How To Train Your Dragonlord

How to Train Your Dragonlord with Swords

By night, while Merlin slept, Arthur was beside him, often falling asleep in a bedside chair, in case Merlin needed something in the night. By day, Arthur occasionally saw Merlin for meals, depending on how busy he had allowed his itinerary to become. About a week after Merlin's rescue, Gwen disappeared. Arthur wasn't surprised, she had still be undercover as a spy for him, to keep an eye on Morgana. He would still get frequent written intelligence on his sister, allowing him to thwart many of her plans before she even came to acting on them. He would also ask, privately, for updates on Merlin, to which Arthur would reply 'he is getting much of his strength back, and wants to learn to defend himself better'.
But Merlin was never alone during the day. Arthur made sure that whichever knight of the round table wasn't busy was sat with Merlin, and that they had shifts, and would all spend time with the warlock-heir to the throne.
A week went by and Arthur had yet to spend a decent amount of time with Merlin, as he got back to full strength. Merlin, remembering what he said to prove he was real, worried that he had scared the king with talk of marriage. He worried what that meant about... them. Merlin, upon hearing from Gaius that he was well enough to resume his duties, decided that he would not mention their conversation. For a while, at least.
The next day, Arthur was waiting outside Merlin's chambers. "Come on Merlin, let's get you properly defended." He had his usual grin plastering his face. The grin that signified that they were still friends. The grin that signified that he was still heir. The grin that signified that Arthur had the same plan for their conversation in Morgana's lair.
Merlin, not wanting to ruin the day by bringing his question into the forefront of Arthur's mind, smiled back and left his room, to walk to the armoury with Arthur. He had missed Arthur's company, so he was not going to do anything to jeopardize that.

Merlin P.O.V:
We trained - Arthur, Leon and me - for just shy of four hours. Actually, that was a slight lie. Initially, Leon and I trained for two hours, working on sword skills, rather than just hand-to-hand combat, which I had been learning before... the recent events.
As I improved, with positive feedback from Leon encouraging me to keep trying, Arthur became more and more interested in our training. I think he must've been interested in how quickly I could pick certain skills up. Hand-to-hand combat had taken me months to pick up - with hour-long sessions weekly - but here I was, vastly improving my swordsmanship in a matter of hours.
"Merlin," he said as Leon and I stopped parrying for a break. I looked over to him, drenched in sweat and severely tired out. "After your break, you'll train with me. And I'm not going to easy on you because you were ill." I nodded. I knew what he was doing. "If you can last a minute, you'll be knighted at the next ceremony, along with the other new Knights." I nodded.
"I'll do my best," I added, wanting to make the King proud.
"No. You'll do my best. And we'll treat this test as if magic were still outlawed, won't we?"
"Yes, sire. No magic. No unfair advantage." I smiled secretly. Apart from our silent walk to the armoury, this would be the closest I'd been to Arthur in a week.
After having a ten minute break to catch my breath, and regain some of my energy, I stood back up and walked over to Arthur. I just stood there, not speaking, waiting expectantly. He was already being kinder to me than I'd seen him be to any other Knight, and I didn't want that luxury. If I was going to earn this, I was going to earn it with the same amount of energy as any other Knight.
Arthur, evidently surprised with my determination, watched me for a moment, then stood up beside me, and prepared to fight. I did the same. "You sure you're ready to do this, Merlin?" Arthur asked, still unsure as to whether I'd had enough time to get some of my energy back.
"The longer we stand doing nothing in this armour, the more tired I'll be," I replied, smiling to him. Having confirmed to Arthur that I felt ready enough for this challenge, we both took a step forward with our right legs, holding our swords out in front of us, in defensive positions. After pausing for a moment, while Leon corrected my stance - my left foot was not at an angle behind my right - we started to spar, Arthur making the first move.
Arthur lifted his sword, aiming for my left shoulder, where it joins to the neck. While he had kindly drawn Leon's sword, rather than Excalibur (which could kill me), if the blow landed, it would've been rather painful, and caused bleeding. In response to his attack, I raised my own sword at right-angles to his, to defend my shoulder. As our swords connected, not too far from my shoulder and head, I must admit, I pushed into my sword, to push Arthur back, in an attempt to knock him off balance.
On the whole, it worked, as Arthur's sword was pushed away from my shoulder, and he took a step back. However, I had no time to attempt to attack, as Arthur launched another attack on my midriff, which had been left open when I defended my shoulder. When I had pushed his sword off, he had swung it around on my left side, to catch my middle.
Almost caught off-guard, I took a couple of steps to my right, and brought my sword (point down, so my hands were higher up) to my left side, to meet his sword. I pushed his sword again, this time with more energy, giving myself enough time as he regrouped to launch an attack of my own. As I swung my sword towards his middle, I levelled the blade out, so that my hands were mainly in line with the tip of the sword.
Arthur jumped back out of surprise, only just having enough time to organise his sword, and bring it in line to deflect my blow. He pushed my sword away (to the upper left side of my body) leaving my left open for attack. Arthur lunged towards my chest. I stepped back quite far, almost falling, and gave an attack to his left so that, at the last minute, he would have to decide whether to continue his attack, or defend his left. I knew which he'd choose.
True to my belief, as Arthur saw my sword coming towards his left, he moved his sword to deflect, not quite quick enough to deflect all of the strength I'd put into the swing. Even as our swords connected, the swing meant that Arthur stumbled back a couple of steps, very nearly falling over.
Arthur had set his usual standards for this spar, meaning that I only needed to successfully defend and attack for a little while longer, and I'd succeed. The sparring continued much as it had previously, with one of us attacking and the other defending, then quickly attacking while the other was not quite aware, right up until Leon called for a truce, telling us that I had successfully sparred with Arthur without getting injured, meaning that I would become Sir Merlin Ambrosius, Crown Prince of Camelot.