Fic: Masked Part I (d)
LJ, you're KILLING me with these character limits -_-
For three days the week before his eighteenth birthday, Merlin has dark dreams. He dreams of swords and blood and shadows and secrets, wakes with a feeling as though something is pressing down on his chest, making him gasp for breath, and it all goes rushing right out of his head before he can grab it, water through his fingers. He knows people die. He knows that he watches them, gasping, sobbing, helpless. He knows that he kills them. He knows that people bend and break before him; that something inside of him reaches out with all the capability of destruction and reigns chaos, and that nothing can stop him except for a touch of someone whose face he cannot see clearly. For three days he dreams and wakes a little more broken, his magic pulsing under his skin, leaping out of him with a wild fury, and no matter what he tries, he can’t bring it under his control.
And on the third day of this, he wakes with the dragon’s voice ringing in his mind.
It’s early, barely dawn, when the world is still captured by sleepy purple shadows. He clenches his fingers around his blankets, the dragon’s call still echoing somewhere intangible, and then he grits his teeth. He pulls a jumper on over his head, leaves a note for his mother, and steals Will’s car. (Steal is a little harsh, it’s more of a borrowing without permission with full intent to return, and it’s a ridiculously easy feat, considering he knows where the spare key is. And, though Will’s expression when he looks out the window and sees his car gone will be quite comical, Merlin knows that he won’t mind.)
At around nine, after about an hour of mind-numbingly dull scenery, his phone rings. He answers it without looking at the caller ID, knowing that there’s only a handful of people it could be.
“What the fuck, Merlin?” Will says, and as expected he is more confused than angry. “Where the hell have you taken my car?”
“I need to go and see someone.”
“Who?” Will demands, sounding grumpy. Probably because he’s awake before noon, and this makes Merlin wonder if his mum didn’t wake him up to ask where the car went.
“A dragon,” he replies simply.
There is a pause. “Is that some sort of metaphor or code that I should google? Have you been kidnapped? I’m not saving your stupid arse if you have.”
“Actual dragon, Will.”
Another pause. “Really?”
“Mhm.”
“…Just don’t blow up my car,” Will orders, and then hangs up.
After a little while, Merlin pulls the car over to the side of the road. He has absolutely no idea where in the hell he is-not that he had any idea of where he was going in the first place, considering he’s going to see a dragon in the middle of nowhere-but something tells him that he’s getting close. Maybe it’s instinct, maybe it’s his magic, most likely it’s the damn dragon doing something mystical. He parks the car and gets out, stretching, then spins in a slow circle until he finds the direction that feels right. And then he starts walking.
It’s not more than ten minutes before he comes upon the house. He slows when he crests the hill in front of it, eyeing it warily. It’s a little wooden house, a bit ramshackle but still quaint. And it’s in literally, the middle of nowhere. There’s no road leading to it, not even a dirt path . He bites his lower lip, considering.
“Hmm, moderately creepy house in the middle of nowhere? This sounds like a brilliant idea,” he mutters to himself, right before walking down the hill and towards the door. What good is magic if he can’t use it to save himself from the possibility of backwater cannibals? And there’s something summoning him, pulling him forward, something he can’t resist.
He walks up to the front door, takes a breath, and knocks. The door opens only a few seconds later, as though his approach was expected. An old man stands there-he is older than Gaius, his hair completely white and almost translucent, his body one that has the old strength of an ancient tree, gnarled and crooked and immovable. Merlin shifts his weight. “Er, sorry to disturb you-.” He falters, because what is he supposed to say? Sorry, just wandered into the middle of nowhere by mistake, please don’t kill and eat me, by the way, have you seen a dragon around? The old man looks at him with an oddly familiar expression and opens the door wider, beckoning him in.
Surprisingly, none of his instincts tell him to run away. Oh, sure, the actual rational part of his mind is going bonkers with alarm bells, but the rest of him-magic and instinct and all that jazz?-not a blip. Which makes absolutely no sense, and his confusion is probably what makes him step across the threshold. The old man, without saying a word, leads him into a musty living room, and stupidly he follows. The man motions for him to take a seat and he does so, shifting awkwardly on the dull sofa that feels dusty to the touch. The room is sparse, the furniture worn, and in the corner is the only sign of technology, a dusty radio that looks like it worked twenty years ago. There’s no other sign of the outside world at all.
