1058 New Era.
153 years before the birth of Geralt of Rivia.
West of the Dragon Mountains.
About half a year later.
Merinelteratsin, also known as Merlin.
My acquaintance with Nimue started and continued.
My mother didn’t abandon her plan and made her old acquaintance’s daughter tag along with me everywhere.
The dragoness herself would probably have refused such an honor…
But her father’s authority was too strong for her, and we’d been forced to spend the last half a year together.
What can I say…
The small number of golden dragons forced our parents to take such measures so that we could simply continue our lineage and not die out completely.
And having received the power of the golden dragons, I also received the corresponding responsibilities, which turned out to be somewhat late in coming…
Trouble.
But at least I had a conversation partner my own age, which meant boredom took a back seat.
“Nothing’s been happening lately.” Nimue commented on the state of affairs, sitting down next to me on the grass.
This time, for a change, she was in her humanoid, elven form.
And in more decent clothes than just a man’s white shirt.
Though…
By medieval standards, it was probably quite scandalous and indecent, completely unacceptable for a woman.
Good thing I was reborn as a dragon who doesn’t care about the hang-ups of the two-legged…
“Right now, I’m inclined to agree with you.” I nodded in agreement, because there really had been nothing to do lately.
What kind of entertainment can a dragon have?
Scaring two-legged creatures and hoarding gold?
I have no particular interest in either, and neither does my acquaintance.
Even our dragon bodies had finally grown!
Well, mine had grown to its maximum possible size.
Nimue’s, being older than me, had reached its maximum size long ago.
“But you used to say there’s no such thing as boredom and you can always find something to do.” She snorted, closing her eyes.
“I did.” I confirmed, running my fingers through my hair back.
I could have made it short, but…
That wouldn’t look very fantasy-like.
The humanoid form of a great and mighty dragon should look epic!
That’s just a mandatory criterion!
“…And you’re taking back your words, aren’t you?” The dragoness’s golden eyes, under their disguise, opened wide and then narrowed in satisfaction.
“I am.
Bo-ring.
If you just hunt, sleep, and fly all the time, you’ll turn into a fat barrel of a two-legged…
With little wings.” I snorted displeasedly, sitting in a lotus position.
“E-e-e…
O-o-o…” Judging by her widened eyes, Nimue pictured that and shuddered all over.
“Disgusting.”
“That’s just it…” I cut myself off mid-sentence, whipping my head toward the southeast.
“Well, well…
I jinxed it!”
“Dragons don’t jinx things…” Nimue objected sluggishly, just as a greenish-blue portal appeared and a black horse tumbled out, followed by…
A very beautiful, silver-haired girl in tattered clothes, holding a sword at the ready.
Nimue and I shifted into our true forms almost instantly, flanking the disoriented guest as she shook her head.
She reacted quickly, drawing her sword from its sheath in a flash and gripping it tightly in both hands.
Her horse snorted belligerently, utterly unafraid of two enormous dragons.
“…No, this is just plain bad luck!” the silver-haired girl groaned in despair, eyeing us with green eyes.
“First I almost get raped and eaten by a nasty old man*, and now dragons too!”
* — a canon moment, actually, yeah…
Even Nimue was taken aback by such a reaction to two giant reptiles from a biped, and she held off attacking the unexpected guest, whom I couldn’t fail to recognize.
Just not me…
Someone else, maybe, but not me.
The description and the manner of her appearance matched too perfectly.
“Greetings, Lady of Space and Time,” I telepathized to Cirilla with considerable effort.
She froze, her eyes widening slightly.
“You…”
“Say nothing, Child of Destiny,” I continued quickly, not giving her time to answer aloud.
Nimue mustn’t know who had visited us.
Just in case.
“This is your world, but not your time.
Many years remain until His birth, and even your ancestor, who loved a human, has not yet been born.
You should stay here as briefly as possible.
Move on.
And you will find what you seek.”
“…Understood.” She nodded curtly, giving my snout a careful look, then grabbed her horse’s reins and leaped onto it.
“And one more thing…” Her green eyes fixed on me.
“Will you let me know your name, knowledgeable golden dragon?”
Oh, that was a bit unexpected…
Still…
For such a legendary guest…
“Merinelteratsin…
Or simply Merlin,” I used telepathy again, closing my eyes and making my face as friendly as possible.
“I may meet you in your past-future, or perhaps not.
Go on, White Swallow.”
“Pleased to meet you…
Merlin.” She nodded, offering a slight smile.
Then she vanished into a portal that appeared at a wave of her hand.
This meeting was unexpected, spontaneous, but possible.
As far as I remembered, Cirilla had ended up not only in other worlds but also in other times.
“…What did you talk to her about?” Nimue asked when the only reminders of the unexpected guest were trampled grass and a chill on my back.
“You felt her power, didn’t you?” I answered her question with a question, and when the dragoness’s huge head gave a slight nod, I continued, keeping my tone even and calm: “I felt it too.
There was something in her that…
Well, I didn’t want to fight her at all.
We might cross paths again, so I gave that human sorceress my name to avoid future conflicts.
After that incident in the Dragon Mountains, I have no desire to clash with powerful sorceresses.”
