#if you've read the ten-years-ago fic I decided it's more compelling if i change eve's reincarnation counterpart

[10moonymhrivertam]

His throat burned. His side throbbed. His knees ached. None of it mattered. His eyes stayed trained on the sky, that flash of white that could almost be dismissed as a cloud. He hadn't realized he'd written her off as dead in her fifteen hundred years of cold-shouldering him until he'd caught sight of her this morning. For her to allow this…well, he didn't know what it meant, besides being important.

As the itch of something important built under his skin, a whisper of memory wisped through him: "The white dragon bodes well for Albion, for you and Arthur, and for the land you will build together." He didn't have the breath to spare to growl it away. Even after a millennia and a half, he couldn't come to terms with everything Kilgharrah had told him and how it had ended. When he told himself that he'd been a self-fulfilling, self-important old lizard, the fear that he might never get back what he lost would start to paralyze him. When he considered that Kilgharrah had been earnest, fury rose up in him over being used. Merlin pushed himself harder, scattering his thoughts. He was due some wishful thinking about Albion, but he knew deep in his bones that whatever she needed him for, it was something else.

She led him into a meadow that backed onto a cottage and began to spiral down. Trying to stop without collapsing was an adventure, Merlin found. He was distantly surprised he hadn't accidentally magicked himself younger, lost in memory and desperation as he'd been. He stumbled forward to find Aithusa was landing beside a little girl, sending her curly hair into disarray. When Aithusa settled, she curled a wing around her and stared hard at Merlin. He stared. The girl was holding an egg that was quite possibly half as tall as she was. Even if it didn't come to a point too sharp for an ostrich egg, he would know from the way it practically sang to him that it was a dragon egg. He kept staring as the wheels turned in his head, and then he looked up.

"Yours?" He breathed.

Aithusa conceded to nod to him. He couldn't help but go back to staring at the egg, his head spinning. He felt like he was missing a puzzle piece somewhere. He could hardly believe she was trusting him with this — on the other hand, he'd only found more dragons in lands that had once been unimaginably far away. They'd had dragon lords, and he'd been elated, until he realized that even their draconic language was different, and though he'd been able to wrap his tongue around theirs, a part of him deep down had known that the reverse would never be possible. That this was another too-special aspect of being Magic Itself, and if there were ever to be more dragons in Camelot — oh, excuse him, Wales and England — he would have to bring them about himself. He'd proceeded to have a stupid little spiral about it — after all, he had fucked it up quite spectacularly the last time. He wasn't sure he could be trusted to do it alone. He'd longed for guidance — at least someone to check his instincts against! Someone besides Kilgharrah and his damned agendas.

"His name's Kairos."

Merlin blinked, his focus turning to the girl.

"Excuse me?"

"I said his name's Kairos! I know it. I know it. But no matter how many times I've called him, he won't come. So she went to get you, Emerys." The poor girl looked so defeated as she said it.

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, m'lady." It was a reflexive thing. Kids either loved it or hated it, but he could usually make it work. The girl straightened her back a little.

"My name's Eve. And I've named this dragon," she declared. That feeling under his skin turned into a shudder down his spine, and every remaining bit of confusion tangled with his everlasting hope to crystalize into an idea, or maybe a sudden understanding. Either way, he glanced up at Aithusa, hoping for confirmation. She only stared back. He took a breath, then a chance.

"You said Kairos?" He pronounced carefully, forcing the magic back. She nodded, staring distrustfully at him. "…On three, then."

She still looked skeptical, but she took control of the countdown. And when they called to him, his voice wasn't the only one that roughened with draconic magic. Golden motes glittered all around them — in Eve's eyes, and in winding strands that connected Eve to Aithusa and the egg, and back from the egg and Aithusa into Merlin. Eve gasped as the egg began to crack. For a moment, Merlin wasn't even terrified. He was just as full of joy and wonder as he'd been at Aithusa's hatching.