The old man comes to stand in front of him, un-speaking, just looking at him with an odd kind of smile. “Er, like I said, sorry to barge in and disturb you. I’m a bit…lost,” he says lamely. But the old man still says nothing, and he shifts again, looking around the room. He drums his fingers on his legs, looking everywhere but the old man who is so intently looking at him. And when he finally looks back, finally meets the man’s eyes, he feels like a complete and utter idiot.
“It’s you!” He says, jumping to his feet, and the old man smiles.
“Your observation skills need fine-tuning, young Warlock,” the old man says in the voice of the dragon. It’s the dragon’s eyes-yellow and slitted and abnormal-staring out at him.
“What the hell?” is really all he can manage, and the dragon is far too amused. “Why are you human?” He says after a moment.
The dragon-because he may look like an old man, but now that he knows better, Merlin can practically see the scales beneath his translucent flesh-takes a seat. “The world is not as empty as it used to be. The wild shrinks every year, as you humans expand farther and farther.”
Merlin follows this train of thought, understanding. “And sooner or later someone is bound to come across a giant dragon in the middle of the British countryside.” The dragon inclines his head. “So, you live as a human?”
“Sometimes. Your forms are so…frail. I could not bear to always be in this body, but it serves its purpose.”
Merlin takes this in, and then glares at the dragon. “Why the hell are you talking to me in my dreams?”
The dragon tilts his head. “There are things you need to know. It was the only way I had to call you here.”
"You've never heard of a phone?" The dragon gives him a look. It's a Gaius look, one that he has become acutely accustomed to over the past months of training, and it startles him. Did Gaius learn it from the dragon, or is it just some knowledge that becomes ingrained in a person after they reach a certain age? He shrugs.
"I do not submit myself to your modern technologies," the dragon says, snorting, the sound more dragon than human. "You humans have become so disconnected to the natural world. You've always surrounded yourselves with stone, but now you have to search for a spot of earth or a blade of grass."
Merlin eyes him. "I never figured on dragons being environmentalists." The dragon glares and he sits back. "How did you call me, anyway? Do you dragons have some kind of telepathic powers or something like that?"
"I am a creature of the Old Religion. I have powers that you could not begin to understand. But I can summon you because we are connected, young Warlock. You and I are bound."
"You know, that's the second time in a conversation that you've told me I'm bound to someone. Do I get any choice in this whole binding thing, or am I going to be bound to a sheep next time?"
The dragon grins, the expression odd on the old man's face, belonging as it does to a reptilian head and sharp fangs. "Your destiny and your life is bound to the Once and Future King, and there is no use struggling against that binding, Warlock. The bond between us is more tenuous. It is an old bond, hereditary, but it cannot change the world the way the other will."
Merlin folds his arms, raising an eyebrow. "And what exactly is this bond?"
"I am a dragon of old. You are a dragonlord." He flinches automatically at the name, and the dragon's eyes flicker. "Your father was dragonlord before you, and with his death the power became yours." The dragon bows forward, not fully submissive but a gesture of respect. "We are bound, you and I, by this power. I am yours to command."
He looks down at his hands, which shake just a bit. "I-I don't--"
"Don't trouble yourself about this now, young Warlock. You are a dragonlord, but it is not your destiny. That belonged to your father--you have your own fate to follow, and this power changes nothing. I did not bring you here to discuss this. There are more important things."
"Like what?" He asks, irrationally angry. Or perhaps it's not all that irrational, when he's been dragged out here and informed of his fate and destiny and of all these things he has no control over. The dragon humors him with a look and he feels his magic lurch beneath his skin, drawing on his irritation. The dragon's eyes sharpen and narrow. They are more than yellow in this light--they are molten gold, burning through with heat and ancient power.
"Your magic. You have been dreaming, have you not?"
He draws his arms in close around him, warding off the heavy chill the vague memories of the dreams brings him. "You should know--you've been sending them."
The dragon shakes his head. "No. They are not dreams from me. I merely sensed them. They sent tremors through the very fabric of the magical world."
Merlin sits up straight. "Why? They're just...just dreams."
