"See if you can find him, Merlin. Adelina and I will look around out here." Arthur said as they found the cave, letting the horses drink water from the stream and going to look around the other side of the cave.

"Hello?"

"What do you want here, boy?" the gruff voice said, grabbing Merlin's shoulder from behind and turning him around.

"I-" Merlin started, finding himself speechless as he looked at the man.

"Balinor, I brought them here." Adelina said, moving into the cave and nodding at the man, not bothering to see if Arthur had noticed anything or not.

"Why?"

"He has something to tell you." she responded, smiling slightly at the softer tone the man's voice adopted when he recognised her.

"Speak, boy!" he demanded, turning around when he heard a third person's voice, eyes going wide as soon as he laid eyes on him.

"You've betrayed me, girl! I knew I should have let you eat those berries. Nothing good ever comes from people. Leave all of you. Before I leave Uther Pendragon a childless father."

"Please, hear them out." Adelina told him, looking earnestly at him.

"You have one minute." he acquiesced reluctantly as he saw the look in her eyes.

"The Great Dragon is attacking Camelot." Arthur began to say, only to be interrupted by Balinor.

"His name is Kilgharrah."

"Very well, Kilgharrah is attacking Camelot. I understand his reasons for it. Had I known, I myself would have freed him. As such, I thought his imprisonment was more a story, not something I actually believed. We need your help, Balinor. The people of Camelot are dying." Arthur explained, hoping the truth showed bright in his eyes.

"We can't stop him. Only you, a dragonlord, can." Merlin added, not tearing his eyes off his father as he spoke.

"He doesn't act blindly. He kills for a reason. Vengeance. This is of Uther's making." his voice was hard as he looked unknowingly at his son.

"But he's killing innocent people. Women and children." Merlin protested, hating the man before him and wishing he'd never known the truth about him, letting that feeling morph his face.

"Uther pursued me! He hunted me like an animal!' Balinor yelled, glaring at the trio as he did.

"I know." Merlin whispered, looking him dead in the eyes as he said it.

"What do you know about anybody's life, boy?!" Balinor shouted even louder than he had the first time, walking farther into his cave as he did so. "Uther asked me to use my power to bring the last dragon to Camelot. He said he wanted to make peace with it, but he did not! He lied to me! He betrayed me! You want me to protect this man?" he demanded, looking now at the son of the man who had caused him great pain.

"I want you to protect Camelot." Merlin answered firmly, not letting his emotion color his voice as he spoke to the man he was slowly wishing they never found.

"Your father killed every one of my kind! I alone escaped!" Balinor said, taking steps closer to Arthur as he spoke and daring him to say otherwise.

"Where did you go?" Merlin asked softly, trying another way to convince him.

"There's a place called Ealdor." Balinor answered, turning his back to the Prince and the young witch to answer sadly.

"Yes." Merlin prompted, holding his breath in anticipation as all he wanted his whole life was soon to come true. And, unlike every other time Arthur was horrified at the callousness of the people against his father, this time he stayed silent. This time he let his friend carry the conversation. He knew how important it was to him. And he wished he wouldn't fail. Because he knew, if Merlin failed to convince his father, that Camelot was well and truly doomed. And with that thought, he took Adelina's arm and steered her out of the cave, leaving them their privacy.

"I had a life there. A woman. A good woman." he whispered, seeing her standing in front of him as he had imagined every night for the past twenty or so years. "Ealdor is beyond Uther's realm, but still he pursued me. Why would he not let me be? What was it that I had done that he wanted to destroy the life I built, abandon the woman I loved? He sent knights to kill me. I was forced to come here, to this!" he continued, his voice growing angrier at each passing phrase. Then he took a deep breath and let all the solitude he'd felt since leaving Ealdor hunch his shoulder, color his voice and fill his eyes. "So, I understand how Kilgharrah feels. He's lost every one of his kind, every one of his kin. You want to know how that feels? Look around, boy. Let Uther die. Let Camelot fall." he deflated.

"You want everyone in Camelot to die?" Merlin whispered, shaking his head in horror at who his father was, tears escaping his eyes as he uttered the last syllable.

"Why should I care?" Balinor demanded.

"What if one of them was your son?" Merlin asked, his voice thick with emotion as he fought to keep control.

"I don't have a son." was all Balinor said, though the wistful expression he tried in vain to hide was clear for him to see.

"And if I told you…" Merlin began, hesitating just long enough for his voice to crack and his resolution to waver. "Gaius spoke of the nobility of dragonlords! Clearly, he was wrong!"

"Gaius?" Balinor asked, thinking of the man who saved his life all those years ago.

"Yes." Merlin said, swallowing past the lump in his throat and ignoring the tight feeling in his chest.

"A good man." Balinor told him, his voice laden with emotions two decades buried.

