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Once, long ago, the Dragonlord Balinor cleaned a leg of lamb and skewered it on a great spit and commanded, eyes bright with laughter, that the dragon roast it for him. And Kilgharrah did, because he loved his master.
***
In the dark days of the purge, Uther Pendragon betrayed Kilgharrah’s master.
Kilgharrah beat his wings and blackened the walls of the cave below Camelot, spewing fire until his belly felt empty and the magic within him keened. His master escaped, regret and fury coiling along the thread between them until it thinned and snapped and Kilgharrah and Balinor were left alone.
***
He sleeps in the dark below the castle, until a boy from a story comes to Camelot bearing a torch, and questions, and magic as bright as the sun.
***
Trapped beneath the weight of too many vows and secrets, the young warlock frees him.
In the sky, Kilgharrah isn’t angry anymore. He feels joy as hot as fire, and he rains it down upon Uther Pendragon’s kingdom. Fresh night air curls along his wings. He bathes in freedom, his talons bright with blood.
He settles in a field of dewy grass and rubs his snout against the earth.
***
Balinor dies before Kilgharrah is finished with Camelot.
Kilgharrah considers killing the prince, taking more and more and more away from Uther Pendragon.
But the young warlock speaks with Balinor’s voice and the long-forgotten thread sparks up and coils around Kilgharrah’s heart and he isn’t alone anymore, he won’t be alone in the end, should Merlin choose to punish him for the crimes of his revelry.
The young Dragonlord shows him mercy.
Merlin looks nothing like his father, but Kilgharrah can feel Balinor there, guiding them both, pushing them together.
***
Merlin is Balinor’s laughter, his quiet prayers, the steadiness of his hand. But he is also the wildness of a summer storm and the bright devotion of youth. So much magic and so many feelings in one small human body.
Kilgharrah finds him exhausting. But he listens to Merlin talk and watches him pace and carries him through the sky, because he loves his master.
***
The young Dragonlord’s heart is not unfettered.
***
Kilgharrah doesn’t see Arthur again until a decade into his reign. Merlin calls him and waits in the great field near Camelot, holding his king’s hand as if they’ve snuck away from a feast to steal kisses in the pantry. The dragon wants to mention how undignified it appears, but his master looks so painfully earnest and happy that he can only exhale a hot sigh toward the both of him.
He knows why he has been called, and he will fight for this new Camelot, for Albion, and for his master.
***
Merlin is no longer a young man. He is Camelot’s warlock, King Arthur’s lover, the last Dragonlord. He commands the elements, defends Albion with his breath and his blood.
Kilgharrah scents his magic in windswept pollen, in the dirt, in the trees. Merlin is rooted to all that lives, and all that lives sings within him, and the thread between them sears and burns, and Kilgharrah thinks, we are all that remain.
***
Albion unites under one great king.
His master rarely calls for him.
***
Kilgharrah still hunts for sheep sometimes.
***
Merlin’s hair goes white the day King Arthur falls.
Kilgharrah bruises himself on the wind, flying hard, landing beside him with a heavy blow to the earth. He wraps his big body around the warlock as best he can, accepting the blistering grief that threatens to tear apart all that they built.
He sleeps, Kilgharrah promises. He sleeps.
***
Merlin’s beard grows long. His hair stretches down his back. He becomes an old man.
A year passes before he leaves the lakeshore and the distant silhouette of Avalon.
He severs Albion’s grip and stumbles against Kilgharrah and says tiredly, take me away.
***
They travel.
Kilgharrah shows him a sea as blue and clear as the sky. Merlin doesn’t trust its depths, but he smiles at the shimmer of tiny, impossibly yellow fish.
Merlin makes snow fall in summer. Kilgharrah snorts, his unspoken, half-amused disapproval now as familiar a constant as Merlin’s lingering, depthless grief.
Kilgharrah chars a lamb with his breath and tells Merlin about his father’s youth. Merlin sleeps against his haunches, curling into the warmth of his magic and his blood.
They are friends. They are all that remain.
***
Arthur. Merlin cries in his sleep. Arthur.
***
Merlin is a bird, soaring. Merlin is a fox, dashing through dead leaves at the cusp of autumn.
***
They find a field of poppies, the blooms so plentiful and dense that the gentle sloping hillside resembles a swath of fine red velvet.
Merlin sways and catches himself with his long Rowan staff and in a thick, low voice, sends Kilgharrah away.
Kilgharrah waits on a quiet, high cliff side and remembers the time before his master chased shadows.
***
Sometimes Merlin is young again, his magic shedding off the aches and creases and deep lines of time. He strolls along a wide, huge wall in the Far East, the wind catching his tattered cloak. It’s so old, he says wondrously, his fingers splayed against the ancient stone. Time stretches.
Once, Kilgharrah reminds him, and future.
***
Merlin is mortal.
His blue eyes go milky with blindness. His bones become fragile, his skin brittle. This life has gone on for more than eight decades.
One morning, in a cave by the sea, the old warlock doesn’t stir. Not for the stew simmering over the fire. Not for water. He coughs and his breath sounds like rain, and the dragon recognizes this as the sleep of a dying man.
Kilgharrah waits until nightfall. Merlin, he says, exhaling heat toward the old man. The air shimmers, his white hair flutters, but he does not wake. So Kilgharrah cradles him carefully in his talons and flies out into the night, to Avalon.
***
Kilgharrah rests beside his master at the lake, watching him sleep against the soft moss at the bank.
The Sidhe hold vigil, a thousand fireflies waiting for Emrys to pass. Driven by whim or the madness of immortality, they demand the soul of the last dragon, and Kilgharrah thinks, it has been a terribly long time, and he’s tired and does not wish to be alone when Merlin is gone.
This magic, the Old Religion, the pulse of the land and the will of the stars, this magic will wake them one day. Kilgharrah knows this as sure as he has known anything.
Sleep, he tells his Dragonlord, beside your king.