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New dragons coming to live at the sanctuary were not the most common occurrence. They weren’t incredibly rare events, but it was unusual for it to happen more than once a year or so.
When dragons did arrive, it was normally something that had taken weeks of planning and preparation so the dragon could get to its new location safely and the sanctuary was suitably set up for it, be the dragon needing to go in a stable for a while or be released straight into the woods.
Dragons did not normally arrive at the sanctuary in the way that Billy arrived.
-
“This is excellent.” Gwaine said sleepily, lying sprawled across Merlin’s back under a duvet and a blanket. “It’s so warm.”
“And you’re so heavy.” Merlin muttered.
“Sorry.” Gwaine rolled off Merlin’s back and lay down next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and kissing the side of his head. “Do you need me to kiss it better?”
“You’re more than welcome to.”
Gwaine kissed the side of Merlin’s head a couple more times and then tilted Merlin’s head so he could kiss him properly. “Where exactly would I need to kiss you better from me being so heavy?”
“I can think of quite of a lot of places.” Merlin whispered. “You might need to take some clothes off me to get to them, though, and that's not the kind of thing either of u us like.”
The phone started to ring.
Merlin pulled away from Gwaine. "One of us needs to go and answer that."
"I don't want either of us to go and answer that." Gwaine muttered.
"It could be important."
"Or it could be something to do with a delivery of rope, which is very boring."
"Just let me answer it."
Gwaine sighed but rolled to the side so Merlin could get out of bed and walk to the phone on the dresser at the far end of the room.
"Hello? … I'm Merlin Emrys, yes. … Oh. …. Oh dear. Uh, when- when would you be- in about four hours? Maybe three?" Merlin's voice was getting steadily more high-pitched as he spoke.
Gwaine had poked his head out from the duvet. "What's going on?" he whispered.
Merlin flapped a hand at him and turned his back on Gwaine. "Okay, so you're bringing him in three hours and- well. We'll try our best. Okay, thank you, bye."
Merlin swung back around to stare at Gwaine in horror as he put the phone back down. "We're getting a new dragon."
"We're getting a new dragon?"
"Yes. Today. In three or four hours." Merlin started scrabbling around the room looking for his clothes.
Even Gwaine sat up at this news. "We're getting a new dragon in three or four hours?"
"Yep. And it's not a normal kind of dragon, either."
Gwaine groaned. "What kind of not normal?" he got out of bed and started to get dressed too.
"Um."
"And how have we ended up being given a dragon at such short notice? Where is this dragon coming from?"
"I'll explain in a minute." Merlin picked up a hoodie and rushed out of the room. "GWEN! GWEN WHERE ARE YOU? WE'VE GOT A BIT OF A CRISIS!"
-
Billy arrived at the sanctuary a whole two and a half hours later, in a large cattle trailer being pulled along by a medium-sized truck.
Gwen, Merlin, Gwaine and Leon were not waiting at the gate when Billy's chauffeur pulled up; they were sitting at an office table trying to work out the logistics of how they were going to look after Billy. They heard the truck driving into the yard and looked up from the computer.
“Has anyone ordered anything to be delivered here or is that possibly the dragon arriving?” Gwen asked.
Gwaine was already walking out of the office door. “They’re here!”
-
Billy was not an ordinary dragon and nor had he come from an ordinary place.
The man who got out of the truck smiled when he saw Gwen, Gwaine, Merlin and Leon coming out of the office to meet him. “Hello! You must be-”
“I’m Merlin, we spoke on the phone. We weren’t quite expecting you so soon, we’re not completely ready.”
“Oh I’m sure that won’t be an issue.” the man said cheerfully. “He’s a very well behaved boy, very patient.”
There was a clunking in the trailer that did not give the impression that Billy was a very well behaved boy, or very patient.
“We’ve loved having him around the place, it’s a shame we can’t take him to Spain with us.” the man mused. “We’re taking a couple of the horses over, but a dragon that didn’t even belong to us in the first place was going to be a little too difficult to get through customs.”
“Can we have a look at him?” Gwaine asked, walking around to the back of the trailer.
“Yes, yes, of course!” the man said. “I’m Luke, by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Luke.” Gwaine went on tiptoe to peer through some of the gaps at the back of the trailer. His voice didn’t have a tone that suggested he meant the words he was saying, but Luke didn’t notice.
“I don’t suppose you’ve had very many dragons that think they’re horses before, hey?” Luke said, chuckling as he undid the latches on the gate.