"Yeah. I was hoping you'd be like him." Merlin whispered, his own voice betraying him as he uttered those words.

"You are right, Merlin. There are some in Camelot who risked their lives for me. I owe a debt that must be repaid." Balinor said after they stood in silence for many minutes, watching the emotion in each other's eyes with no possible way to fathom just how similar their thoughts really were.

"You mentioned...You spoke of Ealdor. You took refuge with a woman." Merlin said, his breaths coming quicker as the disappointment began to fade at Balinor's acceptance.

"That was a long time ago." Balinor replied, closing his eyes against the memories bursting out of their dam.

"I grew up there." Merlin told him, swallowing hard as he built up the courage to say what he so desperately needed to.

"Ealdor?" Balinor clarified.

"Yes. I know the woman." Merlin told him, watching as his father's entire face lit up at her mention.

"Hunith? She's still alive?" he breathed out.

"Yes. She's my mother." Merlin told him, hoping he'd get the hint.

"Then she married. That's good." Balinor said, turning around to hide his heartbreak.

"She never married. I'm your son." Merlin said quickly, before he could chicken out and continue talking in circles with the man.

"I don't know what it is to have a son." Balinor whispered, emotionally spent and needing to sit down as the words finally penetrated his skull.

"Or I a father." Merlin agreed, sitting down beside him and staring past the entrance to the cave where Arthur and Adelina sat with their backs to them.

"Does he know?"

"Yes, I told him two nights ago."

"He would see you dead. He's only here to get the dragon away from Camelot."

"No, he knows about my magic as well." Merlin defended, shaking his head fervently. "He's known about it for almost two years and has said nothing. I trust him with my life…father." Merlin tried out the words, smiling as he liked the sound of them from his lips.

"Then I trust him as well. Son." Balinor said, smiling as he called him his son.

"Why did you never return?" Merlin asked after they sat there in each other's company a while, both silent but loving every moment of it.

"I thought her life would be better without me. Uther wanted me dead. If he'd found me, he'd have killed me, and your mother. I wanted her to be safe." he responded, such sadness in his voice that Merlin had to stand up to respond.

"We could've come with you." Merlin told him, wishing for once that he could turn back time and change everything.

"What kind of life would you have had here?" Balinor asked, shaking his head as he thought of how lonely his boy would have been, holed up in this cave like a hermit.

"We'd have been...happy." Merlin told him, a sad smile on his face as he thought of the possible past he might have had together. "When we've finished in Camelot, I will take you to Ealdor." he promised, watching with a brilliant smile as his father stood up and put his hand on the boy's shoulders, keeping eye contact the entire time and showing him just how much he loved the boy for having only known him an hour.

"She won't recognise me." he lamented, keeping what he really wanted to say inside. The words he would only ever say to her. To his love. "I see her in you." he realized as they stared at each other.

"Yeah?" Merlin wondered, his impossibly wide smile growing even bigger as he spoke.

"You have her kindness."

"How did you become a dragonlord?" Merlin asked, wanting to keep hearing his father's voice for as long as he could.

"You don't choose to become a dragonlord. It's not something you're taught. It's a sacred gift. For thousands of years it's been handed down from father to son. And that is what you must now become, Merlin." he explained in a soft lilting voice, leaning against the rough wall of the cave as he watched his son with careful eyes, an endless sorrow appearing in them momentarily as he thought of his fallen kin.

"I would like that." Merlin said softly, leaning against the opposite wall and matching his father's stance.

"And like all dragonlords, you won't know for sure that you have that power until you face your first dragon."

"When will that be?"

'Hopefully not for a long time. The gift is passed down from father to son, but not until the father dies." Balinor told him somberly. "When you are the last dragonlord. You alone will carry the ancient gift. Deep within yourself, you must find the voice that you and Kilgharrah share, for your soul and his are brothers. When you speak to him as kin, he must obey your will."

"I dearly hope that day never comes." Merlin sighed heavily, standing straight and nodding towards the two who were outside, still seated in the same position. "We should go. It's cruel to keep Arthur and our people suffering."

"Very well." Balinor said, putting his arm around his son and steering him out the cave. "O drakon, e male so ftengometta tesd'hup'anankes!"

"What was that?" Arthur asked, hearing the ancient call and feeling all the power behind every word, his hairs standing on end and a shiver running through his spine at it.

"I've done what you wanted, Arthur Pendragon. Kilgharrah is leaving Camelot." Balinor told him, elation running through his body as he used his power for the first time in so many years.

"Thank you, Balinor. I, and my people, are deeply indebted to you. My father will never know where you are. Your son remains safe." Arthur replied solemnly, grasping his forearm and laughing in relief.

"All I want is my freedom."

"And I will make sure you have it." Arthur vowed, looking between father and son as they stood next to each other.