Help is Always Given

Chapter 3

The Juliet Potion

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The Doctor turns back to Merlin with a questioning, yet excited, expression. "Wait a minute...Merlin, sorry, did I hear you correctly? 'Great Dragon'?"

Merlin goes wide-eyed. He can't believe he let it slip so soon. Even through all the years, he'd never quite got the hang of keeping little secrets. "No! No, no, I said 'Great Friend' you must've misheard me before. I've never trusted any dragon's word-"

"No, I heard you correctly you said 'Dragon' and you meant it."

Merlin looks to Amy for help. She shrugs, not really sure how Merlin could've meant 'dragon'. Dragons weren't real... or were they?

Still looking at Amy, Merlin begins, "His name was Kilgharrah. I found him... more like he found me. He was nearing the end of his life by the time I met him." He pauses, eyes glazed over, and Amy and the Doctor know that he's reminiscing. "I set him free and became a Dragon Lord to control him because he had been attacking Camelot. I was his master. He taught me of the Old Ways, told me of prophecies that concerned my friends and Camelot. He tried helping me save Arthur... but it was too late."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor consoles. "I needed to know, eventually. Needed to be sure. We're going to need his help, and I needed to be sure that he would agree, if not willingly, then by force."

"What do you need him for? You have a ship, you could go wherever just as easily in this than on an old dragon."

"No, actually," Amy states. She's happy she can actually put forth some of her new knowledge of the TARDIS, and also to understand a little of what they're talking about. "It's a fixed point in time, it's extremely hard to land the TARDIS at a fixed time, let alone fly her somewhere else in the same timeframe." She sees Merlin confused by this so she tries to put it more simply. "It means we can only land and take off once from your time period, and it will be very difficult to do so. It'll be a bumpy ride just getting there. Once there, we can't fly the TARDIS except to leave."

"So.. you're saying this is a one shot deal?" Merlin finally grasps what Amy's is explaining, and it sets him to panicking again. "What if we can't save him right away? Can we not go back again and try another time?"

"No," says the Doctor, "we can't, I'm sorry. But...that's why I have a plan. I haven't told you all of it, but most of it. Merlin. I need you to tell me... in the legends they talk of a Cup of Life. Have you ever seen it or used it?"

"Yes! We used it once and it was a disaster. What are you planning, Doctor, that would require the Cup of Life?"

"We need it to save Arthur." the Doctor pauses and watches Merlin's reaction. "I need to find it and Amy and I will bring it to you when you're with Arthur during his last days."

Merlin is skeptical, "But how will the Cup save Arthur? I'll be with him at the Lake of Avalon, that's 6 days hard riding from the Isle of the Blest, where the Cup is."

"That's where Kilgharrah comes in. He's much faster than a horse and can travel that distance in a single day. I have to get you that cup by the time you're at the Lake. The only way to save him is to dip the cup in the Lake and have Arthur drink."

"The Lake water? How could that save Arthur, it's just a lake?"

"OH!" Amy's excited, she learned about this in school. "The Lake of Avalon was thought to have had magical healing powers, yeah? But no one had heard of that until... well until you're time, Merlin."

"Maybe this is when the Lake becomes the The Healing Waters?" Doctor suggests with a smile upon his face.

"But in all the years, I never heard anything of the water there being magical..."