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Merlin didn’t like this. Gwen could tell. Not only by all the frowning and worrying he was doing, but also because he had told her so...multiple times.
“I don’t like this,” Merlin said, for the umpteenth time. “We really shouldn’t have done this trip.”
Leon, riding on her other side, nodded along with the statement. Gwen smiled.
“We survived the way forth, I’m sure we’ll survive the way back,” she said.
“We shouldn’t have taken the risk in the first place.”
Gwen looked behind her and rolled her eyes playfully at Percival, who was enjoying this as much as she. Percival liked a good adventure, and he also liked to make fun of his friends. She gave him a look that said watch this, before turning back around.
“Was our mission not a success, Lord Merlin?”
She used her poshest voice, and very victoriously made her friend groan. Percival cracked up, making her giggle. Even Leon was now chuckling.
“Please stop calling me that,” Merlin whined.
She smirked. “It’s your title.”
A lot happened after Camlann. Gwen had bestowed nobility onto Merlin so that he could officially be a part of the council. There had been a few whispers ‘a servant made noble?’. But it had quickly died down; they had a servant queen and commoner knights, Camelot needed to get used to it by now. Magic had also been legalised soon after, and Merlin had been made court sorcerer. It had been a hard time after Camlann, really hard. In front of her people Gwen kept face, but as soon as she was alone, she had been a mess. But the thing was: she had not been alone. Even if there was still a hole in her life, Gwen counted herself lucky as she looked at the smiling faces of her friends around her.
Percival and Leon were still teasing Merlin, when out of nowhere, Gwen was sent flying off her horse. When she looked up, she that there was an arrow in her horse’s neck. All round her there were shouts, screams and the sound of metal hitting metal. Everything happened in a blur, Leon rushing to her side to make sure she was okay, Merlin and the rest of the knights fighting off the attackers. A sense of dread filled her as she realised they were outnumbered. Then Leon got hurt protecting her and she herself ended up with an arrow in her leg. Merlin’s powers were great but the enemy seemed to have their own set of magic users keeping him busy.
Then, out of nowhere, but heard everywhere, a screech split the air around them. A big white creature descended on them and Gwen’s vision became blurred with fire. It was chaos, both sides screaming and running around trying to avoid the fire breathing creature. A bandit close by tried taking advantage of it and approached her, ready to attack. But before he could strike, he was fully burned alive, dropping dead and charred in front of her, leaving view to the white dragon with big blue eyes. She tried telling her body to move away, to flee, but the world around her felt like it was turning, and then...Gwen threw up.
Of course Merlin knew the dragon, of course. Every other day they discovered new elements to a story they thought they knew. So of course Merlin knew the dragon that had burned their armies to the ground at Camlann. She tried reigning in her anger—Sir Leon was showing enough of it for the both of them anyways. After his arm was bandaged, he immediately unsheathed his sword and addressed Merlin.
“Get that thing away from our Queen.”
“She saved our lives. She won’t hurt us,” Merlin said.
Gwen’s own wound was being tended to. Her nausea had calmed down, but she was still unsure why she had felt so sick; she’d long ago stopped panicking in stressful situations.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
“I’m—” he sighed and stopped.
Gwen noted the slight tilt of his head and the pensive look and knew what was coming. She had learned that look meant he was about to reveal something new regarding magic again. But his eyes were cast down and he looked sadder than usual and Gwen wanted to be able to stand up and hold him. She gave him an encouraging look.
“I’m a Dragonlord,” he finished.
That was...unexpected. Gwen frowned, her mind searching. A long time ago, Arthur and Merlin had been sent to retrieve the last dragonlord. And the ability was only passed down from father to son. And the man had died… Oh.
“Oh, Merlin…”
“I was going to tell you,” he shrugged and gave a shadow of a smile. Not everyone had caught up yet with the implications of his statement. But the dragon also seemed to have sensed Merlin’s sorrow. It approached under the careful eye of Leon and bumped its head against Merlin, instigating him to pet her. It was a strange sight, weirdly tender, coming from the creature that had just slayed a bunch of bandits by burning them alive. Gwen’s mind briefly wandered to her lost husband, the killing machine, who had held and touched her so tenderly…
Gwen decided to stand up regardless of the pain, ignoring Leon’s protest, and went to hug Merlin. The dragon’s big blue eyes were carefully watching their embrace.
“Come on, let’s find shelter for the night.”