“I can’t say we have.” Leon said.
The gate for the trailer came down and a dragon lying at the back of the trailer amongst the hay got to its feet. It made a noise far closer to the sound of a horse whinnying than any normal dragon noise. It walked down the trailer to the door, picking its feet up in a trotting motion much like that of a horse.
Luke walked over Billy and stroked his nose. “We have to put a halter on him to get him to walk anywhere.” he got a halter off a hook on the wall of the inside of the trailer and Leon, Gwaine, Gwen and Merlin exchanged looks of astonishment and horror.
"Should we just treat him like a horse, then?" Gwen asked.
Luke nodded as if this was the most normal thing in the world.
"This is the most bizarre thing I have ever seen." Merlin whispered to Leon.
-
Luke left fairly soon afterwards, leaving Billy and a halter behind.
"He likes pretending to eat straw." was Luke's parting comment. "He can't actually chew it enough to swallow it, so he just chews it and then spits it out."
They gave Billy a bucket of water and stood around him, watching him drink.
"What on earth are we supposed to do with a dragon that behaves like a horse?" Gwen said as the last clouds of dust from the horse trailer dissipated at the far end of the visible part of the drive.
“I have no idea what we’re supposed to do with a dragon that behaves like a horse.” Leon said.
“This is very weird.” Gwaine said. “How has it come to pick up horse behaviour? How did it end up on their farm? Nothing about any of this makes sense.”
“What type of dragon do we think he is?” Merlin murmured.
“I was hoping you would know.” Gwen said. “If you don’t recognise it, it’s clearly very rare.”
“I think we need to try and re-dragon it.” Gwaine said. Leon nodded his agreement, but Merlin shook his head.
“We need to find out what type of dragon it is, in case there is a species of dragon that either acts like horses or imitates other species.” Merlin said.
"Do you think he's ever seen another dragon before?" Leon asked.
"That's a good point." Merlin said. "He might not have done. He might not react very well to going near any of the others, plus he won't know how they expect him to act and then if he’s behaving strangely, they might react badly."
"We'll have to put him somewhere away from the other dragons at first." Gwen said.
"We haven't got anywhere to put him that isn't away from other dragons. This is a dragon sanctuary."
"We can put him in the stables."
"With the alpacas?"
"I don't see why not."
"Let's get him in the stables and see how he reacts to Aithusa.” Leon suggested.
“Aithusa’s the strangest dragon I have EVER met.” Gwaine said. “I don’t think having her around Billy is going to help encourage him to start behaving like a dragon.”
“You’re just saying that because you haven’t spent much time around baby dragons.” Gwen said. “Aithusa is a little odd-”
“Which is no surprise given who raised her initially.” Leon muttered. Gwaine elbowed him.
“But she’s still a fairly average dragon.” Gwen finished.
“Let’s just get him in the stables.” Merlin said. He took the lead rope on Billy’s halter. “Is this how you use these things? Were any of you horse girls growing up?”
Gwen and Gwaine shook their heads. Leon took the lead rope from Merlin’s hand and made a clicking noise that had Billy walking very compliantly along with him.
“Oh.” Merlin said. “Leon was a horse girl growing up.”
“And a very good one, at that!” Leon said over his shoulder.
“I’m beginning to have some really good ideas for his Christmas present.” Gwaine said.
-
Having a new dragon arrive at the sanctuary was always a big affair, particularly when the new dragon turned out to be one that behaved like a horse. It wasn’t long before all the rest of the staff had showed up to have a look at Billy. Even Arthur had driven over from the office because he needed to look at Billy so he knew what bit of the insurance policy needed to be upgraded.
Lancelot had heard of dragons mimicking canine behaviours if they’d been raised among dogs and Percival had heard of a dragon somewhere in the French countryside that had both terrified and confused rather a lot of people in the 1960s by roaring like a lion. Arthur had texted Morgana about it but was yet to get a reply back. Mordred, the undergraduate doing a year’s placement as part of his degree, was enthralled with the possibility of studying a dragon that behaved like a horse.
“What are we going to do with Billy?” Mordred asked.
“Either we train the horse behaviour out of Billy and make his behaviour match that of a dragon so he can fend for himself.” Leon said. “But if we can’t change his behaviour, or if he’s happier pretending to be a horse, then I guess we just treat him like a horse?”
“Will we need to get another horse to keep him company if that happens?” Gwaine asked. “We could get a Shetland pony.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Merlin said. “First thing’s first. What field are we going to put Billy in for him meeting Aithusa?”
