Chapter Text
This is how you kill a dragon, his father whispers, when Arthur is barely old enough to grasp a sword, hands clumsy and soft and heart softer.
Aim for the heart, he says. A dragon's heart is on its right.
Strike quickly, he says.
And never, ever hesitate.
There are no more dragons.
No, there is one. Chained beneath the castle as an example. The rest hunted to extinction by the time Arthur turns twenty.
There used to be dragons.
Sometimes Arthur imagines it, seeing dragons in the sky. He dreams of riding them, feeling the warmth of scales beneath his palm; he dreams of flying, the wind whipping at his face, and when he wakes he can still taste the clouds.
But they are only dreams. When he tells his father, Uther says that dragons are - were - cruel, vicious creatures. They are good for one thing only: Death.
When he is five, he learns a dragon killed his mother. He never tells his father about his dreams again.
This, he knows: His father killed the dragons.
The sun filters through the trees, illuminating the clearing and making Arthur squint as he raises his crossbow, breaths even and body still. The deer glances around, nose twitching, before bending its long neck back down, white tail flicking aimlessly. Arthur breathes, finger tightening on the trigger.
The day is warm and cloudless, air rich with the smells of early autumn, and Arthur is glad for the chance to get away from the stuffiness of the castle and his father's expectations, if only for a few hours. He should have taken guards, being the Prince, but he'd told a few white lies and managed to set off on his own, relishing the thought of complete freedom. Sometimes he hates being a Prince, hates the way people talk to him and the expectations. It is lonely, he thinks, though he would never dare admit it. People love him for his status, his riches, nothing more. Sometimes he watches the villagers in the lower town, watches the children playing with each other, faces spattered with mud, watches the husbands cast loving eyes on their wives. He never had that. Will never have that.
The forest is his sanctuary. It listens without reproach, shelters him, feeds him, lets him cast all his worries into its welcoming embrace. Out here, it is peaceful. No one is asking him things, calling him sire and my lord and bowing and scraping, no one petitioning him as if he is the answer to their troubles. Just quiet, and the promise of a good hunt.
He's about to pull the trigger when there's a sound like the beating of great wings, a shadow blotting out the sun. The deer startles, head flashing up, and starts to spring away before a shape plummets to earth, immense and black, long claws reaching out to ensnare the helpless fawn. A crack resounds through the clearing.
The dragon settles to the ground, deer falling limp from it's mouth.
Arthur is frozen, finger still brushing the trigger of his crossbow as he stares at the dragon.
He's found one.
After all these years, he has found a dragon, and not even a league from Camelot.
His father's teachings come rushing back and the cold calm of the hunt settles over him once more, every sense trained on the iridescent black dragon standing in the middle of the clearing, so different from how he'd imagined dragons to be. It's not that large, it's back only coming up to around Arthur's shoulders, and its form is sleek and slender, a fine ridge of black scales running down its spine and leathery wings folded close to its body, tail swishing lazily like a cat. It's leaning down, sniffing the deer, its left side to Arthur, and he knows he will have to make this shot count.
He inhales. Aims. Fires.
The bolt pierces through the dragon's wing, embedding into its side. The dragon roars, whirling around as its damaged wing flaps futilely, bright blue eyes searching out Arthur in the undergrowth as it opens its mouth to spit fire. Arthur rolls out of the way of the jet of flame, circling around the dragon and firing again, bolt sinking into its left haunch.
The dragon stumbles, cries, maddened with pain and fear as it tries to find Arthur. He grabs the net intended for hunting and rigs it to his next bolt, taking careful aim. The net spirals out through the air, catching the dragon's head and neck and entangling its wings; off-balance, the dragon falls, landing heavily on its right side with a final cry.
Arthur creeps forwards, drawing his sword. The dragon is panting, struggling against its bonds intermittently and uttering keening, rumbling sounds that pierce Arthur's heart. As he gets closer the dragon's eyes snap to his, blue as the deepest lake and filled with fear, drawing Arthur in. There's something...human about them, and as he raises his sword above the dragon, poised to deal the final blow, he sees himself reflected in their depths.
He hesitates.
The sword wavers. The dragon keens, eyes slipping closed and body going limp. Arthur hefts the sword higher, swings-
The blade stops. The dragon cracks open an eye as Arthur stands trembling, warring with himself. He has to kill the dragon. It is his duty as a Prince, as a Pendragon. But surely...the dragon has been out here, and there have been no reports of attacks. It was hunting a deer. Perhaps...perhaps this dragon isn't a threat.