“Hmm…
She really is powerful and…
I felt something strange in her too…” Nimue muttered, sitting back on her haunches and swishing her tail.
“Something unusual…
Something that made me not want to burn her to a crisp like any other brazen intruder.”
“That’s called a self-preservation instinct,” I snorted loudly, shaking my head and recalling the sensations from meeting Cirilla.
Maybe that’s what Elder Blood feels like?..
Damn, that was the real Cirilla!
The very one…
Holy shit…
The very Swallow, Zireael!
Holy crap, just holy crap!..
“Maybe it is,” the dragoness didn’t argue, shifting back into elven form.
“But that biped was still somehow strange.”
“Strange is strange,” I shrugged, feeling the adrenaline crash from such an utterly unexpected meeting with such a legendary figure.
I mean, who would have thought that one of Cirilla’s jumps through time and space during the last book would bring her to a time when the witcher’s castle here hadn’t even been built yet?
Yeah…
Now I have to rack my brain over how this meeting might affect the temporal continuum that the Child of Destiny is actively traipsing through?..
Oh boy…
Well, at least I didn’t spoil her about the Wild Hunt and the game events, so…
Nothing should change in the future timeline itself…
If that’s even the same timeline.
Hmm…
Was that the Cirilla who would be born in this world in a couple of centuries, also travel through worlds, and also meet me from the past…
Oh…
Or will I change the canon so much that she won’t be born due to the butterfly effect, but then…
Where did this Cirilla, whom I just sent off, come from?..
And how has history changed if I, a transmigrator who clearly wasn’t in the original timeline, have already participated in it?..
Aaaaaah!
Fucking timelines and temporal paradoxes, and butterfly effects!
Nothing is clear at all!..
And I don’t remember the events of Terminator to recall how all this works, and it’s not even certain it works that way!
Oh…
…Alright.
Just alright.
I think I improvised well enough, and she just met another mysterious and wise character with vague phrases and wishes…
The butterfly effect should be minimal in this case…
Well, I hope so.
And…
This meeting also gave me a funny idea that could keep me busy in the future and break the monotony of dragon existence.
What if…
I create Camelot, King Arthur, and the rest of the Round Table guys?
After all, we already have the Lady of the Lake, who gives out swords!
The main thing is to create everything else, and that, if you think about it, isn’t such a difficult task for a wizard with time on his hands…
Which I could well become; look, Francesca Findabair’s father exists!
And I already have time on my hands.
Am I a dragon or not?
All that’s left is to figure out how to organize all this…
So-o-o, a plan for a new life is starting to hatch.
* * *
Some time later.
It seemed the elf had finally been let go by our local Thranduil, since she had once again made her way along secret elven paths to the old elven fortress.
Knowledge of the existence of these paths was not very widespread and had long been forgotten, which is why no other elves could have appeared here.
However, the de facto princess of the elven city-palace of Shaerrawedd was the daughter of an Elder, and therefore had access to even the most moss-covered scrolls.
And, as befits a spoiled girl, she was bored in the palace and, in her time, decided to explore the abandoned elven ruins for the presence of golden dragons, yes.
She didn’t tell me this directly, of course…
But honestly, she was still a little girl, and I was already a fully grown adult at the time of my death — so she never stood a chance.
She also wouldn’t have stood a chance against some pack of slyzards if they had decided to come down…
How lucky she was that I, so wonderful and kind, was living there.
Spotting her grown figure in the air, I landed carefully a few dozen meters away so she wouldn’t be too affected by the wind from my flapping wings.
Nimue landed beside me, turning her neck to me questioningly.
“Did they let you out of the palace?” I asked immediately, folding my wings on my back as compactly as possible.
“Father decided I’d spent enough time in the palace under house arrest for running away on my own…
Some punishment,” she snorted, crossing her arms over her flat chest.
“And…
Who is this?”
Here’s an interesting point, by the way…
Francesca doesn’t look like a tomboy at all, nor like a young warrior girl like some Arya Stark.
She wears dresses, but still doesn’t behave like all those lovely young medieval flower-ladies, but rather like the girls I mentioned earlier.
“My acquaintance, Nimue.
As you can see, also a dragoness.
Her full name is Nitaramulines,” I replied telepathically, seeing no particular secret in it.
“Nimue, this is the elf I told you about.”
“Ah, Enid, I think…” the dragoness recalled, tilting her head thoughtfully — a head big enough to bite off everything above the ankles in one go.
“Wow…” the princess drawled, a thoughtful look on her face.
“Pleased to meet you, respected Nitaramulines.
My name is Enid an Gleanna.”
“Heard of you,” the golden dragoness also joined in telepathy, glancing at me.
Well, yes, Francesca isn’t impressive as a sorceress right now.
She’s still young.
Compared to that Morgana from the Dragon Mountains, or even Cirilla, who fell into the past.
“And I also heard that you have many affairs that take up all your time…
Yet you visit Merlin’s lair.” The dragoness unceremoniously pointed a claw from her right paw at me.
“There aren’t really any special affairs,” the Elder’s daughter wrinkled her nose, easily accepting the fact that she now had twice as many golden dragon acquaintances.
