Chapter Text
Prologue
The crowning feast was at once triumphal and gracious: the Great Hall, bedecked with garlands of flowers, its stone floors strewn with a carpet of luminous green reeds, seemed muted and dull against the foreground of Lords and Ladies of Albion, regal and sparkling in their jewelled gold and their velvet finery. At the head of the hall, Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot and crowned this day high ruler of all Albion, sat at the centre of the Kings and Queens in Albion, shining like a god and haloed in the last light of evening filtered through his golden hair and crown. Merlin sat on his King's left side and watched him as the tables were cleared of all but the tiny cups of usky, unaware that the glow lit his smile and turned his angular features soft. Arthur's hand reached for his under the table and clasped it in a familiar and beloved embrace as he nodded to someone across the hall. Merlin squeezed back and sat forward in his chair: he'd been waiting for this moment ever since Galahad had revealed what Taliesin had been working on so feverishly these last few months. Taliesin approached the High Table and spoke:
"For as long as mankind has been in Albion there have been dragons," said Taliesin, projecting his voice to the edges of the hall. "They have ruled the skies, terrorized the lands, enraptured the young and enraged the old, and man knew no differently than that dragons had always been part of their world. But the gods knew they were not always there: that before mankind ever set foot in Albion, there was no need of dragons, for the destiny of animals meant nothing to the gods (save, perhaps, to Herne the Hunter). Before man, the gods kept dragons for themselves, for dragons were lithe and lovely and full of vigour and grace. They kept them until such time as man came to be. Then all but one of the gods, in the fulfilment of their vision, loosed the dragons into Albion and charged them upon pain of death with seeing that the destinies of the men who came into their care would come to pass.
"Theirs should have been an easy task, had mankind not been given the ability to choose. But Choice they had, and the dragons perforce were not always gentle in affecting the destinies of their charges. Man came to see them as brute dangers to their lives and complained bitterly to the gods that it seemed their true fate was to wrest their lives and livelihoods from the teeth and claws and fires of the dragons. And the gods, not being completely capricious, sent the dragon lords as intermediaries, and they compelled the dragons to listen to the dragon lords and do their bidding. Thus was the task of the dragons made even more difficult, for they were not released from ensuring the destinies of those in their charge. And yet the gods were not cruel to their creations, whom they loved: they gave mankind the dragon lords, but they took away from the rest of mankind the knowledge that their destinies were in the dragons' control. This, they believed, would restore balance, would allow the dragons to do their work and allow mankind to be blissful in their ignorance.
"And so it came to pass that the goddess of fate and retribution, the silver Lady who envisioned the need for dragons and breathed life into them at their start, Arianrhod herself, gave in charge to the dragon Kilgharrah the mutual destinies of Arthur Pendragon and Merlin in Camelot: that he must ensure, without lasting harm to Albion, that Arthur and Merlin join together and unite all Albion under Arthur's rule. Yet even gods can make mistakes. The balance which they thought restored was more delicate than they had foreseen, and indeed rested upon a fulcrum made of one man. For even as the great dragon Kilgharrah saw to it that Uther begat Arthur, he unwittingly cracked the fulcrum and upset that delicate balance, setting in motion the downfall of all but one of the gods' vision.
"All but one god: the god who dissented with Arianrhod's vision was a selfish god who wished to control directly the fate of his people and be a god for all the peoples of the entire world. This new god did not send dragons into Albion with the other gods. So when Kilgharrah caused Uther to call upon the magic of the Old Religion to get his wife with child, this god, whose followers called him Light of Light and very God of very God, saw his opportunity to cause the downfall of the dragons and bring the peoples of Albion under his protection."
Here, there were murmurs around the great hall, and the rapt gazes of not a few of the royals at either side of Arthur and Merlin grew uneasy.
"The Old Religion calls for balance: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life," Taliesin continued. "Since Choice was given to man, it was up to man to decide whose life would be given for another. But this new god interfered, and took away the choice of death from the sorcerer Uther chose to help his wife conceive. This new god chose the life of Arthur's mother, Ygraine, as a lesson to Uther and to spite the other gods. As soon as Ygraine had given birth to Arthur, she died. And as this new god knew would happen, Uther rebelled against the Old Religion and sorcery. In the madness of his loss, Uther took up with this new god and renounced the Old Religion. At every turn Uther fought the powers of magic and destroyed those whom the gods of the Old Religion awakened to use it. And he deceived and destroyed the dragons in Albion. All but one: Kilgharrah himself, whom Uther imprisoned in a cave deep below Camelot's castle.
"Yet even in the midst of the tragedy of his kind, in the midst of his personal anguish and anger at Uther Pendragon, still Kilgharrah was bound to ensure Arthur and Merlin's mutual destiny to see Albion unharmed and united under Arthur's rule. Twenty years of solitude under Uther's castle gave Kilgharrah plenty of time to choose his course. Plenty of time to choose a path that would ensure the destiny of Merlin and Arthur, and perhaps accomplish something more. But what of the consequences of the great dragon Kilgharrah's choice? Well, that is a very long tale, indeed, and I will sing it to you tonight."
Taliesin gestured to the back of the hall. "May the servants bring the wine!" he said, picking up his harp. He turned to the royal table, and seeing that there were some hard stares directed his way, bowed low, then touched his knee to the ground. "Your Majesties of the kingdoms of Albion, united here this glorious day under Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, I pray you, please listen as I humbly present to you, 'Alban Arthuan: Light of Arthur.'"