Aithusa, because that seemed to be the name of the dragon, led them to a hidden cave. They would be safe from the bandits here. Though Gwen suspected they were not in fact mere bandits. The fight was a bit blurry to her, thanks to her weird nausea, but the coordination, the numbers and the skills those men had owned...they belonged to an army, Gwen was sure of it. Maybe they belonged to the one that had gone into hiding after their big defeat a couple of months ago...
There was agitation around her and both Leon and Percival stood to shield her when they saw the dragon come closer.
“The beast stays outside,” Leon said.
“Aithusa,” Merlin said shortly, “saved your lives and led us here.” He sighed then softened and turned his eyes to her. “Gwen?”
Gwen looked at the creature then back at Merlin. Leon made a move to unsheathe his sword. “At rest Sir Leon.” He frowned, and stayed in position. “That’s an order.” He backed away, not so happily. “I trust Merlin,” she finished.
Gwen sat down, tired, and winced at the pain in her leg. The dragon was staring at her… Gwen raised her eyebrows back at her, then the dragon opened her mouth and breathed a surge of hot breath her way.
“What the hell,” Percival whispered.
Her breath smelled of earth and flowers, and really no one's breath should smell that...magical, she realised was the perfect description. Bit by bit, Gwen realised her wound was hurting less, until she only felt an itch. She took the bandage of her leg: the cloth was stained red, but her leg was uninjured… Gwen looked back up at the dragon in awe, but before she could even think about thanking the creature, the dragon bowed her head and retreated to the back of the cave, distancing herself from the rest of the party.
After a small dinner, when night fell, as every night since after Camlann, Merlin came to lay next to her for the night. When they were both lying comfortably on the pelts, Gwen took Merlin’s right hand in her left one. Merlin immediately folded into her side, then told her the story of the day he saw his father for the first and the last time…
“So you can command her, right?” she asked, after a moment of silence. Merlin nodded. “How come Morgana could?”
“She couldn’t, not really. Aithusa just took a liking to her. And I guess I was,”—he shrugged—“negligent… I hatched her and I was supposed to take care of her. But…”
Gwen waited for him to elaborate, when he didn’t, she cuddled closer into his embrace. “But you were busy trying to keep Arthur safe,” she supplied softly.
He sighed, then took their intertwined hands and placed a kiss on it. Gwen wasn’t usually the one to willingly bring up Arthur, and Merlin knew that.
She edged even closer to him, as much as was still possible. “Will you...thank her for me.”
Merlin chuckled ever so lightly. “You know you can talk to her. She won’t bite.”
“If I approach her any closer I fear Sir Leon’s head will explode.”
The cave filled with their soft chuckles, and Gwen’s heart felt a little lighter again. They heard a movement and both lifted their heads up slightly, looking at the far end of the cave where the sound had come from. The dragon was staring at them, big blue eyes shining brighter than they should in the dark. They were beautiful, Gwen thought. She noticed for the first time the differences in the dragon since Camlann: it looked less sick and it seemed to be sprouting tiny horns. She flashed Aithusa a smile and hoped she could see it. If she was not mistaken, she thought she heard the dragon purr...
The next day she woke up to blue eyes. They were not Arthur’s, and they were not Merlin’s. Gwen sat up.
“Hello,” Gwen addressed the white form hovering over her. “Aithusa right? Good morning.”
Aithusa fixed her with an intense stare, and it looked like she was carefully planning her next move. Then, slowly, slightly, she opened her beak.
“Hhi.” Her voice came out groggy and airy.
Gwen smiled at her, she hadn’t expected her to speak. Then she heard Aithusa say it again, but this time clearer, louder and...the dragon’s mouth hadn’t moved. Gwen really didn’t know much about dragons, but she knew herself well enough to know she was not a psychic.
Aithusa seemed to gleam and tentatively, she laid her head in Gwen’s lap. Gwen’s hands hovered over Aithusa’s head, she wasn’t sure what to do. Well, she knew what to do, she just felt a tad bit nervous about petting a huge fire breathing creature…
When Merlin woke up, Aithusa was purring as Gwen stroked her head tentatively but tenderly. He raised an eyebrow at her, teasing, and smirked. She shrugged back at him nonchalantly. Then Aithusa lifted her head slightly, and something weird happened...
She sniffed Gwen’s belly.
Merlin and Gwen both chuckled as Aithusa kept sniffing and humming at her belly. Then, Merlin’s eyes snapped to hers, alert, piercing. Gwen stopped smiling. Merlin placed his hand on her belly, his eyes glowed golden, and he gasped.
