Hunger Games: Fandom Style

Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

Merlin stumbled. Translocation spells always left him dizzy.
His stomach rolled. He knew this place. It hadn't changed much over the centuries. If anything, the apocalypse had left it even bleaker, if that were possible. The grey cliffs now had cracks running through them and the edge where he had once thrown down lightning at Morgana's forces trembled, ready to fall.
Grey clouds roiled over Camlann fields ominously. Already, they were charged with magic, as if the whole world was waiting for its fate to once again turn upon this battleground.
The creature flickered into existence ahead of him, Leah's jaws still clamped upon his arm.
Merlin knew from personal experience how strong an ordinary wolf's jaws were, much less one designed to kill vampires.
"Snow" threw her off like it was nothing. Her body twisted as she flew off the edge of the cliff.
Merlin snarled and drew the winds together with a twist of his wrist. He lifted his arm slowly, pulling Leah to safety as he did so.
The shapeshifter chuckled. "Still trying to save your friends after all your failures?"
"Shut up," Merlin growled. He set Leah down a few feet behind him.
The shapeshifter grinned. "Still so defiant. Still trying to save your precious, dying Arthur - "
"What?"
The shapeshifter waved his hand negligently. Steam rose from a pool of water beside him. It coalesced and twisted into a vision of Snow's office.
The walls were gone. Peacekeepers lowered their weapons.
"Fire!" The sound was distorted but there was no mistaking the command.
"We can watch him die in slow motion," he said with unrestrained glee. The blasts from the guns slowed to almost nothing as did the group's reactions. "Which one do you think will be the one to - "
Merlin blasted the shapeshifter off the cliff with a howl of rage.
Moments later, he was back, now in the form of a bird. Human speech somehow still twisted its way out of his throat. "Missed me, missed me - But of course, you'll miss your friends more."
The vision dissipated as Merlin screamed again.

"Fire!"
"Protego!" Harry yelled at nearly the same moment. Normally all the spell would have produced would have been a slightly curved wall, but his wand seemed to sense his intentions and it blossomed into a protective bubble around the group. The blasts deflected off of it and back into the crowd of Peacekeepers."
"Good one," Gwaine panted. "Now what?"
Will drew an arrow from his quiver. "Can we shoot out?"
"How should I know?" Harry snapped. "No one's tried an arrow against these things since the Middle Ages."
"Right. Everyone back up so that if this thing deflects - "
They squeezed together. Will aimed for the Head Peacekeeper and fired.
The arrow bristled in his throat.
"Excellent," Will said with no little satisfaction. "It must only stop energy."
Arthur looked thoughtful. "Could you keep it around us if we were moving?"
Harry looked at Arthur's drawn sword and grinned. "I'll see what I can do."

