Well, it looks like the admins have finally made some progress at fixing the various issues that have been plaguing us throughout February, so hopefully this update will go a little more smoothly than the last one.

Disclaimer: some of this chapter's dialogue is borrowed from Merlin 2x13.

"My father?" Those two little words sent Merlin's world spinning off its axis, and he found himself reaching for Bo and Morgana again, this time because he needed their comfortingly familiar presence to ground him. They immediately pressed in closer to lend their support, and after a moment he recovered enough to ask, "Why did no one ever tell me?! All my life, neither you nor my mother ever said a word…"

"I'm sorry, Merlin. Hunith believed it was for the best."

Merlin shook his head, automatically rejecting that argument. "I had a right to know." Gaius opened his mouth again, but Merlin didn't want to hear whatever he might say next, couldn't bear to listen to any more justifications or excuses. Pulling free of his paramours, he hurried off and soon disappeared among the trees.

He kept walking for a short while without any clear idea of where he was going, just that he needed to get away, before coming to a stop by a fallen log. He had only been there for a minute or two when Bo and Morgana materialized out of the woods and sat down on the log beside him, wrapping their arms around him and leaning their heads on his shoulders.

"Are you all right, Merlin?" Morgana asked while rubbing his arm sympathetically.

"I… Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel. All my life, I've wondered who my father was, what sort of man he was, why he left my mother and me; I must've asked her dozens of times when I was a child, but she would never tell me anything, so eventually I resigned myself to never knowing. To find out now, like this…"

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Bo supplied. "Realizing that Gaius knew all along, that all the time you lived with him he could've filled this gaping hole in your life with just a few words, but every day he looked you in the face and chose not to say anything. Even if you know he only did it to protect you and he genuinely thought what he was doing was the best thing for you, you can't help feeling betrayed."

Knowing she was speaking from personal experience, Merlin briefly tightened the arm around her waist, as if to say he was sorry that she had gone through this too. He had always been sorry for everything Bo had suffered, but now he understood her pain in a whole new way. "Yes, that's exactly how it feels. Still, you're right… I know my mother and Gaius were only trying to keep me safe. They would never intentionally do anything to hurt me."

"Right," Morgana agreed. "That's what I told myself when I realized how long Gaius hid the truth of my magic from me…and how you had hidden yours. Everyone makes mistakes, but as long as their intentions were good, we should try to forgive them."

They sat in silence for several minutes, each lost in their own thoughts and memories, before Merlin spoke again. "Now that I know the man we're going to look for is my father…I wish we didn't have to take so many other people. I wish it could be just us."

"If that's what you want, that's what we'll do," Bo said decisively as she bounced onto her feet, full of determination and purpose once more. "Come on, let's go find your dad."

###

Before setting off on the next leg of their quest, they had to say goodbye to Gaius and the druids. Iseldir thanked them for recovering the stolen triskelion and ensuring that it fulfilled its purpose at last, and promised to pass along their good wishes to Mordred. Meanwhile, Gaius and Alice, who was leaving with Iseldir's group, shared a bittersweet farewell in which they expressed their dismay at being forced to part yet again, though Gaius admitted to hoping they could be reunited once more when Arthur was king, this time for good.

"Then I shall wait as long as it takes," Alice promised.

It was Merlin's turn next, and although a bit of awkwardness lingered in the air between them as Gaius apologized again for keeping the identity of Merlin's father secret for so long, while Merlin's assurance that he understood why Gaius had done it came out slightly forced – after all, understanding Gaius' reasoning didn't mean he liked it – they still hugged each other tightly.

"You've always been the closest thing to a father I've ever had," Merlin said softly, blinking back tears as he inhaled the familiar scent of the old man's woolen robe. "I can only hope Balinor is half as good a man as you are."

"Thank you, my boy." Gaius was glad that Merlin would, hopefully, soon get the chance to meet his real father, and hoped Balinor lived up to his expectations…but he couldn't deny that it warmed his heart to know that he would always have a place in the life of the boy he'd come to think of as his own.