"Dreams, yes. And with the dreams your magic twists. It tries to escape you, doesn't it?" He looks down, away, and the dragon nods. "You are coming upon your eighteenth year, correct?"
"My birthday's next week."
"Your magic is destabilizing."
He jolts and meets the dragon's eyes. "What?"
"You are powerful, young Warlock. So powerful that you do not properly comprehend your own abilities. You come into your full magical strength in your eighteenth year, and you should be fully prepared and capable of controlling it. But you…you are too close to Albion, where magic is embedded in the earth. And you have inherited your dragonlord powers early as well. There is too much, and your control is not strong enough. If you are not trained properly your magic will destabilize, grow wild. It will slip from your control entirely, burn too brightly within you, until it consumes you and escapes.”
He blinks. “Are you saying that I’m going to die if my magic ‘destabilizes’?”
“Not at first. You will be a shell, a puppet of wild magic. It will wreak havoc on this world.”
“That is so not good.”
The dragon gives him a look of your powers of understatement are incredible, idiotic human but merely says, “Indeed.”
“So, there’s a way of keeping all this from happening, right? Because I would really like to not be consumed by my own bloody magic and then killed.”
“I will teach you, young Warlock. We will start immediately.”
“Oh good. How long is this--” Merlin pauses halfway through the sentence, reconsidering based on the dragon’s flat look. “You know, actually, let me just call my mum and tell her I won’t be home tonight.”
The dragon nods.
+
Merlin spends three days in the dusty house in the middle of nowhere, learning exactly what it means for his magic to destabilize. The dragon reverts to his actual form, an unsettling transformation to watch as his skin darkens and hardens to scales, his body contorting up and out, neck growing long as the bones of his skull shift and lengthen-Merlin watches in fascination but has to look away eventually, not necessarily because he is squeamish but because there is something so unnatural about the sight that it makes his stomach roll. The dragon seems to feel something similar, because once it is back into its own form it stretches its wings and sighs.
“Now, young warlock, we will begin.”
He beckons Merlin closer and has him sit, legs crossed, guiding him through the motions of meditation. It’s something that Gaius has taught him before and he falls into the familiar patterns now, listening to the dragon’s voice, taking hold of the magic beneath his skin. Following the dragon’s instructions he pulls the magic up and expels it outwards, through his skin.
It surprises him how much it hurts. How his magic feels always changes-sometimes it is warm and coursing, sometimes it is cold pressure; sometimes it is a softness sliding through him like velvet, sometimes it is fizzing in his blood-but it has never hurt before. Until now, and he realizes exactly what the dragon means when he says wild; the magic fights him, writhing inside of him, a living pulse that tears at him and rages and tries to hold on as he pushes it out of himself.
He doesn’t know how long he does this-inside of his head it is the suspension of time, just an endless moment of pain and heat and a dizzying lack of control-but he holds to it until the dragon’s voice slides over him, audible in his head as well as his physical body. He opens his eyes slowly, surprised to find his limbs have gone numb, even more surprised as he lifts his head to find a circle of char burnt into the earth surrounding him. He blinks at it and then stretches his limbs trying to work the kinks out of them, wincing at the way his skin feels tight and hot, a bit like a bad sunburn. He looks up at the dragon, who nods.
“Good, young warlock. It is a start.”
Merlin resists the urge to suspiciously ask what do you mean a start? because he’s positive he won’t like the answer. The dragon has him bleed off his magic into their surroundings twice more that day, and by the end of it he feels boneless, limp and exhausted even though most of his day has been spent motionless. As the skies turn dusky and the sun sets behind the horizon he makes his way yawning into the house and collapses into the first bed he finds, sleeping straight through until the sun is peaked in the sky the next day.
When he wakes he finds the house empty. He pokes around, letting his inner snoop come out, and finds that the place is mostly barren. There is furniture scattered throughout the house, but it is clear that this isn’t a place where someone lives-it is a pale imitation of a home, having more in common with a motel room than anything else. He wanders into the kitchen, scouring the cupboards in hopes of finding something edible.
No such luck, and his stomach growls loudly. Scowling, his heads out of the house and around the back, to where he suspects he will find his dragon companion. Sure enough, the dragon is sprawled on the ground, wings unfurled, its body stretched languidly in the sunlight, apparently sleeping.
