Chapter Text
If his mother asked him for what reason he put the egg into the fire, Merlin wouldn't find an answer for her. He only knew that he just did it, that he had put that huge egg on the burning ashes of the fireplace. After that, Merlin had moved like he was in trance; he had revived the fire so that the flames could leave dark marks on the egg's surface.
That egg was uncle Gaius' estate, an uncle that Merlin never knew but, for what Merlin had read, was a man who wasn't really sane. The letter, written on a paper who looked like a sheet of parchment, said that that egg was the most precious thing in the entire world. It was a dragon egg and Merlin was its keeper; from that moment on, Merlin would look after it and keep it safe because the creature that was inside of that egg wouldn't come to life for a long time. It would come to life, pursuant the words of the crazy uncle Gaius, two centuries before the humanity was ready to receive so the creature could grow and display in all his power.
At first, Merlin thought that those words were nothing but stupid thing written by an ill old man who was going to die, an old man who maybe wanted to tell the first and last story to the nephew he could never meet, but now... new he had to rethink about the whole thing. Merlin had woken up in the middle of the night after dreaming about an enormous white dragon with pinkish wings and its snout was covered by shiny and immaculate scales and Merlin had looked it in the eyes, and the dragon's were incredibly blue, its pupil just like two crevices on another universe. Merlin had woken up after that all sweaty.
If he hadn't put it in the fire, Merlin could sell it at a good price at a museum: the egg was shaped just like the one of a chicken, but it was big and heavy like a two-years-old child. It was covered by sharp scales that were thick like a nail and big like an ear; they were half white and half of a suffused pink. It looked like it had been sculpted into a block of marble that was then painted. There were people who, for an object like that, would spend even five-thousand pounds.
With his spoon, Merlin divided into pieces the lemon slice that floated in his tea. Or, to be precise, the rests of the lemon slice, so just the pale peel – which was perfectly round – and some pieces of pulp. He drank a sip of his drink and he made a smirk when a piece of lemon, bitter and sour, went into his mouth.
A sudden crack made his eyes raise; it came from the egg.
Merlin's mind almost blacked out. He had watched too many horror films in his life and he knew even too well that that was the sound that broken bones made. Suddenly he realised that an egg shell is nothing but a bone.
A big split divided almost in two the thing, and the crack was deep and dark, like if inside of it there was the whole universe. A vapour blow came out of the egg.
Merlin left his mug on the floor and sprang in the fireplace direction without thinking. He put his hands into the fire and took the egg out of it without minding the flames that were probably burning his skin. Merlin put the egg on his lap and used his sleeping shirt to clean it from the ashes and the soot. The split opened more and he could see what was inside of the egg and he saw something white that was moving and was grunting with a tiny voice.
For a crazy reason he knew that the creature wouldn't harm anyone but he would have never let it near to his mother if he wasn't really sure that it was completely harmless. He stand up and lift the egg using both his arms, because, really, it was too heavy to be lift with only one arm.
Merlin put it on the coffee table in front of the sofa and then ran upstairs to take all his clothes and his backpack. He moved to London five years before but he had never really left Ealdor: every so often, he liked to come back to the small village where he lived for so long and, even thought that that visit wasn't something programmed, he didn't mind it. Ealdor was too far from London because Merlin could travel from the city to the village in only one day, so he had to stay at his mother's house after the reading of uncle Gauis' will.
His old bedroom contained all his teenage and child life: there were Mickey Mouse sheets, some Star Wars posters, a Shining flier and some miniatures of knights and horses and faeries and mythological creatures organised on a shelf above the bed. Merlin put on his pyjama a pair of jeans, a sweater and on top of everything he wore his blue raincoat. Then he picked up his backpack – in which he had squished all his clothes. For last, he wore his boots and ran downstairs – on his tiptoes to be sure to not wake his mother.
With his rucksack on his shoulders, he bent to collect the egg and, stumbling, he managed to go out. It would be really difficult to explain to his mother for what reason he had to run away that wasn't “Well, I went away because a dragon was coming to life into your living room”. Merlin had to remember that he had to think about an excuse for running away from her in the middle of the night.
When he finally reached the end of the walkway of his mother's garden, his back was hurting and his pelvis was getting hit by waves of pain and after a while every breath was an agonizing suffering.
Merlin wobbled on the street, the first rays of sunshine lightened the sky of the end of October, the egg into his arms kept cracking and blowing vapour that smelled of sulphur.
He kept stumbling, sweat covering his brow, directed where his instinct was making him move.
The creature into the shell complained again and moved, and Merlin almost made it fell.
"No no" said Merlin gripping it tightly. "Don't even think to fall right now."
As if the creature listened to his words, it calmed down and seemed to set on the bottom of its little shell-house.
Merlin sighed in relief and then restarted walking slowly, his hands slick with sweat caused by the pain and by the stress his arms and shoulders muscles were suffering.
Then he noticed were he was going: he was stumbling step by step toward the pond just out Ealdor. Sweating and huffing, Merlin succeeded to take the egg near to the basin.
Merlin put it on the soft grass and kneeled next to it, his trousers got damp by the morning dew.
And he waited, because he didn't know what to do, but the little animal inside of the shell didn't move anymore. Merlin touched it, he teased one of the chinks using his finger hoping that the creature wouldn't eat up his phalanx, but nothing happened.
Then he understood: the dragon – by then he was absolutely sure that it could be only a dragon – had obeyed to his words immediately, earlier, when it was trying to break the shell. Maybe he had to listen to another order to go out of its egg.
"Uhm... you can come out" he mumbled.
The creature woke up: with a pointy, white muzzle it broke the top of the shell and...
Oh, god, a dragon.
It was, in truth, a tiny dragon – it couldn't be taller than eleven inches and its wigs seemed to be made with transparent jello. The creature was completely white, its anterior paws were raised up and kept pressed against its reinforced chest. It had a muzzle like the one of a dog and its eyes were huge and light blue. And it had two tiny, pinkish horns on the top of its head.
The creature moved a step towards him using only its rear paws and moving to the left and then to the right its long tail. Merlin's sight became blurred when the dragon put its paws on his leg. It looked and acted like a kitten.
He put his hands so that they formed a small cup and the dragon climbed on them and then settled. It bended its head like how a pigeon could do and it kept doing happy and high grunts.
Merlin was moved beyond any point.
He couldn't keep himself together; when the dragon flapped his jello wings and did another sound, two big tears rolled down his cheeks and met on his chin. The creature got frightened, seeing him cry, and Merlin understood that, being a dragon, it was surely a great surprise to see that is was possible to create liquids instead of flames.
The creature climbed on his arm and went onto his shoulder, and started rubbing its little pointy head on Merlin's face. The man raised a trembling hand and used it to pet the squamose dragon's back – dragon who seemed to enjoy those little rubs.
Merlin had to find a name for the creature, but the only word that came to his mind was a meaningless one; Aithusa.
He petted its head once again and then collected all the shell's pieces and put them into his rucksack. The problem, now, was that he had to go to London by train and with a dragon on his shoulder he wouldn't pass unnoticed.
Merlin took the creature in his hands once again and he kissed between its eyes before saying: "You have to sleep, now."
The dragon licked his thumb with its tongue, which, against Merlin's skin, felt like sandpaper, and then cuddled up even if it was too big to fit in Merlin's hands. Doing everything in a very quiet way because he didn't want to wake it, Merlin put it on a sweater inside of the rucksack and closed it up leaving a small opening in the zipper – he had to be sure that the creature had enough air.
Merlin was just hoping that the dragon wouldn't wake up in the middle of the journey.