###

As luck would have it, the border town in Cenred's kingdom that Gaius had named as Balinor's last known location was on their way back to Trick's land, so as they flew over it, Bo asked Kilgharrah to drop her, Merlin, and Morgana off before taking the rest of their companions home, along with the egg. "Carting it around like this makes me nervous," she explained when her guards protested. "Don't want it to accidentally get dropped and end up as a dragon-egg omelet." (This happened to be true, even though she was mainly using it as an excuse to send them away; Merlin hadn't yet divulged his relation to the dragonlord they were searching for, and she wasn't going to make him share that information until he was ready.) "I'm counting on you guys to keep it safe till we can get it hatched."

"We don't have to sit on it, do we?" Gwaine asked with (mostly) feigned worry.

"Please don't," Bo replied dryly.

"Be careful," Dyson entreated, his earnest demeanor providing a sobering counterpoint to Gwaine's levity. "These are dangerous lands."

"You can say that again," Merlin agreed, thinking sourly of how Cenred hadn't lifted a finger to curtail the bandits who had terrorized Ealdor during his first year in Camelot.

"Don't worry, we'll look after each other," Morgana assured the wolf. "We may not have you as we did on our first journey through Albion, but at least this time we have Bo, fully conscious and ready to help with whatever we might encounter."

"You're in good hands, then," Dyson said with a grin.

It was with a great sense of relief that Kilgharrah landed and allowed the trio to clamber off his back; not only did their departure lighten his load, it also meant there were fewer people to fill his ears with an endless stream of banter. Merlin was generally the worst offender in that regard, though that human they'd acquired in the Perilous Lands also did more than his share. Kilgharrah hoped they wouldn't all travel together too often – or that if they did, they would use Trick's winged horses next time.

###

Merlin, Bo, and Morgana began their search in the town of Engerd, but everyone they spoke with said Balinor hadn't been seen in the village in years. An old woman who used to trade eggs and goat's milk to him in exchange for his help in fixing things on her small farm had a vague idea that he lived somewhere in the surrounding hills, perhaps in one of the numerous caves underneath those hills, so the trio struck out into the countryside, checking every cave they found.

The first five they peeked into were dank, musty, and showed no signs whatsoever of human habitation, but at last Merlin found a larger, dryer one that contained a bedroll, a cooking pot, and some bundles of herbs. Heart pounding at the possibility that he might have found his father's hideout, that he might be mere moments away from meeting him, Merlin crept inside, anxiously scanning the darker recesses of the deep cave. "Balinor?"

He thought he glimpsed a flash of movement out of the corner of one eye, but before he could spin around for a closer look, someone seized him roughly from behind. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Naturally, Merlin let out a yelp of surprise and alarm when he felt himself being grabbed, which brought Bo and Morgana running. Upon entering the cave to find their boyfriend held in what looked like the beginning of a chokehold by a tall bearded man in a long coat that looked like it had been stitched together from various animal hides, they promptly went on the attack.

"Leave him alone!"

The man looked up when Bo shouted at him, inadvertently presenting his face as a perfect target for her fist. He lost his grip on Merlin as he reeled backward from the force of her punch, and the moment he let go, Morgana sent him flying across the cave, though she did at least make sure he landed on his pile of blankets.

"Are you all right, Merlin?"

"Fine. Just got startled is all." In fact, he was more worried about Bo, who hadn't even tried to check on him like Morgana had; instead, she was still snarling at Balinor with a disturbingly feral glint in her bright blue eyes, her muscles coiled like a spring, as if she was fighting the impulse to launch herself at him again. Hoping to stave off any further aggression, Merlin reached out and gently took hold of her arm. "I said I'm fine, Bo."

Her head snapped toward him, and for a heartstopping moment he found himself on the receiving end of that burning glare. For one wild instant he even thought she might lash out at him, but then she seemed to recognize him and calmed herself, though it took longer than usual for her eyes to fade back to brown. "Sorry."

"It's all right." He fumbled in his bag and pulled out a vial, which he hurriedly uncorked. "Here, have some of your potion."

"I just took some a couple hours ago," Bo protested.

"I think you need more."

She took the vial with a grimace and gulped its contents as quickly as possible, trying not to let it touch her tongue more than she could help so the taste wouldn't linger in her mouth. Even a second's contact with the foul concoction was enough to pucker her face in disgust, and it didn't help her mood when she lowered the vial to find that Balinor, back on his feet now, was watching her with a peculiar expression; in fact, it might be more accurate to say he was gaping at her like he'd seen a ghost. "What?" she demanded crossly.

