The Dragon Prince (Merlin AU)

Chapter 19: The Battle's End

A King and A Prince stood in frigid shock with grips wrapped tightly around their immortal blades.  They watched as a coward crazed with power rose slowly and hunched over. His arms were limp in front of his torso, his hair falling over his forehead, fighting the grease that held it back. Slowly, almost tauntingly he reached a ringed hand towards the back of his head where it had connected with the stone wall. Blood could be seen on the wall from the impact, so it was not a surprise to the Royals when the Coward's hand came back glistening a dark red. It was a surprise to them however, that at the sight of his own blood the Coward increased in his laughter. There was a light in his eyes as he looked up to them, and it sent a shiver down their spines.

"You think--" Laughs broke through his words, "That a little bit of forceful magic can defeat me?"

Merlin clenched his teeth, and Arthur held an odd mix of anger, insult, and confusion in his chest. Galvarr took a step forward. He spit out taunting words, and made Merlin's title sound like acid on his tongue.

"Oh, my little Dragon Prince, how wrong you are. When I was fighting, well I say fighting it was more simply tussling, with your father, you know what he did? He laid down his sword. He said, 'Galvarr, please, my old friend. Do what you wish to me, but please, I beg of you, do not touch my family. My Merlin, please, don't hurt my Merlin'. He did not dare raise a finger against me, he pleaded for me to leave you be. Yet you come here, and you test me, you dare stand against me, you call me a coward, when in truth it was your own father that was the coward." Merlin clenched his fist around the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white. Arthur glanced towards him and noticed the gold trying to peak around the edges of his irises. "I told him, I said, 'Balinor, you fool, you put your sword down before me and give me the chance to count you down. You give me that power and you plead for your family's lives. This only proves further that you are not fit to rule if you will not even defend your own throne for the sake of your kingdom. Stand and fight me, you coward'. So, that fool he stood, and he had the audacity to smile at me and tell me that I was the fool, that I was the coward, that I... that I... AM... NOT... FIT... TO RULE! I am fit to rule this kingdom. Your family is not Merlin, your Dragon Lord title is no longer a thing of nobility. You put too much strain on equality, that you have forgotten how to use your power for the goodness of your kingdom. Your father, he swung out and he ran. I laughed at his back and I told him to run. I told him to keep running, but he could not hide from me, and now, now that fool is dead and he is dead by my men's hands. Now, his favorite child, his great Dragon Prince, the last thing he tried to protect, will die by my hand as well. It is a beautiful tragedy is it not?"

Galvarr had stepped forward as he spoke, he had gained in volume before dropping that volume again and was now nearly hissing a whisper into the Prince's face. "Who will you plead for Merlin? Your mother, your siblings? Your King? "His eye shifted to Arthur before latching onto Merlin once again.  "Or dear little Mione?"

Arthur looked to Merlin in question. He had never heard that name before, but upon it leaving Galvarr's lips Merlin had jumped forward and grabbed a hold of the Coward's collar. "What have you done to Mione?" He growled. Galvarr smiled widely.

"Nothing horrible. Yet. She seems to like the Dungeon's just fine. She's gotten used to it over the years."

"You... put her... in the dungeons?"

"Oh, yes, Little Prince. For nine years, after you left her here. Unprotected. Is that anyway to treat someone you love?"

"I Never thought--! Don't you, of all people, tell me how to treat those I am supposed to love, you traitor!"

Galvarr laughed harder. "You think your words brave, Little Prince?"

"No. I believe them to be the truth and nothing but the truth. You are blinded by your power, Galvarr. You let it go to your head! This, This, Is why we preach equality. You have taken all Drakoniel has every been, has ever stood for, and you tried to tear it down. You may have turned the dragons and the people from their homes, but you did not destroy them. The hope still stands, the Kingdom still stands, but it is time a coward got off its throne." Galvarr's smile was gone. Merlin's fist had tightened with his words, and the stout man was now lifted to his tip toes, barely brushing the ground.  His eye's were wide, and he no longer looked to believe he had the upper hand. His word-twisting had done the opposite of what he intended it to. He began clawing at Merlin's sleeves. Arthur watched all that transpired with wide eyes and sword still raised, but it was raised in a way that suggested he had forgotten he even stood with the weapon.

"Merlin, Merlin, please. You know me, I-- I taught you lessons when you didn't want to listen to your tutor. I sparred with you! We were like family! You don't want to hurt me." The Coward pleaded for his life, all reminiscences of false-bravery gone like the wind.

"I don't want to hurt you? Because you tutored and sparred with me? Because i once thought of you as an uncle? Maybe that's true, maybe I hate the idea of hurting the man I once knew," Galvarr's smile started to return, but dropped quickly at the Prince's next words. "But do you know why I do want to hurt you, why I am fighting with all the good in me not to torture you until you wish with all your might that I had killed you to begin with? Because you got close to me, and then betrayed me. You attacked my kingdom, You got my father killed, you spit lies at his memory, And you IMPRISONED SOMEONE THAT I HOLD DEAR! You want to plead, huh? You want to try and justify your actions with the "rightness of the Kingdom"? You cannot justify yourself, Galvarr, and you cannot try to touch my old feelings for you. No, because now... now you are nothing  to me."

The light drained from Galvarr's eyes, and Arthur was surprised to see that he almost looked... hurt. No, That couldn't be right. It seemed it was, because as they watched, Galvarr stopped fighting. He grew limp in Merlin's eyes. A single shining tear dripped slowly down the man's face, and a strained sort of whimper escaped his throat. "Merlin... Merlin, I'm so sorry. You are right, you and your father, you were always right. Power is too fragile of a scale to be meddled with. Your father was not the fool. He was not the coward. I was all along, a fool, a coward, a traitor. I bit the hands that fed me, the hands tht I always loved and cherished, just for a fool's idea of change for the better. It was not for the better. I see that now. I am so sorry, Merlin... I am so sorry." The man had been reduced to dry heaves and strained pleads.

Merlin's grip was loosening, slipping. His gaze was turning down. Tears of his own slipped down his angled cheeks. Suddenly all of his walls were down, all of his guards incapacitated. His hands swung to his waist, and he began to slowly crumble down towards the cold, stone floor.

Arthur's heart hurt for his friend, it ached for all he had lost, and all he had watched fall apart in front of him. His woes were nearly twice that of his own. A slow movement caught his eye, a small twitch backwards. His head raised from their sight on his crumpled companion, and he noticed yet  another change. A glint in Galvarr's eyes. The man was not only a Coward, but a Chameleon. Galvarr looked towards Arthur, and slowly rose a single finger to a pair of evilly grinning lips. He slowly crouched and reached behind him towards the sword he had dropped before, and dragged it up with a slight sound of metal scraping against stone. He raised the sword above his head, aimed toward the Prince fallen at his feet. Arthur suddenly jumped from his stupor.

"Merlin!" He yelled as he jumped in front of him, sword raised. A loud Clang echoed through the large Council Chambers. "I do not know you, Glavarr, but I don know one thing. You will not touch Merlin." He twisted his sword and Galvarr's was quickly flung from his grip. He was aiming a blow towards the man's head until another sword beat him to his mark.

"Tell the gods that Emrys sent you."

The Coward was no more.

(AN:// One more chapterrrr and then the epilogueee and annnnounceement eeeeeek! Are you guys excited? I am very Excited. Love you guys! Keep reading. Keep interacting. Keep being your beautiful, lovely selves. -EmzyyIrenexx)