“Gwen…” She pushed his hand away, she felt a sort of dread she did not understand. Not until he said, “You’re pregnant.”
Gwen thought her heart stopped beating for a moment but reason quickly took over. “Don’t be ridiculous Merlin. I haven’t had—” She cleared her throat.
She was not a prude but she did not think she had to say it out loud. There had been no one since Arthur.
“It’s not...recent.”
This made her tense and uneasy but she let herself snort. “Look at me, Merlin, do I look pregnant to you?”
Aithusa was back to fondling Gwen’s belly. And Merlin was looking at her with an unbearable sadness. She did not like it. He looked like he was seeing a ghost.
“Gaius once treated a woman in the lower town who had recently lost her son. He said that the grief affected her so deeply that she did not realise she was pregnant, until she was 5 months into pregnancy.” Gwen shook her head, she did not want to hear this. “The mind is a powerful place, Gwen… It deals with trauma in different ways. In this woman’s case, to protect itself for an event it didn’t deem she was ready for, it convinced the body she was not pregnant.”
Gwen gently pushed Aithusa’s head away from her belly and kept shaking her head.
“No,” she whispered.
She placed her hand on her belly… Gwen had felt bloated lately, but she had no time to worry about her weight when she had a kingdom to run. Beneath her hand, the truth started to reveal itself. She did not feel the baby move, but the skin on her belly felt tight, her insides were aching, and she knew now they were aching with new life...
Bags were being made, horses tended to, everyone was getting ready to go back to Camelot. Gwen felt a presence behind her and Aithusa budded her head against her back. She turned to the dragon and smiled. Merlin was standing next to Aithusa, and Gwen could see he was conflicted.
“Gwen? I know this is a lot to ask. And Leon might kill me,” he chuckled then looked at the dragon next to him, “But I’ve already abandoned her once…”
Gwen held her hand out to Aithusa, who happily approached, bumping her head against it and purring. “Hmmm, we could rearrange one of the royal stables for her maybe. Or maybe she’d prefer sleeping inside. Not sure people will like it but...” Merlin’s nervous face turned into a smile and Aithusa started skipping around them excitedly. Gwen laughed when the (not so) little dragon kept rubbing up to her and skipping around them. “Or maybe you’d like the open air of the royal gardens? You can skip and jump all you want there.”
“I guess Kilgharrah might have been right a little.” Gwen had no idea who that was and what Merlin meant, she gave him a quizzical look. “The white dragon bodes well for Albion,” he said all mysteriously, like a proper sorcerer.
Gwen rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you complained to me about The Great Dragon apparently being all cryptical with you, you clearly took up his mantle.” She took Aithusa’s head between her hands and smiled. “You’re not gonna be like that are you, sweetheart.”
Merlin snorted. “I doubt it, Aithusa can’t even speak.”
Gwen frowned, partially because Aithusa had just licked her face and secondly because Merlin made no sense, again.
“Yes, she can. She even seemed to have some sort of psychic trick. She told me hello earlier both out loud—well softly—and in my head. Can you do that, Merlin? That’d be a pretty neat trick.”
Gwen turned to look at Merlin, who seemed to be frozen in place, shock clear on his face.
“I...didn’t know that was possible,” he said quietly.
“Do dragons not usually talk?”
“Well, Kilgharrah did. But…”
Merlin told her about how some of Aithusa’s language and voice developments had been damaged as she grew up. Her vocal cords weren’t entirely damaged, Merlin thought the problem laid more in the brain. But most of all what Merlin had been so surprised about was how Aithusa had communicated with her through thoughts. He’d believed this to only be an ability shared between people and creatures born with magic.
“Well, maybe the creature and person can decide who they share their thoughts with,” she said.
Merlin shook his head. “No I’ve tried before, it didn’t work…”
Gwen shrugged, not really sure why this seemed to preoccupy Merlin so much. They still had a lot to learn about magic, even Merlin. But she was sure they’d figure it out.
Someone cleared their throat behind them. “Your majesty,” Leon said, “We’re ready to go.”
She was about to follow Leon, when she found herself letting out a shriek, as Aithusa butted into Gwen’s behind, elevating her and placing her on her scaly back. Leon narrowed his eyes but didn’t say anything more, he had softened up after hearing the news of her pregnancy. Gwen still didn’t know how to deal with the news, but as she looked around at her friends; Merlin and Percival chuckling as Aithusa skipped around with Gwen seated on her back, and Leon almost cracking and joining, she knew she would be alright. She petted Aithusa and placed her other hand on her belly, they would be alright.