The sound of her voice seemed to snap the dragonlord out of whatever strange reaction had taken hold of him, though he was clearly still unnerved. "I'm sorry; for a moment I thought…but you can't be…"

"I can't be what?"

"…Isabeau." He uttered the name in a near-whisper, as if saying it aloud disturbed him even more, or perhaps pained him, but Bo was too curious to be overly concerned with his emotional state.

"How do you know my name?"

"I don't think he does," Morgana interjected, recalling how she'd been mistaken for her mother when she first arrived in Trick's kingdom. "Or at least, he doesn't know that it's yours. Perhaps he's thinking of your grandmother. Did you know her?" she asked Balinor. "Queen Isabeau, the Blood King's wife?"

"I…I did. For a short time." Balinor paused to collect himself, and suddenly realized that in his shock at seeing what he'd thought was a familiar face – and her features were familiar; even now that he knew the leather-clad woman in front of him was a different person, the resemblance to her grandmother was uncanny – he'd said a lot more to these strangers than he should have. "But why did you come here, if you didn't already know that I'd met the queen? Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"Forgive us for not introducing ourselves properly," Morgana said smoothly, her courtly manners automatically taking over. "I'm the Lady Morgana of Camelot, you already know Princess Isabeau's name-"

"If it helps, everyone calls me Bo," the succubus chipped in, seeing how the sound of her full name still made Balinor twitch.

"-And this is…" Morgana let her voice trail off as she looked quizzically at Merlin, wondering how she should identify him. Presenting someone to their long-lost father who apparently had no inkling they even existed was not one of the scenarios covered in her etiquette lessons.

He caught her look, realized her dilemma, and hastily provided his own introduction. "Oh, I'm, uh…I'm Merlin." For a split second he considered mentioning his mother's name, or at least that he was from Ealdor, but decided to wait. Balinor had probably had enough shocks for a while…besides, he wanted to get a better sense of the kind of person his father was before revealing their connection.

Bo and Morgana exchanged glances – it seemed their boyfriend's proclivity for playing things close to the vest was alive and well – before Bo got down to business. "And you're Balinor the dragonlord, right?"

"What makes you think that?" he asked sharply.

"A lady in Engerd told us the guy we're looking for lived in a cave somewhere in this general area, so I thought, how many cave-dwelling hermits can there be in one place? Isn't the whole point of being a hermit that you're the only person for miles around?"

"I suppose that's true," Balinor conceded. "Very well, you're right; I am Balinor, though I can't imagine what business you have with a dragonlord. The only dragon left alive is imprisoned beneath the royal palace of Camelot." He glanced at Morgana, having noted that she'd said she was a lady of Camelot and wondering if she knew anything about Kilgharrah's plight, but once again it was Bo who answered.

"Not anymore – these two let him out, but he's not the reason we're here. We just rescued a dragon egg from the tomb of Ashkanar, and we need you to hatch it."

"A dragon egg?" Balinor echoed, stunned. "From the tomb of Ashkanar… My father used to tell me stories about him, how he was not only a great sorcerer but a powerful seer as well. If anyone would have had the foresight to hide a dragon egg four hundred years ago to save the race of dragons from extinction today, I suppose it would have been him. And you claim to have this egg in your possession?" He cast a dubious look at Merlin's satchel, silently questioning whether it was big enough to hold a dragon egg.

"We don't have it with us, but it's safe," Merlin explained. "Some friends of ours are watching over it. If you'll come with us, we can take you to them."

He held his breath as Balinor hesitated, clearly struggling with the idea of leaving his cave after so many years in isolation, then let it out in a sigh of relief as his father finally nodded. "If there is a chance of restoring dragons to the world, it is my duty as a dragonlord to see it done. I will go with you."

###

After Balinor packed up the few belongings he wanted to take with him, they hit the road without delay. Kilgharrah had promised to come back for them after delivering the egg to Trick's castle, but Bo didn't want to sit around and wait for him even though their lack of horses meant they had to travel on foot. As the afternoon shadows lengthened and the day gradually faded into dusk – during which time they passed by a handful of isolated farms and a small village that looked as if they would have provided perfectly satisfactory hiding places – Balinor finally asked where their friends had taken the egg. When Merlin told him, he stopped cold, his face taking on a shuttered expression.

