Merlin heard the call his very first night in Camelot: a wordless summons that was strangely compelling.
He rolled over and pulled his pillow over his ears. He was not going to get involved, he told himself firmly. He was going to be safe. Sensible.
His second night, he gave up on safe and sensible in favor of tracking down that noise so that he could get it to shut up long enough for him to sleep.
Unfortunately, the call led straight to a formidable looking door with four guards standing ready outside it.
Merlin decided the call wasn't all that loud after all, really, and he should probably just go back to bed.
. . .
"What's at the end of that corridor?"' he asked Gaius the next morning. "The one with the two dog statues in front of it and all those guards?"
Gaius raised an eyebrow. "That sounds a good deal like the king's treasury, and you would be well advised to stay away from it. Dare I ask why you want to know?"
Merlin stuffed more bread in his mouth. "Just curious," he said through his half0-chewed mouthful. Gaius pursed his lips and changed the subject to his abominable eating habits, which was probably for the best, really.
So. The king's treasury. He should absolutely, positively, definitely just ignore that sound then. There was no way he was breaking in the king's treasury.
. . .
He needed to figure out how to break into the king's treasury. If he didn't, that sound was going to drive him insane, and Camelot had enough crazy magic users to deal with already.
It couldn't be too hard, right? All he'd have to do was distract the guard and break the door open with magic.
Preferably without causing an explosion, as had happened with the last three doors he practiced on.
. . .
If he liked the king even a little bit more, he would think it was disturbingly easy to break into the treasury.
He didn't like the king, though, and he didn't have much time, so he just went straight for the strange egg thing that had pride of place in the treasury and that was apparently where the strange noise had been coming for.
They were definitely going to notice this was missing if he took it, weren't they?
But he didn't have much time, and he didn't know what else to do, and it could probably fit underneath his loose floorboard with his magic book, so it was probably fine, really.
. . .
The egg seemed almost expectant when he brought it back to his room.
"I'm going to call you Egbert," he decided.
It was entirely unexpected when the egg immediately began to crack, so it was not at all his fault that he dropped it.
Fortunately, it landed on the bed.
Unfortunately, now he was going to have to either wash his blankets or explain this to Gaius. Probably both.
But that was a problem for later, because right now there was a tiny white dragon breaking out of its shell and blinking up at him.
Also, he was beginning to suspect that a better name would have been Egberta, or, better yet, something that wasn't an egg pun at all and was instead something suitable for a dragon.
A dragon.
He had a tiny dragon.
Somehow, he did not think this would at all fit Gaius's ideas of safe or sensible.
He was also suddenly less sure of just how long she would fit under his floorboard.
