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They had set off from the Isle of the Blessed where Arthur had been recovering from his injuries no more than a few hours ago. Arthur had refused to let Merlin disappear on him despite knowing he was a sorcerer and had assured him that wouldn’t change when they reached Camelot, Merlin had been prepared to escort him home and leave had the King left him with any doubt on his acceptance of his magic. He would've accepted any decision his King had made.
Instead, here they were, Merlin leading Arthur on a horse they’d found shortly after leaving the Isle at a steady pace; they had mostly been in silence. Merlin was still recovering from the shock of Arthur being mere breaths away from never coming back, and Arthur himself was both tired from the ordeal and still coming to terms with the fact Merlin was a sorcerer. Or that he had magic, no, what had Gaius said?
He was magic itself. A warlock. The most powerful sorcerer to have ever walked the Earth. Emrys. His manservant, his best friend.
Yep, that was all good, nothing to unpack there.
Except it wasn’t, because the more Arthur thought about it, about his manservant, the more pieces seemed to slot into place. The disappearing acts, the speeches, the strange occurrences during fights, the determination to always be by his side. The older-than-his-years look in his blue eyes (that were sometimes gold, he knew that now, he’d seen it happen). He wasn’t sure he would ever truly know everything that the man had done for him. He'd been right, about Merlin being the bravest man he'd ever met.
Suddenly, he was seeing his best friend in a different light, but if he was being honest, it wasn't as crazy a concept to him as it should have been, it was like he’d been looking at him through blurred lenses and he’d just been told he didn’t need the glasses anyway. What Arthur really wanted to know was how much he didn’t, or hadn’t, known all this time.
So Arthur had been periodically peppering Merlin with questions as they travelled, which Merlin had been replying to somewhat distractedly but without missing a step or slowing down.
How had he learnt magic?
He hadn’t, it came to him instinctively, but Gaius had taught him spells and potions.
Had he ever used it on Arthur?
Yes, but only when necessary.
Where had he really gone at the start of the battle?
It took him a minute to reply to that one, but when he said it was to get his magic back after Morgana had taken it away, Arthur felt pretty horrible over what he said.
Was he really the old man with the staff?
He was pretty sure he knew that answer already, but Merlin’s nod gave him a solid confirmation.
Merlin had grown silent again and Arthur was getting bored, and a little frustrated that he couldn’t properly see or talk to Merlin with him leading the horse the way he was. He’d argued about there only being one horse, but Merlin wouldn’t take no for an answer, plus they’d get back a lot faster without him walking given he was still a little weak, from, y'know, almost dying. Finally, and slightly nervously, not sure how much he should really ask, Arthur asked something else hoping to get a little more out of his friend.
“Is there anything else I don’t know about you or your magic? Like what happened with that dragon?”
Merlin’s step faltered slightly, he glanced almost imperceptibly back at him but said nothing.
“Come on Merlin! We’re at least a day out from Camelot, tell me.”
Silence, the warlock was now looking down towards his feet.
“Merrrlinnnn!” He could see he was starting to waiver. “I’m not going to let it go, Merlin.”
If Arthur hadn’t known Merlin better he would’ve thought he had just made a frustrated groan alongside the sigh, but he would never do that. That would be disrespectful to his King.
“Fine, you win.” He took another breath as if to brace himself. “I’m a dragonlord… calling Kilgharrah was the only way to get you to the Isle in time, it was nothing, he won’t bother us again.”
Had they been going any faster, Arthur was sure he would have fallen off his horse. His jaw dropped open. Merlin was a dragonlord, because of course he was.
“You’re a dragonlord.”
Merlin turned to look at him and nodded watching his shocked face intently as if he was nervous. Arthur swallowed his shock as best he could.
“What does that… mean? How…?”
“Dragonlords share a special bond to the dragons. They’re magical creatures, and we can speak their language, speak to them like brothers. When we command them, they have no choice but to obey our order.”
There was another moment of silence as Arthur let the new information sink in. His best friend could command dragons. Yep, that was not something he had been expecting to learn today. Then something else dawned on him.
“Wait, but that dragon, that was Kigharrah… as in, the Great Dragon? The one that attacked Camelot, the one that I killed.”
Merlin had slowed almost to a still as he looked towards his feet. He went to reply but he didn’t need to, Arthur had put it together.
“You were the one that told me I killed it.”
Merlin stopped suddenly and turned to face him.
“I’m sorry Arthur, I didn’t have a choice, I told him to leave and-”
Arthur cut him off with a sigh, running a hand through his own hair.
“It’s alright, Merlin. He was gone, my father would never have rested if he’d thought the dragon was still out there.”
Merlin nodded somewhat subdued and went to continue leading the horse on towards Camelot, when Arthur’s face fell into a frown.
“Why didn’t you deal with him sooner? Why fight and go all that way to find some other dragonlord if you were right there?”
This time Merlin didn’t stop, but his composure had shifted as if something had deflated within him.
“I couldn’t. I tried, but I wasn’t a dragonlord then. I wasn’t strong enough.”
Now Arthur was really confused, one minute he admits to being a dragonlord, the next he isn’t one?
“But you just said-”
“You aren’t born with the gift Arthur, it’s passed from father to son, but only after the father’s death.”
A moment passed as he let that sink in.