"The Blood King's palace? I won't go there."

Bo came to a screeching halt as well, her fists clenching in frustration. The last thing she needed was to hit another roadblock this late in the game. "Why not?"

"Trust me, I wouldn't be welcomed. Your grandfather and I didn't part on the best of terms."

"Because of Trick's curse on the dragons?" Merlin asked. "If you see them as your kin, that must have made you angry…although the underfae rebellion that caused him to curse them happened hundreds of years before your time…"

"Yes, but it only came to fruition after I inherited the dragonlord's gift from my father, when Uther began his Purge. I didn't understand how an ordinary man, even one driven by hatred as great as his, could manage to kill so many dragons when he shunned the assistance of sorcerers who would have allied with him in hopes of gaining leniency for themselves or their loved ones; then Kilgharrah told me of the blood curse, how there were greater forces at work than Uther's own skill and cunning. We journeyed to the Blood King's land to attempt to persuade him to grant clemency to the remaining dragons-"

"Obviously that didn't go well, since they all died," Bo observed.

"It did not, although I thought at first that we might have a chance. Your grandmother, at least, seemed sympathetic."

"My grandmother?" she echoed, hoping he would say more. No one she'd spoken to so far had anything but glowing praise for the original Isabeau, yet Bo still felt that there was a lot she didn't know about the woman whose name she had inherited, memories it was too painful for Trick to revisit – or, depending on how long Isabeau had lived, it might be that telling her entire life story would simply be too time-consuming.

Balinor nodded. "The queen was a good woman, fair-minded and compassionate. She agreed to meet with Kilgharrah, to hear his side of the story, even though she knew her husband wouldn't approve. We slipped out of the castle under cover of darkness, and I was going to take her to where the Great Dragon waited…but we were ambushed before we reached him. The queen was killed that night."

"Oh." Hearing the details of how her grandmother died for the first time hit Bo like a punch in the stomach, making her feel as if the wind had been knocked out of her. When she could speak again, all she could think of to say was, "No wonder things went south between you and Trick. …But if he blamed you in some way for her dying because you talked her into sneaking out, how'd you get away? After hearing what he did to the dragons for getting involved in a rebellion where some of his friends died, I'd have thought he would've done something really nasty to anyone he held responsible for him losing his wife."

"You're right about that. You don't think I ended up living in a cave by choice, do you?"

"Actually, I hadn't really thought about it," Bo admitted, "although now that you mention it, it would be pretty weird if that was your idea of prime real estate."

"Indeed," Balinor scoffed. "I'm sorry; much as I would like to restore the dragons, I swore never to enter the Blood King's lands again. I cannot follow you there." With that, he turned his back on them and walked away, heading back the way they had come.

Bo made a move as if to go after him, but Merlin stopped her. "Let me. I think I can change his mind…or at least I hope I can."

"How? Will you tell him who you are?" Morgana asked, wide-eyed.

"If that's what it takes. If my mother still means anything to him…if learning that he has a son means anything to him…I think he'll help us." Merlin hurried after his father then, trying not to think about what he would do if it turned out that Balinor didn't care.

###

It only took him a few minutes to catch up with the retreating dragonlord, who reluctantly stopped when he called out, "Wait! Balinor, wait – if you'll just listen to me-!"

"I'm sorry, Merlin," the older man said gruffly. "I'd like to help, truly, but you have no idea what my last dealing with the Blood King cost me. After pleading the dragons' case to him failed, when Kilgharrah was the only one left, Uther sought me out and claimed he wanted to make peace with the last dragon, but it was a ruse. When I summoned Kilgharrah to Camelot, Uther put him in chains instead. I knew it was only a matter of time before he executed me now that he had no further need of a dragonlord, but someone helped me escape. I fled to a town beyond Uther's borders and started a new life; I even found a woman I hoped to spend it with, a good woman…"

Balinor's voice cracked, forcing him to pause while Merlin waited on tenterhooks for him to continue. When he spoke again, his voice was harder, full of bitterness. "It wasn't to be, though. Because he held me partly responsible for the loss of his wife, the person he loved most, the Blood King wrote that I would lose what I loved as well, and I did. I was certain I had left no trail to follow, yet somehow Uther learned where I was and hunted me down, even though it meant crossing into Cenred's territory. I had to run again, to abandon the woman I loved, because of that damned blood curse."