“As Merlin says, it’s total boredom.
Generally speaking, besides magic lessons and hanging out with a couple of friends, there’s nothing to do there.
Everyone minds their own business, and I have to do all sorts of uninteresting activities that were supposedly the only worthy pursuits for an Elder’s daughter…”
“You’re quite bold, running away from boredom to a huge fire-breathing lizard,” I telepathized with a rumbling laugh, exhaling through my nostrils and slightly ruffling Francesca’s hair.
“Oh, your self-deprecating humor is as refreshing as ever, Merlin.
Maybe the palace wouldn’t be so boring if those old men joked about themselves like that…” The girl snorted, closing her eyes.
Clearly imagining such a sight.
“Did nothing interesting happen in a whole summer and a half?” I asked incredulously, tilting my head, which was the size of Francesca herself.
If I had my usual human eyebrows, I would have raised them…
But what’s not there isn’t there.
I’m learning to express emotions only through intonation.
“No,” the girl sighed in annoyance, adjusting her hair.
“Again, just those dh’oine getting too insolent…
That’s all.
But I don’t want to discuss that.” She openly grimaced, glancing again at Nimue.
“I’ve become a bit more skilled in magic, and that’s it.” She twitched her head in displeasure, and orange sparks of lightning formed between her fingers.
“And you probably think something happened to you.
You were probably just eating local wildlife and…
Getting fat…
I mean…
I wanted to say…
That…
Ah…”
The girl’s last words came out sluggishly, her eyes widening.
Because right before her eyes, I shifted into a humanoid form, cracking my neck.
The sensation after the transformation was as if my whole body had gone numb.
And this is characteristic of both human-elven and dragon bodies.
“And what were you trying to say?” I asked in Elder Speech, without the telepathy that was currently unavailable to me in my humanoid form.
“Uh…” Francesca couldn’t immediately overcome her total surprise, then squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
But I didn’t disappear from her sight.
“Metamorphism,” I explained to the unspoken question, spreading my hands.
“Don’t you remember my mother doing that?”
“It’s one thing for her, another for you,” the elf responded slowly, looking over my body in bewilderment.
“This…
Is amazing magic…
Even if it’s not the first time, it’s still amazing.”
“It’s not magic, it’s the natural metamorphism of golden dragons,” I corrected her, chuckling at the girl’s stunned expression.
She looked adult, but she was still a girl.
“My mother recently taught me…
Well, and I suppose…” I shrugged.
“This way we can communicate more easily.”
At that moment, Nimue also decided to shift into her elven form, causing perhaps even more surprise than I had.
The inhabitant of the elven palace carefully examined Nimue’s elven form, even lingering for a couple of seconds on the dragoness’s upper assets…
Which were significantly larger than Francesca’s own.
Oh, I have a feeling this won’t end well…
But no, it turned out it wasn’t about envy.
“Well, well…
Now you can’t be distinguished from us…” the sorceress shook her head.
“And you, respected Nimue…
You remind me very much of someone…”
“Really?” the mentioned one inquired, looking over her own form.
“Exactly,” the long-eared one nodded more confidently.
Though…
We were all long-eared here now.
“You are the spitting image of the ancient elven elder Sairisa Aman aep Quivienen…
Exactly alike…”
“No, that wasn’t me.
Even by elven standards, I hadn’t hatched from my egg back then.
My father brought me a painting of some elf woman and told me to take her appearance for metamorphism,” Nimue shrugged, clearly unconcerned by the fact of such a resemblance.
“Well, that’ll give them something to be shocked about,” I chuckled, thoughtfully pressing a finger to my lips, then immediately getting fired up by an interesting, wonderful idea.
“How about we go to Shaerrawedd with you?”
“Oh…” Francesca froze for a moment.
“Well…
Why not.
Right now, only my father can tell you…
you apart from elves…
And even then, thanks to his gift of Elder Blood.”*
* — and this is canon.
“Well, you’ve been bragging so much about the beauties of your father’s palace, so why shouldn’t we go see it?” I shrugged, exchanging glances with Nimue, whose face showed no objection to the idea.
“Logical,” the girl agreed with me, appraising our appearance.
“I can just imagine how shocked…
surprised my father will be.
Especially if we walk in arm in arm…” The elf’s face took on the expression of a sly fox, and her hand grabbed mine.
“Just a heads up, until you learn to lay eggs, you don’t attract me in that way…” I warned just in case, and seeing the young girl’s face flush, I lifted the corners of my lips.
And I was right about that.
I needed elves only as teachers of magic, in which Francesca’s father was clearly very skilled.
Again…
Honestly, Merlin can’t be without magic.
That just goes against the grain for me, even if it’s just a shortened version of my full name.
“Right,” the dragoness nodded with a satisfied look, clearly taking this as a hint in her direction.
But between a simple, straightforward-as-a-rail dragoness and a cunning elf, I choose the former…
No matter how beautiful Francesca-Enid is.
“Merlin!” the latter’s indignant cry, which made me grin even wider, wasn’t long in coming.
“What’s the matter?
You wanted to use me to mock your kin and laugh at them…
Maybe I want to laugh at the elves too?..”