A stone fist erupted from the earth and closed around the bird.
A second later, the stone bulged in spirals as something inside it began tunneling down.
At a word from command from Merlin, the rock exploded, revealing a hideous gigantic worm with tombstone teeth.
What is that?
"Rock wyrm. Forbearman!"
The wyrm flew into the air, but the shapeshifter just twisted into a terror bird and swept towards them.
Merlin drew in the magic fizzling in the clouds and channeled it into an enormous blast of lightning. The terror bird fell smoking to the earth.
Leah growled, her hair still standing on end. Is it dead?
The terror bird started bubbling into a new shape.
"Apparently not." He gritted his teeth and called down another blast of lightning. And another. And another.
Which might have worked had it not turned into a ventus - a storm spirit.
"All these years you waited for him, only for him to let you down again. Tut, tut. You'll have to tell poor Gwenny-poo that he's not coming home - "
"He's not dead!" Merlin stole the winds the ventus was riding, essentially starving it.
A small fox fell to the earth in its place. "Even if she survives the uprising, you'll have to watch her die eventually. They'll all leave you eventually. And this time, they won't be coming up."
"Shut up," Merlin hissed.
Leah shivered. A wave of hopelessness and grief crashed into her. Was it coming from Merlin or -
She narrowed her eyes. The shapeshifter.
"You'll be all alone."
That hit a chord with Merlin. He stumbled.
Leah growled. He'll have me, she said defiantly, pushing on the thought as hard as she could, hoping the shifter could hear her.
"No one lives forever."
He can. And so can I. You, on the other hand, are about to die, little man. And I will dance on your bones.
The shapeshifter laughed, but some of his certainty seemed to be fading even as Merlin recovered. "Bloodthirsty, I like that in a girl."
Woman, she corrected primly. Blast him with lightning again. The ground could use scorching.
"Happy to."
It bought them a few seconds at least, but how did you kill something that could heal itself?
The shapeshifter disappeared.
"Uh-oh," Merlin muttered.
Then the ground exploded beneath his feet. He flew through the air and landed on his back, skidding several feet. Leah skittered back.
A rock wyrm again? No imagination. The flippant comment hided her worry. You all right?
"Fine," he gasped. "Why bother, shifter? Why bother with any of this? I can't die."
"No, but your friends can. All that fear, all that grief, all that anger . . . " The shapeshifter gave a little shudder of pleasure. "It's all so much more intense coming from you. It's almost better than that curse I helped set up."
He needs to die, Leah thought flatly. Can't you pull a Puss on him?
Yeah, I'm sure he'll be real happy to turn into a mouse for me. Merlin paused. Then again . . .
Merlin began summoning fire. It collected in a growing ball in his hands. Then, on the wind, he sent the faintest hint of a suggestion.
Wyvern, he whispered mentally. It was just a grain of an idea, floating on the wind.
He hurled the fire. The shapeshifter changed into a form that could resist it.
And since he had delusions of grandeur, he didn't change into a wyvern. He became a full blown dragon.
Mouse! I said mouse! Not dragon! Not dragon!
The shapeshifter let out a chuckling roar.
Merlin strode forward. "By the power of the dragonlords, I command thee," he said quietly.
The dragon's eyes widened.
"Die."
The dragon opened its mouth to speak, but all that came out were choked half sentences as its air was slowly cut off. "But - not real - dragon."
"Close enough," Merlin said in that deadly quiet tone.
The dragon part of the shapeshifter must have interpreted the command as to stop breathing, because it continued to suffocate. It stumbled to its knees before falling still.
The majestic dragon slowly melted into a small grey slug.
The moment it fell, Merlin was running to the pool. "Show me," he demanded.
A view of President's Snow's office - former office, whatever - came up.
"They're alive," he breathed. He sank to his knees in relief. "They're alive."
Leah walked over and nudged his side. Something tight had eased in her chest. She didn't know most of the members of the group all that well, but it hadn't taken a genius to figure out that if they'd died, Merlin would never have recovered.
After several minutes silence, Leah spoke up. So, dragonlord, huh?
He shrugged. "It's not a title that comes up all that often anymore. Not too many dragons left, and most of those steer clear of Panem. District 9's got some very strange ideas about dragons."
Leah looked at the pathetic grey slug that was all that was left of the "dragon" and sighed. Shame. It'd be nice to see a real one.
"I'll take you to meet one sometime," Merlin promised.
Leah perked up. Really?
"It's a date," he said, then blushed quickly. "Er, I mean, if you want it to be. I, uh - "
Meeting a dragon, she mused. Hardly a traditional first date. I approve.

Arthur paced the office, carefully stepping over dead Peacekeepers as he went. "Where are those two?"
"They'll be fine," Gwaine said. "Merlin's immortal, remember?"
"Still got some nasty bruises though," Merlin grumbled.
A grin split Arthur's face. "Merlin!" He clapped him on the back.
"Worried, sire?" Merlin asked with a grin.
"About you? Nah."
"Which is why you've been pacing nonstop for the past ten minutes, of course," Will said, rolling his eyes. "Hello, Merlin."
Arthur coughed. "Maybe I was a little concerned." He changed the subject quickly. "And what's that stupid grin about?"
Said stupid grin didn't even falter. In fact, it grew wider. "I've got a date."

Author's Note: Don't go away! Epilogue coming soon!