By the time he finished, Merlin's throat was painfully tight, but he swallowed hard and forced himself to speak. To his own amazement, he even managed to keep his voice fairly steady. "I know more of your story than you think. The village you hid in was Ealdor, wasn't it?"

"How do you know that?"

"I grew up there, until my mother sent me to Camelot…to live with her brother, Gaius."

"Her brother?" Balinor echoed, stunned. "Then Hunith is your mother?" At Merlin's nod, he looked even more astonished, then resigned. "She married, then. Good."

"She never married. Gaius told me I was born less than a year after you left Ealdor. I'm your son."

Balinor froze, his eyes widening. "If that's true, then it's all the more reason you should get as far from me as you can, before the curse brings danger to you too."

"I'm not afraid of that. I don't doubt Trick's power," Merlin asserted, cutting off Balinor's protests before he could voice them, "but I've faced danger before, and I'm not powerless either. Besides, I know Trick; he can be…stern, but he's a good man underneath. When we get back, I'll get him to remove his curse on you."

"And you believe he'll do that for you?" Balinor asked in a voice dripping with skepticism.

"I think so." Merlin had never actually tried asking Trick for a favor, but he hoped the fae ruler would at least hear him out; after all, he did seem to value him and Morgana as Bo's magical protectors and had always dealt fairly with them, treating them with a benevolent, if somewhat detached, air. "He'll do it for Bo, anyway," he said more confidently. "Then you won't have to hide anymore, and we can be a family."

This prospect did not seem to delight Balinor as much as Merlin might have hoped; in fact, he looked more apprehensive than pleased. "I don't know what it is to have a son," he said stiffly, awkwardly.

"Nor I a father, but we have a chance to change that now. Come with me. Please."

Balinor hesitated another moment, overwhelmed by how much his life had changed in the last five minutes just from learning that he had a son, to say nothing of how much more it might change if he accepted Merlin's offer… Then, at last, he dipped his head in assent.

###

Later that night, as Bo and Morgana settled down to sleep, Balinor seized the opportunity to draw Merlin aside for a private conversation. Of course, they had been talking for hours; Merlin was naturally very curious about his father's life and abilities as a dragonlord, as were the girls, but what Balinor had to say now was for Merlin alone.

"I've been watching you with those girls," he began in a low voice. "I've seen the way you look at them – the same way Hunith used to look at me when she thought I couldn't see, until she realized I didn't mind. You're in love with them, aren't you?"

Merlin squirmed under his intense gaze; while the three of them hadn't exactly taken pains to conceal their relationship from Balinor, neither had they flaunted it or openly discussed it with him. It was as if they had reached an unspoken agreement to introduce the concept to him by degrees, but he was obviously more perceptive than they'd anticipated. Now Merlin wondered if he was about to get a taste of parental disapproval, but decided not to try fibbing his way out of it. What he shared with Bo and Morgana was the best part of his life, so he wasn't going to act like it was something to be ashamed of. Meeting his father's eyes squarely, he said, "Yes."

Balinor nodded, entirely unsurprised. "I'm not sure it's my place to give you advice, and I don't want to overstep…but you need to be careful. A lady of Camelot and the Blood King's granddaughter make for dangerous bedfellows."

"I know – Uther would've had my head if he'd found out, but Trick is different. He… Well, he hasn't exactly given us his blessing, but he hasn't tried to interfere either."

"I see. Good. Well then, as long as you're happy…"

Merlin assured him that he was, and Balinor tried to accept his assurances, but deep down he was still worried. While he was relieved that his son didn't seem to be in danger of getting killed or thrown in a dungeon for loving the wrong women, he couldn't believe that the Blood King would ever see a human, magical or not, as an acceptable consort for his granddaughter – which made him wonder what hidden motives might lie beneath the man's façade of tolerance. He just hoped that, whatever was truly going on, Merlin hadn't walked into a trap without even realizing it.