“Let’s put them in the alpaca fields. We can put the alpacas in with the sheep.” Gwen said. “Where’s Aithusa?”
“I’ll go and find her.” Gwaine said. “I’ll meet you at the field.”
-
Aithusa was now a year old and lived outside most of the time, though on particularly rainy nights she would sleep in the barn. She was at the beginning of her adolescence and still hung around the sanctuary buildings most of the time, though she was gradually being expected to find most of her own food for herself.
“Aithusa!” Gwaine called out as he walked down the drive towards the patch of trees she often liked to play in. “Aithusa! Where are you? It’s playtime!”
Gwaine stuck his hands in his pockets and started to whistle a random tune. “Aithus-ah!”
He stumbled over his own feet at a sudden weight that had latched itself onto his back. A slimy, wet tongue licked his ear and part of his face. “Aithusa!”
Aithusa hooked her head over his shoulder and he stopped walking. “You’re getting too heavy for this.” Gwaine told her sternly, but stroking her nose all the same. “One day you’ll jump on me and I’ll fall over and then neither of us will be happy, will we?”
Aithusa took the hint and jumped off his back to walk beside him.
“We’re going to go to the alpaca field.” Gwaine said. “And you’re going to play with a dragon called Billy.”
He wasn’t entirely sure why he was talking to her in such detail; he never was. She could understand some of what he was saying, if she was bothering to pay attention, which was unlikely given the enticing prospects of looking at the leaves blowing across the path instead, but even if she was giving him her upmost focus, she still wasn’t old enough to have developed an understanding for all the words he was using.
Before going to the alpaca field, Gwaine walked to the cottage to fetch some dog toys he could use for distracting Aithusa while they waited for Billy to be brought to the field and then if Billy needed some prompting on how to play, the toys could be used as encouragement.
Aithusa waited by the back door, wagging her tail eagerly as she knew exactly what it was that Gwaine was getting. After leaving the house with the latest of the tennis balls volunteered as tribute to be slowly eaten to death by the dogs and a purple rubber chicken, Aithusa walked beautifully to heel next to Gwaine. “You can be so well behaved when you know there’s a possibility of getting a reward.” Gwaine mused. “I wish you were like this all the time.”
Aithusa jumped up a bit and grabbed the chicken from out of his hand. He could feel the smugness radiating off her as she continued to trot along beside him.
“Spoke too soon.”
-
Gwaine kept Aithusa occupied by playing fetch with the rubber chicken. Lancelot, Gwen and Percival shooed the alpacas out of the alpaca field and into one of the sheep fields; then Merlin and Leon took Billy into the alpaca field.
Billy seemed fairly nonchalant about the whole thing; he had no reason not to be, given that the field was just a normal, boring field.
“Are you going to take him off the lead rope?” Gwaine called over the hedge.
Leon and Merlin had a quick discussion that Gwaine couldn’t hear and then Leon nodded in Gwaine’s direction.
Billy was released from the lead rope.
Billy treated the field like a normal horse would- he had a trot around and then started to nose at the grass.
A normal dragon put in a field may have rolled in the mud or then gone to have a nose in the hedge; it’s very unlikely that a normal dragon would have started to stick its face in the dirt.
“I think we should let Aithusa go!” Merlin called to Gwaine.
Gwaine took the rubber chicken from Aithusa and used it to gesture at Billy. “That’s Billy. He’s new. Go and play with him.”
Aithusa took one look at Billy, beamed as much as a dragon could beam, and charged towards him.
“Play nice!” Gwaine shouted after her.
Aithusa turned around and ran back to him, jumped up to grab the rubber chicken out of his hand, then ran back to offer it to Billy.
Billy looked at the rubber chicken with utter astonishment.
Aithusa started flapping her wings to encourage him to play with her and say hello.
Billy now looked at Aithusa with utter astonishment.
Aithusa was not very impressed when Billy failed to respond to her incitement to play.
She flapped her wings again.
Slowly, tentatively, Billy spread his wings and flapped them back at her. He looked at his wings with utter astonishment.
“Maybe he will adopt dragon behaviour.” Gwen said quietly as they all watched on with baited breath. “He can grow up with Aithusa. Nice and slowly.”
Aithusa chose that moment to breath fire for the first time.
“Maybe not so nice and slowly.”
“At least our job isn’t boring!” Merlin said as he jumped over the hedge and ran towards the dragons, both of whom were now very confused. “AITHUSA! You were supposed to play nice!”