“You’ve never really spoken of your father, I just assumed…”
Arthur trailed off, he was at a complete loss for words. Merlin had barely mentioned his father, and neither had Hunith when he had been in Ealdor. As far as he was concerned it had just been the two of them, but if Merlin was a dragonlord now, but wasn't back then, his father had to have died around that time. The tension that was clearly growing in him paired with the look on what Arthur could see of his face, told him that may not have been the whole story. Merlin could clearly sense the King’s confusion because despite the fact he had continued his slow pace, he was fully staring down at the ground, shoulders hunched over slightly as he explained further.
“I didn’t know my father, or even who he was. Not until… not until he died.”
They continued in silence for a while, the pause in Merlin’s sentence hadn’t gone unnoticed by Arthur, and his mind was working overtime trying to put the pieces together. He really felt like he was missing something here, and he had a feeling there was a relatively important reason Merlin wasn’t telling him the whole story.
If Merlin hadn’t been able to send the Great Dragon away when it first attacked… but he had been able to upon their return… then his father hadn’t just died at some point between then and now. He had died sometime during the course of the dragon’s attack. Which would make sense, if Merlin was from Camelot, or King Uther hadn't tried to kill all the dragonlords.
He thought back to that time, to how Merlin had been then. His friend had been unusually distraught from the beginning of the attack but he’d still helped Gaius and refused to back down or be separated from Arthur the whole time. It hadn’t been until their quest to find the last known dragonlord and he had gone to say goodbye to Gaius that he had seemed really off. Quiet and distant the whole trip there, overly fussy about Arthur’s wounds. He had known even back then there was something up with his friend, but he had believed him when he said it was because he was worried about Camelot. Maybe he wanted to.
The dragonlord… what had his name been? Arthur couldn’t remember, though he was sure it started with a B. He had no interest in helping them, and Merlin had been frustrated, sad almost… disappointed, that he had refused. It had also been Merlin that had somehow convinced him to join them later. Then Merlin had seemed nervous, almost giddy, shy.
Arthur supposed that could’ve been because he was another sorcerer. Except the dragonlord had died, and with him, supposedly, their last hope at saving Camelot. The man had died protecting his friend. Merlin had cried. He had sat there with the man in his lap and cried until he saw Arthur come over. He had barely ever seen his friend cry, ever, it wasn’t like the situation hadn’t called for it either. Arthur would be lying if he said he hadn’t felt the urge himself on the return to Camelot or after. But Merlin had been upset and withdrawn from that point onwards, though he did a good job of hiding it, Arthur had noticed, and then he had gone off to face the dragon again by his side with more tears in his eyes.
Had he known that time, what he had to do? Arthur frowned to himself. He had to have known, but how, and how had he found out-
Arthur was pretty sure his heart had just stopped again, because how would Merlin have found out who his father was? Hunith wasn’t in Camelot, but Gaius, he had known about the dragonlord, he had known Hunith. Why would Gaius wait until that moment to tell Merlin who his father was if he knew? Was it the same reason he hadn't spoken of the living dragonlord?
He tried to picture the man in his mind, remembering the dark hair, his height, his face shape. Arthur’s gaze fell on the back of his friend’s head where he walked ahead of him. They had called that man the last dragonlord. A person that Gaius had known, one that had died during the time of the dragon’s attack on Camelot.
Merlin had been anxious to find him, disappointed when he wouldn’t help them, happy when he did, and mourned him when he was gone. The pieces fit, no matter how much Arthur wanted to be wrong. A name surfaced in his head.
“Balinor.”
His voice was barely loud enough for Merlin to have heard him, but he must have because he had stopped so suddenly he had jerked the reins slightly and the horse and whinnied and shaken its head in irritation. Merlin turned to look at him slowly.
“Balinor was your father, that's why you were acting so weird that day, the whole trip, why you were so upset when he…” Arthur was in such a state of shock that he dismounted the horse so he was level with Merlin and on solid ground. He was pretty sure he'd never been more mad at himself. “God, I told you no man was worth your tears and you'd just watched your-”
“Arthur!” It took Merlin saying his name three times to eventually cut him off. “You didn't know Arthur, it's not your fault.”
The King just stared at him for a second longer and then enveloped him in a hug. Merlin stood there in complete shock.
“I'm so sorry Merlin.”
“Arth- Arthur, it's really-”
“Don't even try to say it's okay.” He hissed into his shoulder before releasing him and clearing his throat as if to compose himself.
They stood opposite each other awkwardly for a moment before the horse moved and Merlin grabbed the reins that had slipped from his hands. He stared down at the reins in his hand before clearing his own throat. It was getting dark.
“We should uh- we should make camp soon, if we get up early we can still make it to Camelot by tomorrow evening.“
The King nodded and they slowly continued on their way in search of a good place to camp.
One day Arthur hoped he'd get to know the whole story of what happened on that trip all those years ago. He could only assume that Balinor had found out Merlin was his son based on how they were together, and the way he'd jumped in front of that sword for him, but he'd like to know it all, when Merlin was ready to tell him. Maybe even more than just those few days too.
For now, he watched him from across the campfire, breaking up firewood as they sat in companionable silence, the dancing flames reflecting in his eyes made them seem almost golden. Arthur wasn't sure if he could forgive himself for how he'd handled the situation back then even if he hadn't known who Balinor was to Merlin. One thing he was certain of was that he didn't really fear magic anymore.
At the very least, not the magic that sat opposite him across the fire.