A/N: Thanks for the reviews :D One guest said that Arthur's thoughts in Chapter 1 were a little awkward. I agree with you, thanks for pointing it out :) I'll try and edit that soon but it's 1:30am right now and my sleepiness probably won't help anything, so I think I'll leave it for another day :P

However, despite the lateness of this schoolnight, I've done the next chapter... enjoy, and please continue to review, it makes me so happy! ^^

Chapter 2

"I'm your son."

Arthur froze.

She never married. I'm your son.

I'm your son.

The dragonlord's son? Merlin?

I'm your son.

… Merlin was…?

He was vaguely aware of the silence, and then Balinor speaking, but he didn't hear the words anymore. Arthur was shocked – his clumsy, bumbling manservant, Merlin, was the son of a dragonlord? Impossible. Arthur almost laughed; how could a man as powerful as a dragonlord be the father of such an idiot?

I'm your son.

What did this mean? …Was Merlin a dragonlord too?

Arthur started forward. He had to get away, clear his head. He was still in a daze, though he told himself that even if Merlin really was Balinor's son, it couldn't mean anything –

Arthur stumbled slightly and there was a snap beneath his feet.

As Merlin and Balinor turned towards him he looked briefly at them with a blank expression on his face before carrying on up the slope, away from it all.

He did catch, faintly, Merlin saying, "You must not tell Arthur," before he was out of range.

That night, when Arthur lay down by the fire, he could not sleep. Balinor was away from camp, washing up the dishes and cooking pot, and Merlin was sitting near the flames, on guard. Arthur was exhausted; his left shoulder still ached a little from the wounds the Great Dragon had inflicted – though it was nothing compared to what it had been before he woke up in Balinor's cave – and he was still reeling from the unwelcome knowledge of that earlier conversation between the dragonlord and his son. He desperately wanted to ask Merlin about the whole thing but he felt far too guilty. He had eavesdropped on his friend's private dialogue, and for all that he told himself he had overheard the dragonlord and manservant accidentally, he knew it.

So instead, Arthur shifted into a more comfortable position and closed his eyes.

When Balinor came back, Arthur wondered if they would say anything more. But the two kept quiet, and he drifted into half-dreams.

"It's the same." Merlin says.

No, not a dream. A memory.

"I never knew my father."

Arthur was suddenly wide awake. He kept his eyes closed but his thoughts were whirling again. Yes, that's right. He had been travelling to Morgause in the hopes of discovering more about his mother when Merlin had confided in Arthur that he didn't know one of his parents either.

"Had Merlin been lying," Arthur wondered, "Or did he really not know at the time?"

As he pondered this, hoping desperately that the servant he so trusted had not lied to him about one of the few things they had in common, he heard the man himself begin to speak.

Arthur's eyelids flickered open briefly and he caught a glimpse of Balinor, who was now sitting across from Merlin, before he closed them again and pretended to be asleep. The dragonlord must have returned whilst the prince was dozing.

"Why did you never return?" Merlin asked, with a hint of sorrow in his voice.

"I thought her life would be better without me."

"Why?"

"Yes, Balinor," Arthur questioned silently, "Why?"

"Uther wanted me dead."

This hit Arthur hard.

"If he found me, he'd have killed me. And your mother."

"Hunith?" Arthur thought of Merlin's sweet, kind mother, and couldn't accept that his father would ever be so cruel. Then he remembered countless executions. Gwen's father… He began to question Uther's actions.

"So what if Balinor is a dragonlord?" Arthur fumed in his head. "The man seems like a good person. Why does my father wanted Merlin's father – yes, Merlin's father," (he had come to believe it now) "– dead?" He didn't understand. "Dragonlords aren't sorcerers, are they? So why does my father condemn them?"

"I wanted her to be safe."

Why would Hunith not have been safe? Would Uther have killed Merlin's mother for merely associating herself with a dragonlord?

After a pause, Merlin spoke.

"We could've come with you."

Balinor let a small, sad laugh escape him.

"What kind of life would you have had here?"

"We'd have been… happy."

Merlin.

Oh, Merlin…

A/N: Poor Merlin :( I think this is progressing a little slowly, but once I get out of the set script and more into the whole Merlin/Arthur possible reveal thing, it should speed up. You'll just have to wait, as that's probably it until this weekend ;] Thanks for reading, and please give me any suggestions you have, even if it's just a note about typos ^^

See you on Saturday! (More Merlin, yay! :D xx)

A/N#2: A Guest pointed out an error with the "I could've come/we could've come" so thank you for that, I've changed it now :)