And he can't...he can't kill something so...beautiful. He reaches out tentatively, a hand brushing the scales. They're warm and smooth, exactly like his dreams only real, and the dragon is still watching him with those blue, blue eyes, a mirror of his own, and Arthur can't kill it, he can't-
Before he knows what he's doing he's dropping to his knees, pulling out a dagger and sawing through the ropes binding the dragon. The last one snaps and the dragon lunges with a roar, pinning him to the ground with clawed feet as it stares him down, sharp teeth bared in a snarl. Arthur stares back, caught again in the dragon's gaze, heart beating a staccato against his ribcage and hot breath washing over his face.
This is how he's going to die. All because of his damned soft heart. Because he hesitated.
The dragon roars in his face, wings flapping, and then turns, leaping away into the air. It flaps but falls, wing tattered where the bolt pierced, and maintains a lurching pace into the forest, trees breaking in its wake and blood staining the ground, one leg trailing behind it and it's cries echoing back.
He's alive.
Arthur is on his feet, racing through the forest towards where he left his horse and supplies. Swinging into the saddle, he takes off after the dragon, dodging branches and leaping over felled trees as he follows the trail, the dragon's flight getting slower and slower as it tires. He watches the dragon stumble, and then disappear over the edge of a ravine, a crash signaling its impact at the bottom.
Arthur dismounts and jogs to the edge, peering over. The ravine is dry, with an overhanging cliff face and a grassy floor, trees arching over and providing shelter. Circling to the right reveals a safer incline that Arthur takes down, cautiously approaching the still form of the dragon on the ground. There's a ripple, a shimmer almost, and suddenly instead of a dragon it's a man curled naked, skin pale under a mop of dark hair.
Arthur rushes to the still figure, reaching out to touch his shoulder. The skin is warm to the touch, and the man - boy, really - is unconscious, eyes closed and full lips parted slightly, a sharp cheekbone framing a beautiful face. As Arthur trails his gaze down he sees what looks like a light pattern of scales across the boy's lightly muscled torso and chest, a darker pattern trailing down the length of his spine almost like the ridges on the dragon. The two crossbow bolts are still driven into the boy, one in his side and one in his thigh. Bolts Arthur had fired at the dragon.
Can dragons turn into humans? Or humans into dragons?
There's no answers, or time to find them. The pool of blood on the ground is growing steadily, the boy's lips paling. Forcing the questions to the back of his mind Arthur quickly runs to the top of the ravine, grabbing his pack. He always carries spare bandages with him, a blessing as he yanks out the arrow in the boy's side. He thinks Gaius, the Court Physician, once told him something about not removing the arrow, but it seems the most logical choice.
Luckily, the wound doesn't seem to be too deep, and Arthur bandages it as best he can before moving to the arrow in his thigh. He yanks it out, worried when it starts to bleed freely, but he wraps bandages tightly around the leg and hopes for the best, sitting back on his heels and wiping his bloodied hands on the ground.
It hits him, finally, that the boy is naked, and Arthur rummages in his pack until he finds a spare blanket, carefully wrapping it around the unconscious form and resettling him under the overhang. A glance up at the sky tells him it's nearing midday, and his father will expect him back soon.
He can't just leave the dragon - dragon-person? - here. What if it runs, or dies? He's not sure he doesn't want either of those to happen.
But he has no choice. He'll come back tonight, he tells himself. If the dragon is still there, then...he'll figure it out. If not, or if it's dead, it's no longer his problem.
Satisfied, he casts one last look at the boy and climbs up out of the ravine, securing his pack and mounting his horse. He has nothing to show for his morning hunt, but he thinks of excuses as he rides, discarding ones about bandits and brigands. No need to have a patrol out in these woods. He should tell his father about the dragon, but he can't. Not only did he fail to kill the dragon, he let it go, and then treated its wounds. His father would have his head. At the least, knights would be dispatched immediately to find and kill the dragon, and Arthur can't let that happen, not until he has answers.
His whole life, no one dared to mention dragons unless to discuss how to kill them. He doesn't know how his mother died, doesn't know how he got the small scar on his chin, doesn't know anything about dragons or why the Pendragon crest is a golden dragon. There is a history there, he know, but no one will speak of it.
He needs, too, to know how a dragon can be a man. Dragons are mindless beasts, he knows this, but this one...if dragons are intelligent, if they're human, then it changes everything.
There are dragons, he thinks, with a rush of anticipation. He spurs his horse onwards as the gleaming castle comes into view, heart keeping time to the drum of hoofbeats on the ground.
There is a dragon.