“I really hope you have something to eat around here,” Merlin calls as he approaches. “I’m starving, and you have to eat something.”
“I feed on magic,” the dragon says, lazily opening one eye.
He folds his arms. “Bully for you. I don’t.”
“Hasn’t the physician taught you how to summon food for yourself?”
“No, that’s not something that we covered in my training on how to be a superhero.”
The dragon sighs, lifting its head. “Young warlock, you are foolish to think that your destiny is as small a thing as being a superhero.”
“Well, as far as I know, I can’t eat destiny, so that doesn’t really help me right now.”
“Impertinent and ungrateful as usual, aren’t you?” It remarks, something almost fond in its voice. It yawns widely and Merlin takes a half step back instinctively, then scowls at the dragon, challenging it to comment. “Ask the earth to provide you with sustenance,” it suggests.
“And how, exactly, do I do that?”
“Figure it out yourself, young warlock,” it replies, putting its head down and going back to sleep. He stares at the beast for a long moment and then growls under his breath and flops into a sitting position on the ground.
“Okay, ask the earth…,” he mutters, “whatever the hell that means.” He closes his eyes. “Ask the earth, ask the earth….” He starts to reach into his inner core of magic, then stops and reaches out instead, searching for magic in the world around him. To his surprise, he finds it-magic in the earth beneath him, in the air, in the pond of water yards away, magic that is somehow softer than his own, subtler. His eyes open and he finds the dragon watching him. “There’s magic in the earth.”
“Yes. Most of it is the magic that you released yesterday, absorbed by the natural world.” The dragon’s voice is intent. “There is supposed to be magic in the earth. Magic is a force of nature, like the air and the seas and the earth itself.”
“But?” Merlin prompts.
“Magic, like wind and water, moves in currents. It can be drained from one place and trapped in another. It is meant to be evenly distributed across the land, but it is not. If you had not expelled large amounts of your magic yesterday you would be unable to feel it in the earth now.”
“Why?”
The dragon shifts, pulling his wings in. “Albion.”
“What about it?”
“The city is built on the ruins of Avalon, an ancient civilization.” The dragon tilts its head, looking at him. “Avalon was the birthplace of magic, the source. But Avalon fell, and the magic that originated from it became locked in place, unable to spread outwards. Trapped as it is, the magic becomes more and more potent, and more and more unstable. Inside of your city of Albion magic is everywhere-in the air and in the ground and in the water.” Merlin squirms beneath the suddenly intense gaze of the dragon. “You, young warlock, are meant to release the magic from its entrapment. Bring it back into this world. You and the Once and Future King will rebuild the glory of Avalon and restore magic to this world. This is your destiny.”
Merlin is quiet for a moment, taking this in. Then he climbs to his feet, brushing the dirt from his jeans with a hand. “I don’t believe in destiny.”
The dragon snorts. “You need not believe in it, warlock, for you to fulfill it.” The beast twists around, turning his head away, but before he does he adds, “There is bread in the bottom cupboard, if you are still hungry.”
He scowls at the dragon’s back and very, very quietly under his breath says how much he hates barmy dragons who preach about destiny.
The dragon’s snort follows him as he retreats inside the house.
Later, as the afternoon bleeds into night, the dragon teaches him how to recall magic once he has expunged it from himself. He tells him how to draw magic from the surrounding world into himself, and how to keep it from overwhelming him if he needs to take on large quantities of energy. Merlin expels the magic from himself and draws it back in half a dozen times until the dragon is satisfied and finally lets him sink into a dreamless sleep.
The third morning dawns too bright and too soon.
Merlin readies himself for departure-trying valiantly to keep from slipping into daydreams about the massive quantities of food that he’s going to eat the minute he hits civilization-and checks his magic. It’s easier, now, to look inside of himself and gauge his levels of magic-he is more aware of it than ever and it pulses under his control, steady as a heart beat.
“Well,” he says, standing in front of the dragon, “thank you. For teaching me-“
“Your thanks are unnecessary, young warlock. It would be disastrous if your magic fully destabilized.”
“Thank you anyway,” he says, and the dragon makes a pleased sound.
“You are welcome, dragonlord,” it says softly, more sincerity in its voice than he has heard before, and he smiles briefly at it before starting back towards the car.
Part I (e)