###

The next morning, the quartet quickly packed up their campsite and started walking again, but they didn't get far before they were attacked by a group of warriors in the same black, hooded garb as the ones who had accosted Bo, Merlin, Morgana, and their friends in the Perilous Lands, though of course Balinor had no way of knowing this.

"See, I told you it was dangerous to be near me!" he snapped at Merlin as they drew their weapons and prepared to defend themselves.

"It's not you; we've met these assholes before," Bo told him as the first one got close enough to strike at her with his sword, and she parried the blow. "Seriously, what do you people want?!"

None of them answered her, just pressed their assault with ruthless efficiency. They had replaced their slain comrades with fae who boasted a whole new magical skillset, including a trio of elementals who engaged Merlin and Morgana in an epic battle of ice, fire, and lightning while Bo and Balinor did their best to fend off the others with their swords and daggers. Bo was even able to get an enemy fighter in a headlock and siphon their chi, rendering them unconscious and giving her a boost that she hoped might turn the tide in her favor.

Diving back into the fray with renewed strength and vigor, she took down three more opponents in short order, then glanced over to see how her lovers were faring against the elementals. There was only one left standing amid the patches of ice and scorched earth that marked their field of combat, and Merlin was conjuring a lightning bolt to finish him off while Morgana distracted him with a series of fireballs – but then, as she looked past them, she saw that they weren't the only ones employing a strategy of distraction. While Merlin focused on his magical attack, another hooded figure was creeping up behind him, their dagger poised to plunge into his unprotected back…and Bo was too far away to stop them.

Her mouth opened of its own accord, whether to shout a warning she was certain would come too late or just to scream in horror at what was unfolding in front of her she didn't know, and never found out. Before a single sound could escape her lips, Balinor lunged out of nowhere, shoving Merlin out of the way, then whirling around to face the would-be killer – and the blade that was meant for his son found its mark in the dragonlord's chest instead.

Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion: Merlin catching himself and turning just in time to see his father crumpling to the ground, a red stain already seeping through his shirt around the protruding knife handle, the way Merlin's face froze as he realized what had happened… Then a wave of pure magical energy erupted out of him, flattening the grass in a wide circle around him and flinging their remaining enemies away like they were nothing more than toys. They landed too far away for Bo to be certain of their condition, but the sickening crunching noises that accompanied their falls indicated that they wouldn't get up any time soon.

Without sparing them another thought, Bo raced over to where Merlin was now kneeling by Balinor's head and joined Morgana in crouching beside them. "You two can fix this, right? I mean, you can do a healing spell or…"

Her voice dwindled away as Morgana finished casting a diagnostic incantation and lifted her head, and Bo saw the tears gathering in her eyes. "I'm so sorry… The blade pierced his heart. There's only one type of magic that can save him now, and it would require sacrificing another in his place."

"No," Balinor choked out, a bloody bubble bursting at the corner of his mouth as he spoke. "You mustn't…"

"Let me try, then," Bo said desperately. "I'll give him my chi…"

Merlin leaned aside to give her access, but he didn't have much hope that it would work; as potent as Bo's life force was, he was fairly certain it would take more than chi to repair a punctured heart. Sure enough, the red stream of light she breathed into Balinor's mouth failed to produce any effect.

"Why isn't it working?!" Frantic and frustrated, Bo drew in a deep breath and prepared to try again, but Morgana stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Bo, that's enough. I'm sorry, but there are some things even you can't fix. He's gone," she said sadly. All her senses, both magical and mundane, confirmed it – as a healer, she was aware of the last remnants of life draining out of him like water through a sieve, and with one hand still splayed on his chest, she felt the wounded heart beneath her palm give one final, weak thump before it fell silent.

…Oof. I rewatched The Last Dragonlord while writing this chapter, and seeing Balinor die in Merlin's arms never gets easier.

I debated putting a character death warning at the beginning, but decided not to because I didn't want it to double as a de facto spoiler. If anyone has an opinion on whether I should include warnings about death scenes even if they might spoil what in some cases might otherwise be a shocking twist or leave it a surprise, I'm open to input.