the better they are, and honestly I don't like to answer silly questions."
Merlin pondered what he should ask, but when a question came to his mind he realized that it could have never been any other.
"How much trust should I put in prophecies?"
"That is actually a good question; you know for a second there I thought you would ask me for a spell to clean armor instantly."
"You can do that!?" asked Merlin with wide eyes.
"Focus kid; prophecies are no simple matter, many sorcerers were doomed by believing too much or too little in some of them."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, this is something not everyone agrees on, but I like to say that there are three kinds of prophecies: the avoidable ones, the unavoidable ones, and the self-fulfilling ones. The avoidable prophecies are the most basic ones, you see something that you can change if you try; you could say that these are the most easy to understand. Then we have the unavoidable prophecies, these are rare but they do exist, basically you see something that you can't change no matter what you do. Last but not least we have the self-fulfilling prophecies, which I like to call the seers' bane; in these the things that you do to prevent the prophecy from happening are what actually make it happen; in other words, if the seer hadn't seen it, it wouldn't happen." Dragoon gave Merlin a little while to take in what he just said.
"And how do you know which is which?" Merlin asked.
Dragoon smiled. "That's the catch kid, you can't."
"So what's the point of a vision if you can't trust what you see?"
"As I said not everyone agrees with my point of view, many seers believe blindly that their visions are going to happen unless they do something about it, which I guess is understandable because while sorcerers like us just hear about the prophecies, seers live them; to them that future is as real as this present is for us."
"Actually, I had a vision once," said Merlin.
"Really? How?" asked Dragoon.
"It happened in the Crystal Cave, have you heard of that place?"
"Oh yes," answered Dragoon, "the birthplace of magic; I've been there once, couldn't sleep for a week."
"I know the feeling," Merlin said.
"So, what did you see?"
Merlin thought about Morgana; he didn't want to talk about her.
"It no longer matters," he said, "what I saw already happened, but it was just as you said, the things I did to prevent it from happening is what made it happen."
"I'm sorry kid," Dragoon said sincerely.
Merlin didn't answer; he just took a deep breath. "So, what do you do about prophecies then?"
"Personally I try to avoid them; I like to control my own destiny." He made a pause. "True, there are some prophecies that can be used for good, but they are hidden in a haystack of those who can't.
"Anyway, in case you can't avoid it the best thing to do is play it safe and cover all possibilities." Dragoon thought a good example. "For instance, let's say you see an old enemy of yours stabbing you in the back while you were wearing a red cloak. Now, you can't just go and try to kill him because what you saw may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but on the other hand you can't just dismiss it because it may be one of the others. In this situation you would be wise to never wear red cloaks again and be extra cautious in case is an avoidable prophecy, and you should try to make some healing potions or to learn some healing spell in case is an unavoidable one so you can heal yourself after being stabbed.
"But honestly kid, in the end, I would choose what I think is right over what the prophecy tells me to do every time."
Merlin pondered about his words. "How do you know so much?" he asked.
He didn't say anything for a while. "Gaius is coming tomorrow, right?"
"Yes."
"Then tomorrow you'll know; right now we have to get going if you hope to have a good three hours sleep."
"Why can't you just tell me now?" Merlin asked.
"Because it wouldn't be as fun;" Dragoon said, smiling, "come on kid, get up."
Merlin wanted to know the answer, but getting some sleep sounded really good. He stood up and started following Dragoon back to Camelot, thinking about tomorrow.
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A/N: I hope you liked it!
Thanks for the reviews of the last chapter, favs and follows =D.
Sorry if the talk about prophecies got too long, but someone should have told Merlin something like that a long time ago …
Story wise I'm going to be using some events from season 5, but they won't happen exactly the same way.
Thank you for reading and any feedback would be appreciated =D
EDIT: If you see something different about the prophecy talk... a wizard did it.
EDIT_2: Changed the format a bit.